October 2015's Top Startups

With new companies appearing for all intents and purposes each day, it can be barely noticeable the ones that are genuinely inventive.

However, we can filter out a few that create great value. These youthful organizations are going past the essentials of offering an item and affecting genuine change in an assortment of commercial ventures.

Here's the link to October's Top 15 Startups

Purchasing Power of South African Consumers & the Business Environment There

For any entrepreneur it is important to do market research before starting up on any idea. So, if you are thinking to start a small business in South Africa, you must know the purchasing power of your target audience to choose the profitable business model.

South African consumers actually have more money than you think; a population that is willing to spend more on airtime than food. Do check these best small business ideas for South Africa and come up with an idea that creates value for South African population.

Don’t worry about whether they will be able to afford your product/service or not, all you need to do is to deliver them the value and they will buy it at any cost.

Just imagine for a second; access to cheap mobile and internet services is one of the basic needs there!

Also read South African Business Culture for Starting a Business There

Legal Structure of Business in the UAE

In the UAE, the Federal Law No. 8 of 1984, as amended by Federal Law No. 13 of 1988 - the Commercial Companies Law - and its by-laws govern the operations of foreign business. Although you may not be able to go through the deep details of all the laws, but for an entrepreneur looking to setup business in the UAE, it is very important to know the basics.

Please, also check my another post on Licencing requirements to do business in the UAE and a list of most profitable small business ideas for UAE by StartupGuys.net

Well, in the broad terms the provisions of the above mentioned regulations are as follows:

1. The Federal Law stipulates a total local equity of not less than 51% in any commercial company and defines seven categories of business organisation which can be established in the UAE. 
2. It sets out the requirements in terms of shareholders, directors, minimum capital levels and incorporation procedures. 
3. It further lays down provisions governing conversion, merger and dissolution of companies. 

There are basically seven categories of business organisation defined by the Law, which are as follows:

1. General partnership company
2. Partnership-en-commendam
3. Joint venture company
4. Public shareholding company
5. Private shareholding company
6. Limited liability company
7. Share partnership company

2015 Small Business Growth Trends & Predictions

Watching the current business trends and preparing for upcoming small business challenges always go together. This is why almost every other medium, small and even micro business owner keeps an eye on business trends.

So, if you are a business owner or want to be one sooner (select an idea from 2015 business ideas), do look into these small business growth trends in the year 2015.

Here goes the list of small business growth trends for 2015:

• A broader shift towards contract employees and utilization of freelance personnel to fill expertise gaps will be seen.
• Companies will focus on hiring multi expertise full time employees.
• The focus towards lean, efficient employment strategies will be seen and it is essential to promote top-line growth. 
• The above trends may lead to the increasing costs of retaining full-time staff, and rising health care costs.
• Crowdfunding will again top the investment and funding methods.
• Small businesses are expected to hire again after a long downtime.
• Use of social media will take boost to another level.
• Small businesses will look for more of marketing automation.

Check out some more small business trends for 2015 here:
2015 small business predictions.
Top 10 small business trends for 2015.

A Short & Simple Business Plan is Better Than No Plan at All

It’s often said that a business that doesn’t undertake regular strategic and business planning, actually plans to fail and so they emphasize on the importance of business plan.

Well, the above idea can be true to some extent, but what if you are running out of time and have to focus on too many things. In this case, sparing enough time to write a detailed business is literally hectic and may be impossible as well.

What if you could have a simple one page business plan?

For a business plan to be effective the first and most important rule is to keep it simple. Better is to develop a  first and then elaborate the necessary details only.

So having a simple one page business plan is better than having no plan documented at all. But wait, this one page business plan is not the one you present to potential investors. For that very reason, you should have a detailed plan, preferably written by an expert if you cannot do it yourself!

If you want to do the detailed document yourself, check out some of these links for help!

• 
  
• How To Write A Great Business Plan 
• Keeping Your Business Plan Flexible
• 10 ways to keep your business plan simple.

When Should I Develop a Business Plan?

Business plan is considered to be an essential document before starting business operations, however, some people are of the opinion that spending so much time on documentation is waste of resources.

Get the documents ready only when you plan to work on start-up financing.

Well,  the business plan is not just a document that banks and investors want to read; it’s a depp insight of your vision and a clear roadmap for launching and growing your business. So, you should have one prior to starting operations.

Starting with business plan outline is the great way, and then you can expand the document as needed.

A good business plan is the one that is developed after a thorough research and identifies potential weaknesses, opportunities, and threats your business is likely to have.

With a good business plan, you put all your efforts in right and measurable form. Get to know how to write a business plan effectively, here's a detailed guide on writing business plan.

How to Reinvent Yourself With Your Own Business?

Starting your own business is not just about getting financial independence, but also to change the world in one way or other. You may be thinking that how a mobile phone kiosk in the mall is changing the world, but believe me, it's doing so!

One extra ordinary benefit of starting and doing your own business is that you get chance to reinvent yourself and bring a brand new yourself out of that old ordinary guy.

So, if you're considering a reinvention, check out 2015 small business ideas and see what best matches your desires. Besides the business idea, following few points can help you reinvent yourself in the right way:

1. Know all what you want; make a list.
2. Get clear on what you want and why; filter the list .
3. Don’t feel the need to justify your move: if someone is curious about your why, tell him or her in simple and truthful terms. 
4. Find others; network with like minded people, get some mentor and get closely connected to someone who has transitioned from one thing to another. 
5. Take actions; avoid stagnation and you will find your way out.

And yes, understand the reinvention is not an easy process, and you will find challenges on each step, so be ready for them.

How Much Money Can I Make with Laundry Business?

The amount of money one can make from a laundry varies, depending upon multiple factors, i.e. location, number of customers, pricing, costs and so on.

If you are planning to set up a single laundry outlet it's great as it is a limited setup and can be monitored easily as well as profits can be maximized with little effort.

On part of laundry chains, they are normally not the small business owners and are big businesses. Operations of big businesses are totally different than that of the small business, and so the profits.

Well, here we will discuss only if you plan single or a couple of outlets. To have close estimates of profit, a laundry business plan is essential, as it lists down everything in order and so you can have a close idea of what will the business earn at each stage.

The business is fairly steady, month in and month out, however, you need consistent efforts to bring in more clients.

See, clean clothes are a necessity and not a luxury; so people are likely to need your services in any cases. Laundry businesses are more successful in the areas where both husband and wife are working. Also if you are not physically located there, offering a pick & deliver service can work great in these areas.

To figure out how much money fairly you can make, find the estimated number of clients first. Having estimates of the customers and profit per client, it's easy to get a better idea!

Starting Up in The Hair Industry; the Sneak Peek

If you are considering getting into the hair industry, it's important to know the right entry method, because it's a competitive industry and to get established it requires a big effort.

So, basically, there are three ways you can make your mark on the hair industry:

1. Opening a Franchise:  You pay money upfront for the privilege of opening a hair salon using someone else's established name. Of course it gives you an instant reputation and access to its resources like advertising campaigns. 
2. Buying an Existing Hair Salon: Find someone who is retiring from the business because either he is tired of the business, or else he has damaged the business and forced it into bankruptcy. It's going to be a bit challenging to regain the momentum, but you may find a good deal in terms of setup on cheaper price.
3. Start Your Own Salon: You can start it using your own money, borrowing from friends and family or may be with no cost at all.

So, whatever the case from last two options you will need a hair salon business plan ready before you start. I am not mentioning the first option because it's certainly going to be an expensive one and might not suit everyone out there.

Got a Bakery Business Idea? Get the Business Plan Done First

Let it be a home based setup or a mobile bakery business or even a larger setup, a marketable strategy is an absolute necessity which must tell what your goals are and how will you achieve those.

That’s what we call a bakery business plan which doesn’t just help the kitchen done rightly but also helps in getting finances, done the advertising effectively and above all finding new development choices.

Thus, it keeps you on a track for all the concerns of your business whether they are about improving the products or improving the marketing methods.

Let’s have a look at details of what should be the content of your bakery business plan.

1. Executive Summary (including Mission & Keys to Success) 
2. Company Summary 
3. Products 
4. Market Analysis Summary 
5. Strategy and Implementation Summary 
6. Management Summary 
7. Financial Plan 
8. Appendix 

Well, developing a bakery business plan should not be a big issue for a baking genius and an enthusiastic entrepreneur, but at times when you are running out of time or have difficulty in putting things in correct order, do get a free template and use it wisely.

How Much Money Do I Need to Start a Beauty Salon Business

Well, if you are really interested in setting up a small scale beauty salon, identifying the monetary requirements is an essential; just because you should not end up shutting down the business before it blooms.

So, to understand how much money you actually need to start this business, you need to start putting things on paper. That's why a beauty salon business plan is considered to be an essential document to be made ready before starting up.

Right in your business plan, you should have a section may be called the cash flow statement. The cash flow statement will help you list all your expenses and sum them up. That's surely the perfect way to know how much money you will eventually need.

Once figured out the accurate amount of required funding you can raise the money accordingly.

Make sure to include all the costs, like rents, billings etc for at least one year and then the equipment costs, materials to be used and yes the registration and the licensing costs!

Effective Website Copy is Your First & Last Chance to Impress Your Visitors

Website content should be more than just presentation of information. To make your website result oriented, you need to have content that engages the reader, boosts your search engine rankings and above all it must reinforce your brand.

Effective website copy is an essential is you are looking to increase sales through online marketing;

It's simple, if your site doesn't grab and hold attention through the content, no matter how much you spend on bringing visitors, they will never convert into customers.

Once the visitor arrives on your website, he will decide in first two seconds, whether or not to stay on the page; so it's all about the headlines you have.

The headline must ignite their interest!

After this, he spends next five second in scanning; so be sure that you have highlighted the most important part of copy. Use simple words, and avoid complex phrases.

Your website copy must not be boring; rather it should be shorter. The more simple the language, the greater its impact can be.

Trust & Security; Essentials of Landing Page Optimization

The only way to stand out different in the spam scam world of online marketing is building trust and provide a sense of security to your website visitors.

Working on trust and security is not just a part of effective landing page optimization best practices, but it also contributes in word of mouth. Here I'll list quick ideas to build visitors' trust:

1. Show your phone number.
2. Put your physical address on map.
3. Display SSL and other security certificates.
4. If you are giving something away for free in exchange of  personal details like email/phone number, offer something that really is for free.
5. If your banner, landing page and destination site donʼt feel part of the same family you will lose business, so keep consistency.
6. DO NOT use Best deal gimmicks and other similar tactics if that's not a best deal actually.
7. Replace pop-ups with hover ads.
8. Use verifiable facts.
9. If you have affiliations with well known people or businesses, use their endorsements to build credibility. 
10. Donʼt ask for information you don’t really need.
11. List all the Terms and Conditions in Laymanʼs Terms
12. Use Testimonials from real people.
13. If you don't have a testimonial yet, use the feedback mechanisms on your website to get the same.
14. Use pictures of real people rather than from stock images.
15. Ensure a professional design.
16. Provide links to a privacy statement and/or terms and conditions to quell fears of email abuse. 

Follow these and certainly you will build trust for your website!

Try Repositioning the Opt-in Offer and See How it Increases the Conversions

Well, the opt-in offer is your tool for gathering your customers' e-mail addresses and building your e-mail list and so you can regularly keep in touch with your subscribers; building relationships of trust and loyalty, selling them new products or services and so the cycle goes on.

But wait!
Do you know where exactly the opt-in offer should appear on your site to make a huge impact?

Well, I cannot suggest you any particular area of the website, as it totally depends on the website design as well as the nature of content on the site.

So what you need to do is to test by re-positioning the opt-in offer form and you will ultimately find the best place.

While developing your website conversion optimization strategy, do include this test in the action plan too.

In case if you don't use a long sales letter, opt-in offer must be placed in the most prominent a position as possible on your home page, may be the top left of a page is where visitors' eyes are often drawn first, but in some website designs, the top right attracts the attention first.

When you are using long sales letters, you should test placing your opt-in offer in multiple places within the content, beginning and at the end. It's ok to place a single opt-in form thrice in the same sales page.

Opening Another Location: Is It the Right Way of Business Expansion?

Well, this might not be your best choice for business expansion always, but yes in some cases. Opening another location is something that comes to mind first for so many entrepreneurs while considering expansion.

To be precise, "Physical" expansion isn't always the right growth strategy. It needs careful research, planning and above all the "number-planning".

So, if you are really concerned about the growth in right direction and opening another location is at the top of your list, consider the following points before going further.

1. Make sure you're maintaining a consistent bottom-line profit and that you've shown steady growth over the past few years. 
2. Look at the trends, both economic and consumer, for indications on your company's staying power. 
3. Make sure your administrative systems and management team are extraordinary-you'll need them to get a new location up and running. Prepare a complete business plan for a new location. 
4. Determine where and how you'll obtain financing. 
5. Choose your location based on what's best for your business, not your wallet.

The above five tips are taken from the expert advice of Frances McGuckin, a popular small business speaker, writer and consultant. To have a more clear understanding do follow Startup Guys' How to grow a small business faster; a detailed guide that covers 5 major areas of a small business startup. The guide will definitely help you decide the better growth option and right strategies for the same!