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Introduction to Growth Hacking

By | Geen categorie, News

Introduction to Growth Hacking

Growth hacking nowadays is actively used by startups and businesses as an alternative way of marketing with the main focus on growth and profitability. The goal of a real growth hacker is to expand a customer base of a business with the use of modest, analytical, creative, and innovative methods.

Here we want to give you some useful brief tips that Growth Tribe (growth hacking gurus for talents in Amsterdam) shared with and that can be used  in your growth strategy right now:

  1. Experiments is everything

It is often hard to be right if you are working online. Gut feelings of the marketers usually appear to be wrong, so only data and numbers can help to prove the assumptions. Thus, it is wise for companies to spend time and resources on experiments’ conduction. In a controlling experiment setting, it is their main and the only target to study consumer behavior and find the best method of revenue maximization through the acquirement of new customers.

  1. Tracking is important.

Tracking is crucial for business growth. However, it is important to track metrics that can actually help with new partners or customers generation (as engagement rate of social media posts, the website bounce rate, conversion rate) instead of visual performance indicators (as to reach or impressions)

  1. Use tools

Growth hacking is based on the usage of handy and modern tools that can help you test all the assumptions in swift time. Surf the Internet to uncover which ones you can use for website creation, automation, social media planning or even persona revealing of the potential leads or customers on LinkedIn.

  1. Make it look like human

Automation is a very important part of scaling business, however, people still appreciate human factor and trust business more if they feel a human interaction. Thus, do not be scared to make a mistake or actually aim at making mistakes in your automated messages and emails to create a feeling of human synergy.

  1. Catch them in 5

You have only 5 seconds to impress your potential customer on your website or social pages. So make a message about your product vivid and clear. The image and design are not everything, copywriting is extremely important in this catching business. Each copy or caption work towards selling the unique point of your business.

  1. Psychographics personas

A buyer persona is a profile of your ideal customer based on real data. However, you cannot get a full understand of your customers with only information about their demographics. It is important to understand things like emotions, values, interests, desires, goals, hobbies, habits and other relevant aspects of their psychological characteristics to understand what and how they want it.

 

 

 

6 Brief and Useful Tips on Growth Hacking

6 Tips on how to become successful while avoiding unnecessary stress

By | Geen categorie

Last week’s event was all about our fresh goals for 2018! Have you set them yet? Our speaker Rob Lacroix definitely talked us through how to be successful while avoiding unnecessary stress.

Now, success is a term which keeps coming back to us at Startup Boot and we have thrown its meaning at you more than ones. Rob has added a new aspect: when trying to become successful, one must acknowledge whether they thrive success because our parents, our schools, our friends or our social system experts us to, or because we feel a passionate drive ourselves. The last one is the valid drive to feel successful. And that is what success is all about right? A certain feeling. if you want to be successful, you stop trying to meet up to standards you’ve been put up with, instead you follow your passion and the sky is the limit. 

When starting a business or setting goals for the new year, rob figured a three- boxed check list to come in handy named RAC:

Recognize there is a challenge
Acknowledge you play a passionate Role in the change
Commit to the change

Make sure you are doing things for the right reasons and success will follow. When putting in the right amount of effort of course! The following 6 tips on a healthy mind-set towards success might help you achieve your success while avoiding stress:

  1. Make careful choices about whom you want to reach your success with. Whether you need a co-founder, employee, freelancer or investor, know what kind of person the company Needs and take the right pick. To find the right person, always keep your eyes open! He might just sit next to you while you’re reading these tips!
  2. Do not do everything yourself. A big percentage of entrepreneurs is suffering from a burn-out. Avoid this by delegating certain tasks. Know your strengths and Make sure people around can you fill in the gaps where you lack.
  3. Make sure your goals are realistic. Unrealistic goals Will only gain you stress. Not the output you had in mind. Plan realistic and smart
  4. Be an athlete!! Not by becoming a sportsman in the world cup nut by copying their habits to success. Eat healthy, exercise and take breaks! This Will bring you the energy you need
  5. Be flexible. Like Darwin said:” it is not the strongest species that survives, nor the most intelligent one. It’s the species that responses best to change”. So be open to change! Does your strategy not fit the present circumstances? No worries, adapt!
  6. Do not give up! Do things not work out? Do not blame factors as competition or the economy. Find the real problem and work on it. Check the RAC again and commit! YOU can Make it happen.

Interested in the subject or do you want to learn more on how to reduce stress? Check out Rob’s website!

Best of wishes to all of you for a successful 2018! 

 

Fuckup night

By | Geen categorie

This year almost comes to an end, and so it is time for a good old throwback. This year, we have spoken a lot about successes and all of those times, we concluded that to become successful, you have to make mistakes to learn a thing or two. With this in mind we have decided to make ‘FUCKUPS’ the subject of our last event of the year. A very interesting subject as the turnup was great! So.. what have we learned?

First of all, know what the company needs. When you know what the company needs, it is easier to make the hard decisions. You need to be realistic about this from the beginning. A lot of startups start as friends. Either someone from your close group of friends, a colleague, a family member or even your boyfriend or girlfriend. It always seems like a good idea because when you are good with someone, you can run a business with them right? WRONG! Do not try to force such relationships into a business relationship! Two of our speakers also lost their friends because they started a company together. What you do need, is someone to strengthen you. Know what you are good at and what you suck at. Then find someone to fill in the gap.

Same goes for employees. Of course the worst thing about a hiring process is that EVERYBODY lies on their resume, so try to make the process as flawless as possible. Make sure you know what kind of employees you need. Not only in skills, but also in contract. Sometimes it is great to work with a freelancer. They build something amazing for your company and afterwords, they are just done. Other times, you really need a loyal employee. But than again: consider whether you need an entrepreneur who prefers to work alone or someone who really fits in the team culture. You might also think about hiring more experienced employees rather than cutting costs by hiring a less experienced employee. This saves you some fuckups.

Now of course, hiring an employee costs money which we do not always have. Another thing we have learned is to be a bit creative. You do not always have to put them on the payroll. For example: You could reward them with a promise. When the company becomes valid, they earn their share in the company. It may seem to you that when you do not have the money to pay someone, you should not hire an employee. This could be so, but as a startup, you probably need investors to set up the business. As you know, a startup is build from a problem to which an entrepreneur finds a solution. To get investors on board, you need to show them that people are willing to spend time on your solution with you. Also the problem which you solve should be a serious pain to which the investors actually want a solution.

The next fuckup of the evening, which I think it is fair to say almost everybody can relay to, is that you need to keep ‘Ego’ outside the door. Of course, you are proud of what you have done and you want to scream it of the rooftops, but do not exaggerate. It will annoy your team and it does definitely not give you a head start with customers. Be aware of your ego and keep it in check. People do not buy your product or invest in you because you show off, they do so when you deliver the promise.

Last but not least: Do not bother to keep thinking about your regrets and do not let them guide you. Keep in mind that you need to go through things to value them. When the value turns out to be low, at least you know!

We called it the night at the successes. The speakers all are very successful so do not be afraid, be bold, take a risk, make some FUCKUPS and become successful.

Thanks to:
Renske de Bruine of Winkler
Erwin van der Vlist of Speakap
Wybo Wijnbergen of WeWork
Matthijs van Schendelen of Endeavour Group

6 Tips and tricks you should know before scaling internationally

By | Geen categorie

Are you planning on going internationally and could you still use some good tips and tricks? And were you not able to join our event last Thursday? Than you missed out on a lot! Isabel Brouwer of DutchBasecamp gave us great advise on how to successfully scale internationally. Fortunately, we took notes to share the info!

First of all, scaling internationally is no exact science. But guess what: entrepreneurship is no exact science. However you have to make choices.
Entrepreneurs often fail because they do not know how to make the right choices, like the right market to fit and the timing to go abroad. They also do not tend to keep in mind that they have to fail first, to become successful afterwards.
That is why it is so important to do the research and find a good fit, starting by creating a top 5 of markets which might be interesting to scale your company to. These 5 markets are the ones to be researched further. When choosing one out of 5, it is very important to keep some things in mind:

– What is the market attractiveness of those 5 markets. It is very important that your attractiveness fits with the crowd, if not, scaling makes no sense.

-What is your business attractiveness? What makes your product stand out amongst the competition if there is any?

-Are you able to create a product/ market fit?

-What is your affordable loss? How much money and time are you willing to lose in the process? If you are not willing to lose a lot, do not pick the biggest markets. Don’t make it as if you’re going backpacking, it does not make sense to go abroad when you do not have the money to do proper follow ups.

Those bullets should be validated. Off course, you can start from home, but is very important to physically visit the market. Do your research and talk to local people. Find the right entrepreneur to share their experience with you and just as important, find your customers and ask what their needs are. Reality is that finding the right locals to talk to can be a challenge. That does not make it less important though.

The bullets will not only be indicators to pick the market, they are also the base of your strategy when you scale to your new market. After you chose your market, it is time to create a strategy fitting to the market. With that comes the budget. Again, the budget will not be exact science, but it is what will get you there.

DutchBasecamp can help you through this process. The coaches are all very experienced with the subject and will coach you through the process, starting with a free master class. There is no recipe for internationalisation, so it is very important to keep talking to other people and learn from each other. Make sure you keep networking.

One other thing you should definitely keep in mind are the cultural differences when you go abroad. Not to worry though: there’s always the books. A good book to read to prepare you before going abroad is ‘The culture map’ of Erin Meyer. As the book says, she had mapped out all the cultural differences you need to keep in mind.