×

Posted on

5 Ways Startups Can Drive Massive Organic Growth

Tag: Startups

5 Ways Startups Can Drive Massive Organic Growth
Mohab Growth Hacks 0

5 Ways Startups Can Drive Massive Organic Growth

Achieving organic growth is one of the most important targets for any startup organization. This target can prove to be a tricky one as startup organizations may have to compete with bigger players in the industry, without similar resources.  However, this should not be a cause of despair as there are multiple ways in which an organization can drive robust organic growth with minimal resources at their disposal. Here are some of the tips which may aid your business to achieve its full potential.

Understand the Concept: In order to attain your goal of strong organic growth, first of all, you need to be clear about the scope of this concept. Organic growth is the growth which is achieved by harnessing the internal resources of the firm. Such resources may range from better marketing practices to responsive customer care facilities. Organic growth may be directly contrasted by the growth achieved through acquisitions and mergers. Due to this reason, it is a little trickier and more time consuming to accomplish high organic growth and it requires a specific strategy.

Remain Aware of Emerging Trends: You may be competing against firms that are armed with lots of cash and resources, but this fact should not hinder your growth plans. While bigger businesses have the advantage of possessing established customer base, startups have the distinct freedom to design innovative strategies. You can use the latest technologies for designing sales plans to ensure that they best meet your requirements and resource constraints.

Think Long Term: As risky as a startup can be, it is not a speculative activity. You should have a long term vision for your endeavor and this long term vision should be a guide for setting up the strategy for driving organic growth. The emphasis on a longer horizon will allow you to look past immediate gains. It will also stop you from taking short cuts which may provide immediate gains but may hamper long term sustainability. For a startup, it would make sense to invest in strategies which are designed for the long term.

Take Personal Interest: Giving a personal touch to your organic growth strategies may work wonders as this approach may help you in designing unique plans. When your interest in achieving organic growth goes beyond mere commercial gains, you are in the position to take alternative approaches. It will also allow you to give personal branding to your plans. Taking personal interest in the execution of these strategies will also increase the likelihood of these plans succeeding.

Build a Core Team: The achievement of explosive organic growth rate is a team effort. No one person can attain this goal on their own. In order to ensure that your plans are executed in the best possible manner, you should build a team consisting of people with common vision and goals. These people will bring different expertise to the table which will allow you to take a more holistic approach towards the design of the strategy. The operations of a startup require more commitment, so make sure that your team members are on the same page.

Set Tangible Goals: Setting up tangible goals has several benefits. First, it will force you to think through plans. It will also aid in the quantification of the goals, which is a prerequisite for setting up concrete plans. Merely saying that you want to achieve high organic growth rate is not helpful. For proper strategies, you need to specify the rate of growth you want to attain. The plans required for 10% growth are drastically different from the plans required for achieving 50 percent organic growth rate. So, set up the goals in concrete and quantitative terms.

Review and Improve: The plans for achieving organic growth rate are not set in stone. You should periodically review your plans to ensure that they remain on the right path. After critical evaluation of the strategies, appropriate changes should also be brought about in a prompt manner.

Achieving organic growth is vital for a startup. While there is no one size that fits all plans for attaining high organic growth rate, the above pointers may come in handy.

4 years ago
5 Marketing Mistakes That Can Impact Your Cash Flow
Mohab Growth Hacks 0

5 Marketing Mistakes That Can Impact Your Cash Flow

For any business, cash is the lifeline and therefore, it is important to ensure that the business is fed with a consistent supply of funds and the chances of liquidity crunch are minimized. Cash flow management is essential for the long term survival of a business, as lack of fund at the required time may force an organization to go out of business. Here are some of the common marketing mistakes which can cause a business to struggle with its cash flows. The possible remedies for them are also stated below.

  • Failure to Identify Unique Selling Point: A unique selling point or USP not only allows a business to stand apart from the crowd but also forces them to fully comprehend the utility and the benefits of their products and services. This exercise may also allow them to position their product in the market in a better manner. However, failure to identify the USP can jeopardize your products and even your business’s future. If you are using a generic selling point, you are losing out on attracting a loyal customer base and thus hurting your cash flows.

You can fortify your cash flows by undertaking thorough analysis of your product and identifying the unique features associated with it. These unique points may in the form of features, functions or even location of the product.

  • Failure to Manage Costs: While the effective marketing of products may require substantial outlay of funds, unwarranted spending is no guarantee of marketing success. It is important that expenses incurred for marketing the products and services are carefully monitored to ensure that overall cash outflow remains on the conservative side. Further, the expenditure on any marketing activity should be justified by the revenue generated by it.

In order to maintain proper cash flow, a business should periodically evaluate its marketing strategies to identify the practices which are not yielding desired returns. Businesses should also note that increase in the number of customers does not automatically translate to higher cash flows as costs associated with such increase may be higher than the marginal revenue generated.

  • Failure to Collect Dues: You may employ strong marketing tactics to ramp up your revenue, but all your efforts are in vain if your business is not able to collect these revenues in a timely manner. If your marketing strategies are generating additional sales but the proceeds are not collected, then essentially your resources are tied up in unproductive avenues, soaking away the liquidity from your business. Such hold up of funds points to inefficient cash management practices.

Hence, businesses or firms should strive to collect unpaid dues on a regular basis. However, it should be noted that a proper balance between retaining clients and collection of funds is essential.

  • Failure to Vet Clients: Good marketing practices may bring you new customers, but it is essential that you properly vet these clients to ensure that they are of good credit standing. If you are more concerned about quantity than quality, then your marketing strategy might backfire as your business may not be able to extract funds lying with the clients.

In order to ensure that your business remains liquid and viable, you should carefully analyze your potential clients to ensure that your sales actually translate into liquid funds for your business.

  • Failure to Provide for Surprises: You may devise the most efficient marketing strategies, but if you do not account for unexpected changes in your internal and external environment, then you run the risk of compromising your cash flows. You should not only account for any possible changes in circumstances within your organization but also for potential changes in factors which are beyond your control. While you may not be in a position to exercise any control over such factors, you can certainly provide the safeguards against their impact on your business.

It is important to be future oriented while designing marketing strategies so that the impact of changes on cash flows can be adequately anticipated.

Profitability and smooth cash flows are the keys to a successful and sustainable business. By paying attention to the above pointers for charting out the future marketing course of action, you can ensure that your business does not suffer from cash crunch and remains well funded.

4 years ago
What is Important for Startups – Products or Sales?
Mohab Growth Hacks 0

What is Important for Startups – Products or Sales?

Whether a business should focus on perfecting its products or on boosting sales is the eternal question faced by entrepreneurs. The dilemma has given rise to the concept of Minimum Viable Product or MVP where instead of trying to wait until the product is in faultless stage, the business decides to market it and continues with the improvement process. Here are some of the thoughts to help you decide whether your business should strive for the perfect product or for higher sales.

  • Focus on Product: It is believed that a large number of companies fail due to different factors related to their products or services. In many cases, the companies launch products nobody had demanded. In other cases, the product may simply not be up to the mark, that it may not serve the function it claims to serve. Therefore, it is important to understand the market and its requirements. The business should then focus on developing a product which can meet the market needs in an efficient manner. The firm may decide to launch the product with certain key features and then may continue to fine-tune it. For startups, product improvement is a continuous, never-ending process.

 

  • Work on Value Added Services: As important as it is to get the product just right to fulfill customers’ requirements, it is also imperative that proper attention is paid to allied services such as logistics, after sales care, etc. For startups, liquidity and funds are highly crucial factors, forcing business to release the product as early as possible. In such cases, the enterprise may enhance customers’ utility by providing them with value added services. Empathetic customer care services can lead to higher customer satisfaction by addressing several concerns and issues. With the help of add-on services, the business may be in a position to launch the product at an early stage and still gain loyal following.

 

  • Business Life Cycle Stage: The decision regarding the product launch is dependent on several factors including the life stage of the business. For a startup, cash inflows are highly important as these enterprises are generally dependent upon outside funding for carrying out their operations. For early stage ventures, it is a matter of survival to get a product in the market so that a steady stream of revenue may be generated. This stream is then used for meeting various expenses of the organization. So, while a mature business may delay the launch of the product till it is perfected, new and fledgling organizations are bound to follow the concept of Minimum Viable Product.

 

  • Test the Market: As a young business, you might be tempted to get your product out in the market. However, apart from the product and its features, it is also important to gauge the maturity of the market. This implies that the market should be ready for the product. Any product, if launched in a pre-mature market, is bound to fail. One of the biggest examples in this regard is the various early attempts made by technology companies to launch smartphones. However, these launches failed as the markets were not mature enough to accept smartphones. Further, the infrastructure required for proper functioning of the phones was also not available. Therefore, ensure that the market is ready for your product.

The crux of the discussion is that a startup requires both a perfected product and sales revenue. It is the striking of balance between these two goals which ensures the long term survival of an organization.

5 years ago
Ain’t No Mountain High Enough
Mohab Growth Hacks 0

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough

Thanks to the fact that the fintech industry is still in its early phase of development in the Middle East, it seems to be a given that the companies that make up the industry are those of modest beginnings and spectacular growth thereafter. Yet, investing in this sector of the economy in the region remains to be a risky proposition for a variety of factors, not least of which is the fact that, relative to other parts of the world, the surrounding infrastructure here requires further development and better integration with the financial markets. It would be understandable, therefore, for investment to gravitate toward other industries. But there’s a catch.

Easier and lower-risk investment opportunities may appear to exist outside of the nascent fintech industry, but such “easy” investment opportunities tend to attract the biggest numbers of attempts, which means that only be so many people who can succeed using the same hackneyed formula. That way, some people — scratch that: lots of people — are bound to find out that their returns are ever diminishing and that their resources are ill spent. To make it in the market, therefore, one must learn to ride the wave of constant change that markets so often experience and must learn to take calculated risks to capitalize on the market’s shifting tides.

If we look at the trends in the markets regionally and globally, one thing is as clear as day: fintech’s tide is ever-rising. The surrounding environment of a fintech startup is arguably just as important as the vision and strategy of the entrepreneur. Today, on the other hand, we find that establishing such an environment is written into the government’s long-term strategy. Consider how Saudi Arabia’s forward-looking Vision 2030 explicitly concerned with creating “incentives to foster use of cashless payment solutions,” for instance. As a result of that vision, the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority has commissioned the giant financial firm Deloitte to oversee the process of turning Riyadh into a bustling fintech city. Relatedly, the economic vision has also resulted in the creation of a consortium of Saudi fintech startups to national banks to international technology powerhouses, all under the banner of “Saudi fintech.”

Saudi Arabia’s initiative, which was announced roughly a year ago, is now working on jumpstarts the fintech scene in the region’s biggest and most important economy. The rapid change and progress it’s experiencing are making host of advantages available to newcomers of tomorrow – not least of which is the fact that they have allies in the policymakers at the highest echelons of government.

The opportunities are there for the taking.

About the author

Mahmood Almahmood is a translator and editor at a national news service. Trained in the social sciences and the arts, he enjoys staying abreast of the business press and analyzing its trends.

5 years ago
5 ways startups can accept online payments
Mohab Growth Hacks 0

5 ways startups can accept online payments

The world is becoming more digitized with every passing moment. Just as brick and mortar stores are no longer important to run a business, similarly, cash is no longer necessary to purchase goods and services. Online or digital transactions are the latest in the business world. In keeping with the times and their convenience, businesses and consumers alike are finding online payments more acceptable.

For startups, it is crucial to choose a suitable mode of online payment. This is because they need to ensure hassle-free payment solutions and at the same time, they are not in a position to incur hefty expenses related to online payments.

Keeping these factors in consideration, we have identified five best ways through which startups can accept online payments. Read on to know more.

Accepting debit/credit cards online

Accepting payments through cards on an online portal or website is the simplest way of conducting online transactions. MasterCard, Visa, and American Express are known to be the most widely accepted credit/debit cards online. More and more people now prefer to pay through credit or debit cards. It is quick, convenient and safe up to quite a degree. And saving time and effort is what makes a business profitable, isn’t it?

Payments through eChecks

An electronic check, often referred to as an eCheck, is another way of conducting online transactions. The information mentioned on the paper check (account number, name, authorization, routing, etc.) must be filled into an online payment form to process payment electronically. The advantage of paying through eChecks, apart from the fact that it is safer, is incurring a lower processing fee.

Mobile transactions

People are glued to their phones all the time, cracking deals and conducting business on the go! Technology has given us the ability to buy and sell online quite easily. Taking payments online through a mobile device has made conducting business rather easy. Use digital wallets and NFC-enabled apps for mobile payments. You are now able to manage complex accounting tasks such as managing customer accounts, sending invoices etc. through your mobile device, anywhere and anytime.

Payment gateways

Businesses can add a payment gateway on to their website. Through its aid, buyers can now easily make a direct payment to the company from their website. The intuitive interface allows hassle-free payments. Moreover, the payment processor saves customer information for quick and secure payments when the customer comes back for the next purchase.

Additionally, online payment gateways provide a myriad of options to add to the convenience that they already provide. For instance, recurring payments related to subscriptions can be paid automatically at periodic intervals as directed.

Businesses can also hire a service provider to manage their payment gateway, ensuring security and privacy of customer information. These service providers take care of hosting online payment forms, processing of payments and securing accounts of the customers.

Payments through email

Some businesses choose to send the customer’s invoice to their email with a click-to-pay option. This method ensures a speedy transaction. With just a few clicks, the customer is able to make a payment, making it easier for both the customers and the business entity. Additionally, as people become more aware of the environmental consequences of paper transactions, digital transactions are getting a much-awaited boost.

Give wings to your startup

With the advent of technology and the ease with which business is now being conducted, competition is intense. It is necessary for a business to ensure that its clients receive the best experience. By providing multiple online payment options, conducting business becomes simpler and more satisfying on both ends. The business is able to manage its accounts better and in a more automated way, while the ease of online transactions ensures better customer satisfaction.

5 years ago