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startup Archieven - Startupboot

What is WBSO Subsidy and who can get it?

By | Finance

WBSO: Save money on hiring developers with government support

Creation of a valuable business requires a lot of effort and money. Especially, if you are interested in team of professionals in the fields of technology or engineering. However, it is nice to remember that the Dutch government actively supports local enterprises with grants like the WBSO subsidy.

What exactly is the WBSO subsidy?

The WBSO stands for the “Research and Development tax credit”. This subsidy helps companies to reduce wage tax, national insurance contributions and other costs of the innovation projects. The grant is provided by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate Policy to entrepreneurs who plan to invest in research and development.

For whom is the WBSO?

The WBSO subsidy is intended for the companies registered at the Dutch Chamber of Commerce and who hire researchers for R&D projects. To be able to apply for the WBSO a company should meet several requirements:

  • It should experience new technological development accompanied by technological problems
  • the R&D activities should not be started yet
  • the R&D activities should be organized inside the company
 

More information about the official conditions of eligibility can be found on the website of the Netherlands Enterprise Agency. However, it is also possible to scan your profile on the WBSO Software Specialist website and get an immediate advice from the specialists.

Why do you need the WBSO subsidy?

The WBSO grant can help entrepreneurs with the technical aspects of production and development. A company can apply for the WBSO if it manages the majority of the technical solutions itself or it wants to test the prototype. Therefore, the WBSO subsidy is suitable for every type of company.  However, it is most widely used among enterprises in the IT sector or manufacturing industry. The subsidy gives benefits of reduced wage taxes or other R&D expenditures (including costs incurred for machine hours or prototypes). The grant is especially valuable for startups.

What is happening after the grant is received?

In addition to maintaining an hour administration, you should be able to provide information about the WBSO costs incurred. You have to report once a year how many hours and costs you have incurred in total and which employees have worked on the projects.

 
The WBSO subsidy gives you a good opportunity to grow your business. Although, if you are not sure about the necessary application steps and need help you can check more information on the WBSO Software Specialist website. These guys can help you with all important questions and guide you through the whole process. Get in touch with them and receive an advice from the specialist. 
 

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

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

How to get funding

By | News

For a lot of start-ups, creating an innovative idea is not the problem: it is collecting money to execute the idea. Fortunately, there are a lot of creative ways to do so. Sander Waterval has got a lot of experience in the matter, since he executed a lot of his expansive ideas.

Right now, Sander is working on one of his dream projects, the Wikkelboat, on which we have actually organized a barbeque last night after a cruise with Ronald Scholtus on one of the boats of Rotterdamishot. The Wikkelboat project is due in two weeks from now. It’s the first Wikkelboat ever to be made and will be located at the also to be expanded harbour ‘ The Red Apple Marina’ in Rotterdam. This project costs a lot of money as you can imagine and so, you need to be a bit creative funding it:

  • By involving your suppliers and partly paying them after delivery. When the project is done, the Wikkelboat will create turnover because it will be rented out. This money can be used to pay off the suppliers;
  • By involving your clients and let them pay on forehand with an interesting discount;
  • Get some extra cash by leveraging this by the bank;
  • Check for possibilities to get some subsidies.

When going on board with investors, there are some things to keep in mind. The most important lesson of today if you ask me, was to make sure that you are still the chief of your company after the investments. If the investor pays for most of your company, they have a lot of rights to make big decisions as well. Because of this and because quite a few investors do not like to take risks on their own in an early stage startup, it’s a good idea to match investors to fund the company.

After finding the right investor(s) for your company, always make sure you do your research on them and make sure that when they do research on you, which they will, your story will be good! Your story should be the one that makes them go on board with you and the idea of your company should be clear and unique. Doing research about them might seem a bit out of the ordinary, but when you promise someone to spend the rest of your life with them, you want to know them first right? Well guess what… when you choose your investors, you will spend your business life with them! You can ask around for information about the investor in your own network or find someone the investor has worked with or invested in already. Make sure the ideas and goals your investor has, are the same as yours.

Most (angel)investors know each other and are willing to invest in your company together. Know this: they will nog arrange this for you! Be on top of it and make sure to find the right mix of investors for your company.

How to survive as a startup

By | News

All startups have different goals but one they all share is the desire to grow in order to succeed. This may sound like a natural process but only 1 in 10 startup companies actually achieve it. The main reasons for this are: the team, the money or the idea itself is just not good enough. Nicholas Morgan, co-founder of Startup Focus, has experienced these hurdles with many startups. He helps companies to focus and grow by introducing the entrepreneurial accountability framework. With their experience in building companies’ Finance, Innovation Accounting, Governance and Stakeholder Management, they are able to help early-stage start-ups through 4 phases: get started, get ready, get worthy, keep going. The most important lesson he taught us is to make sure that your company is investment worthy. Not all companies are financially attractive, certainly not from the start. But by being able to show the right traction and validation of their proposition in the earlier stages, think of the early Uber or Facebook days, they still find the right funding path.

The next speaker at our Startup Boot event was Marc Jellema of Tom Kabinet. Tom Kabinet is a highly disruptive startup and so Marc has taught us how to survive such a company. Tom Kabinet is a company which enables consumers to buy or sell eBooks second hand. As you can imagine, a lot of writers and publishers did not agree with the idea and the second day after the company went live they received their first subpoena. The subject became very popular and the next day multiple lawyers knocked on their door offering to represent the case. In short, when you have a highly disruptive startup, the following lessons will help you survive:

Make sure you generate positive press. Make sure that when people google your company you have enough positive press to outweigh any negative press you may have received.

Operate with as few staff as possible. You cannot afford to have a lot of people on your payroll especially when your company is battling a legal case.

Be prepared for anything. The future is always uncertain. Make sure you prepare for at least two possible courses the future may take.

A disruptive start up company can survive by adapting and never giving up. A true testament to Marc’s passion and commitment is that despite all the difficulties the company has faced, when asked, Marc said that he would do it all again.