Showing posts with label Pivot. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pivot. Show all posts

Tuesday, June 15, 2021

Market Testing for Better Decisions and Results, How Lego’s New Business Strategy Doubled Sales Overnight - Find Angel Funding & Venture Capital for Business Startups, Entrepreneurs, & First Time Founders – Episode 7

Find Angel Funding & Venture Capital for Business Startups, Entrepreneurs, & First Time Founders – Episode 7 



This video is part of my series - Find Angel Funding & Venture Capital for Business Startups, Entrepreneurs, & First Time Founders, learn more by visiting https://bit.ly/3hExYJX


Market testing is simple. Go out and try to sell. Calls, emails, social media, digital ads, networking are all easy ways to test your business plan. 
 
After finishing your first set of market tests, you need to evaluate the results. It helps you determine whether your business strategy is working or not. It also saves you money down the road if you are not pursuing the right opportunity.

When it comes to assessing your results, you need to evaluate:

Market Reaction - What do people think about your product or service?
Sales Performance - How many leads turned into customers who bought your product or service?
Return-on-Investment (ROI) - Are you profitable?

Ask yourself the following questions while going through this exercise.

What worked? 
What did not work?
What were the strengths and weaknesses? 
What did I like? 
What did I not like so much?
What should I change about my business strategy? 
Which part of the business is perfect the way it is?

After you thoroughly evaluate your test results, you can make an informed decision about your business strategy and next steps. Do you need more market testing? Should you consider a pivot? Are we ready to move forward?

This really depends on you. If you feel like there is too much room for improvement, keep working. However, this can take days, weeks, months, or even years if you let testing and perfecting get out of control. I suggest get comfortable with an area you are making traction and move to the next step. 

Remember the famous statement by Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn and a member of the Paypal Mafia, if you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product than you waited too long.


Through market tests and customer feedback, Lego discovered that only 9% of their users were girls in 2008. This obviously excluded about 50% of the children’s toy market. In 2012, Lego came out with a product line known as “Friends.” These figurines were slightly larger to accommodate accessories such as handbags and hairbrushes. They were also more colorful to appeal to young girls. It turned out to be a great success, and sales for that year were double of what was projected!



Are you looking for funding for an idea or business, send us your stuff and we will take a look, Funding@OmegaSeedFund.com

Are you interested in investing time or money into any of our businesses, info@omegaseedfund.com

Are you interested in promoting your product or service to our audience, contact Opportunities@OmegaSeedFund.com


Disclaimer: This is only for informational and discussion purposes. This does not constitute an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy, or a recommendation of any security or any other product or service. We are not offering any legal, investment, tax, or medical advice. 



Do you want more? 


Previous Post - How Entrepreneurs Create a One-Page Executive Summary for Finding Angel Investors, TaskRabbit One-Pager, $38 Million Funding Success Story – Episode 6

Are you looking for investors? Use this link to send us your information. https://register.omegadestiny.com/register-business-for-funding.  

Use this link if you have a product or service that will help our early-stage businesses. https://register.omegadestiny.com/register-to-market-to-our-companies


Sources
http://www.duartepino.com/blog/5-ways-to-evaluate-your-marketing-plan
https://fuelcycle.com/blog/market-research-done-right-how-market-research-gave-lego-a-facelift/

Tuesday, May 18, 2021

How Entrepreneurs Beta Test a Business Idea, Proving You Found the Next Uber

Find Angel Funding & Venture Capital for Business Startups, Entrepreneurs, & First Time Founders – Episode 3



This video is part of my series - Find Angel Funding & Venture Capital for Business Startups, Entrepreneurs, & First Time Founders, learn more by visiting https://bit.ly/3hExYJX


After you have your business idea and your sales pitch in place, the next step for an entrepreneur is to understand how to beta test his/her business idea. Before you can build a billion or trillion dollar empire, you might want to start with one sale.

Beta testing is a round of testing releasing your business to a wide audience. The objective is to uncover problems and issues in a controlled setting. This term beta testing is typically used in SAAS, Software as a Service, companies, but it can be applied to any business startup.

Start talking to people as soon as possible. Friends, family, and coworkers are a great starting point. What do they like? What do they not like? Personally, I have found the best way to beta test an idea is to go out there and actually try to sell it. The best way to see if there is a market for your business is to see if strangers will pay you for it. I recommend you do this under very controlled conditions in order to minimize exposing the potential problems of your business to a limited number of people. 

If you cannot sell it, you need to expand your beta test or consider pivoting. You will save a lot of time, energy, and aggravations if you can discover this as early as possible. That is why I do this early and often.

What do you do if people do buy your product or service? Congratulations, this is a good thing! It means you are on to something. Try to fulfill the order. Do not worry about making money yet. Work on fulfilling the order. Profitability comes with growth and economies of scale. 
 
You may be thinking, “I can’t do fulfill the order, I am working on an app.” I would argue almost any business beta test their concept, even SAAS companies before their software is fully developed. For example, Take Uber before their app was developed. You can place ads and hire a bunch of uber drivers to drive people from place-to-place in their cars. You can also solicit customers that need rides through ads, networking, cold calls. Is this efficient? No. Will this be profitable? Probably not. Will this give you an idea of demand and identify some future problems? Definitely! 

There is no downside when an entrepreneur beta tests their business idea. If you find out that nobody wants what you are selling, than you can pivot into something better. You also save a lot of time, energy, and aggravation down the road. 

If you succeed, then you can leverage your beta test into moving forward with confidence. You also have data validating your business to potential investors. 



Are you looking for funding for an idea or business, send us your stuff and we will take a look, Funding@OmegaSeedFund.com

Are you interested in investing time or money into any of our businesses, info@omegaseedfund.com

Are you interested in promoting your product or service to our audience, contact Opportunities@OmegaSeedFund.com


Disclaimer: This is only for informational and discussion purposes. This does not constitute an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy, or a recommendation of any security or any other product or service. We are not offering any legal, investment, tax, or medical advice. 



Want More? 


Previous Post - Building a powerful elevator pitch - How Steve Jobs Stole John Sculley From Pepsi During the Early Days of Apple - Find Angel Funding & Venture Capital for Business Startups, Entrepreneurs, & First Time Founders – Episode 2

Sources:


Friday, April 3, 2020

How Your Business Can Thrive During Crisis - The Art of the Pivot - Corona Virus, COVID-19, and Ren Carlton


What do Starbucks, Twitter and Nintendo all have in common?



They all pivoted
-Starbucks started out selling espresso machines
-Twitter was a platform for finding podcasts
-Nintendo produced vacuum cleaners


Pivoting means changing your focus or strategy. There are a number of reasons to consider pivoting your business, including:

1. Introduction of new opportunities and restrictions: In today's Corona Virus environment, quarantine and stimulus money are two things that should be investigated. I


2. Pivoting can create opportunities to expand revenue.

Whether it’s exploring new markets, services or products, pivoting can help create opportunities to expand revenue. Research and analysis are key here.


3. It’s easier to stay relevant.

A services company may realize X service is no longer in demand, unlike Y service which is. Remember, business is about finding a need and filling it. Pivot toward the more relevant service.


4. Some of the best ideas come from testing different ideas.

I subscribe to the lean startup approach to building businesses. Entrepreneurs must investigate, experiment, test, and iterate as they develop. 


5. It can reinvigorate the business.

Pivoting is a great way to bring new life to the business. All businesses must evolve if they want to stay current with their audience and competitive within their industry. Being stagnant is boring and uninspired. 


One of the biggest competitive advantages for small businesses is the ability to pivot quickly. You need to be ready to do this early and often. The art of the pivot is knowing when to be persistent and when to pivot
- Persistent: Continue operating the current business model The art of the pivot is knowing when to be persistent and when to pivot
- Persistent: Continue operating the current business model 
- Pivot: Abandon or pause the current business model to pursue new opportunities that may be better



Contact us today if you want to raise capital for your business, funding@omegaaccelerator.com.  


Are you interested in helping businesses while enjoying the potential high returns of angel investing? Email info@OmegaAccelerator.com


Click here if you would like me to consider investing in your business. If I do not personally invest, I will give you specific tips for finding funding. Unlimited follow-up meetings. 100% satisfaction guaranteed. https://rencarlton.blogspot.com/2019/09/funding-session-with-ren-carlton.html


Sources and Links
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/238253
https://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/Lean-startup
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rencarlton
https://rencarlton.blogspot.com
https://twitter.com/RenCarlton
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmxQWgUDlPJo0IHCIa6SzrQ
https://omegalegacyacceleratorx.com/924-2/https://www.facebook.com/TheOmegaAccelerator/
https://www.instagram.com/omega.funding/
https://rencarlton.blogspot.com/2019/09/funding-session-with-ren-carlton.html


Disclaimer: This does not constitute an offer to sell, a solicitation of an offer to buy, or a recommendation of any security or any other product or service. We are not offering any legal, investment, tax, or medical advice. Please consult the appropriate professional before doing anything you learn from the content posted on any of our digital properties. All stories are based on true events, but are altered to protect the identity of the individuals involved.