Messages

61

Seed Investment / Seed Fundraising — VCs vs. Seed Funds vs. Angels

« on: June 20, 2019, 09:56:26 AM »

Seed Fundraising — VCs vs. Seed Funds vs. Angels

When you’re raising a seed round you’ll want to optimize your process by focusing on the right investors at the right time. Here’s the key differences between the three groups you’ll encounter: Large VCs, Seed Funds and Angel Investors.

Check Sizes
The size of investment you can expect from each investor in your seed round.

Angel Investors — $10k — $250k. Angel investors usually can’t follow on in later rounds. Plus, if you’re raising $1M+, don’t try to raise it all from angels, as investor management can become a problem with large groups.

Seed Funds — $50k — $1.5M. Larger seed funds can follow on but smaller funds will behave like angel investors. Larger seed funds may want to lead a round and some have minimum ownership requirements for an investment. Good seed funds can often bring coinvestors to finish a round.

Larger VCs — $3M — $15M. VCs with an active fund $200M+ are expected to follow on, it can be a negative signal if they don’t. Due to ownership requirements and their fund size, large VCs investing at the seed stage will want the entirety of a round and won’t usually be interested in rounds less than $3M. VCs often walk away if they can’t get the ownership they want.

Investment Process
The steps an investor will want to complete before making an investment.

Angel Investors — The process from introduction to money-in-the-bank should take 2 weeks or less. Most will want to meet twice, at least once in person, with any other questions being answered over email. Approach angel investors early in your fundraising as it’s often helpful to get momentum in the round with smaller checks on a convertible or SAFE note.

Seed Funds — A seed fund process is usually 1–4 weeks, although demand in the round can speed things up. You can expect to meet one partner first and then the rest if they’re interested. Most seed funds have a lightweight diligence process across product, projections and references. Seed funds are usually comfortable with notes but be prepared for a potential lead to want a priced round.

Larger VCs — Budget 1–3 months to go through a VC process. VCs usually invest in someone they know but shorter timelines are possible if the round is competitive. Most VCs have a 3-stage meeting process: Step 1) You meet one partner alone. Step 2) You meet several team members to socialize the deal. Step 3) You have a full partner meeting presenting to everyone on the investment team. VC diligence processes are in-depth and often involve numerous checks on the financials, projections, founders, customers and technology. In addition, you should expect legal costs above $10k, as a large VC will want to price the round.

Post-Investment
The time commitment and accountability expectations each investor will have, once the money is in the bank.

Angel Investors — The time they spend depends entirely on the investor and isn’t necessarily correlated to check size. Be sure to ask an angel, during the process, how they help their companies post-investment. Angel investors almost never take board seats and rarely have any control over the company. You can ask your angels for introductions when the next round comes but don’t expect much more than that.

Seed Funds — If the check size is above $500k, you can expect a formal time commitment, usually a board will be formed but some may only want regular meetings. The partners of these firms are supposed to help their companies, so put them to work. Seed funds are often measured by their success rate in getting companies to the next round; they should be very helpful when the time comes.

Larger VCs — Will usually want to form a board and meet at least once monthly. You should make sure the board is 3 people, 2 cofounders at the seed stage. When you form a board with a VC be aware, they may remove you if the company underperforms. If your VC doesn’t lead the next round themselves, they should be heavily involved in finding a good alternative.

Reference:https://hackernoon.com/seed-fundraising-vcs-vs-seed-funds-vs-angels-3bd60fc1e5cb

62

Pricing / Pricing Strategy for Products

« on: June 20, 2019, 09:35:53 AM »

Pricing Strategy for Products: Economy, Skimming, Penetration, and Premium

Pricing your product or service appropriately to make a profit in the face of competition is challenging. One way to mitigate that challenge is to utilize pricing strategy for your products or services. Companies have several options, based on where their product or service falls in the matrix of quality and price.

Economy Pricing
Economy pricing is useful for companies who are keeping their overhead low. For example, generic grocery store brands of products usually have a lower price than the name-brand items, due to the lack of advertising or out-of-store promotion. Because these companies save on those aspects of the product, they are able to keep their pricing low. Companies who use economy pricing count on the fact that their lower price compared to the product next to them on the shelf will increase the number of sales. Economy pricing does particularly well during times of economic recession.

Price Skimming
Price skimming occurs when a company sets an artificially high price for a product or service, but knows that competitors will soon enter the product or service arena. The high price is temporary and meant to encourage a profit boom to offset the price drop later. Products or services have to be in a very unique position of being the first of its kind to the floor, whereas everyone else will have to fall in line behind this original price in order to be competitive. Often, we see this in new cell phones when they first come out. The same phone that we can buy this year could have been double or triple the price last year, when it first came out into the market.

Penetration Pricing
Penetration pricing sees products or services priced much lower than their actual value in order to make an entrance into the market. Once customers view the product or service as a must-have, the prices can gradually rise. Often, this is seen with internet companies or cable companies. They will advertise a remarkably low price to begin a contract with them, say $19.99 a month, but only for half of the contract. Once the first year is over, the price spikes to $49.99 a month. In this age of computers, we see penetration pricing even more often, with websites and software offering free trials, but requiring a credit card number to begin the trial. Once the trial is over, customers either cancel the service or continue to be charged for it monthly. If the product is unique in the market and useful for the customer, the service’s profit far out ways the loss of the free month.

Premium Pricing
Premium pricing is used for products or services that are clearly of a higher luxury value than anything else on the market. Premium pricing is reserved for 5-star hotels, first-class airline tickets, and other products that give the customer the perception of being of the highest quality. While premium pricing isn’t useful for commodity goods, it does make your product or service seem more desirable and more buzz-worthy than the less expensive, similar products on the market.If you’re searching for a consultant to work with you on pricing strategy for your products or services, look no further than Froehling Anderson CPAs. We work with businesses to find the right balance of profitability and pricing that will see the best outcomes for each product or service.

Reference:https://fa-cpa.com/pricing-strategy-for-new-products-4-methods/

63

Inspirational Story/Quote / NO EXCUSES

« on: June 19, 2019, 11:40:45 AM »

NO EXCUSES - Best Motivational Video

64

Product knowledge / 8 Factors to be Considered in Product Selection

« on: June 19, 2019, 11:33:58 AM »

8 Factors to be Considered in Product Selection

Supply-gap: The size of the unsatisfied market demand which constitute a source of business opportunity will dictate, to a great extent the need to select a particular product. The product with the highest chances of success as reflected in its demand will be selected. In essence, there must be existing obvious demand for the selected product.

Fund: The size of the funds that can be mobilized is another important factor. Adequate fund is needed to develop, produce, promote, sell and distribute the product selected.

Availability of and Access to Raw Materials: Different products require different raw materials. The source quality and quantity of the raw materials needed are factors to be seriously considered, Are the raw materials available in sufficient quantities? Where are the sources of raw materials located? Are they accessible? Could they be sources locally or imported? Satisfactory answers should be provided to these and many other relevant questions.

Technical Implications: The production process for the product needs to be considered. There is need to know the technical implications of the selected product on the existing production line, available technology and even the labour force. The choice of a particular product may require either acquisition of the machines or refurbishing of the old ones. The product itself must be technically satisfactory and acceptable to the user.

Profitability/Marketability: Most often, the product that has the highest profit potential is often selected. However, a product may be selected on the basis of its ability to utilize idle capacity or complement the sale of the existing products. The product must be marketable.

Availability of Qualified Personnel: Qualified personnel to handle the production and marketing of the product must he available. The cost of producing the product must be kept to the minimum by reducing wastages. This is achievable through competent hands.

Government Policies: This is quite often an uncontrollable factor. The focuses of government policies can significantly influence the selection of product. For instance, a package of incentives from government for a product with 100% local input contents can change the direction of the business’s R & D and hence the product selected.

Government objectives: The contributions of the product to the realization of the company’s short and long range objectives must be considered before selection. For instance, the company goal maybe the achievement of sale growth, sales stability or enhancement of the company’s social value.

Reference:https://www.entrepreneurshipsecret.com/8-factors-to-be-considered-in-products-selection/

65

Startup / 8 Barriers to Entry Every Startup Should Know

« on: June 19, 2019, 11:19:46 AM »

8 Barriers to Entry Every Startup Should Know

1. Startup Capital
You always have some startup cost, but many industries necessitate extensive capital, including, but not limited to, infrastructure, equipment, permits & licenses, or a minimum number of employees. It is important to anticipate potential additional costs to open your business, before you get started.

2. Technical Knowledge Base
Some businesses cannot easily break into an industry because of the high level of technical knowledge that it demands. Take computer manufacturing, for example, where the builders need to have an ability to engineer the product, while innovating at the same time, to stand out in a highly-competitive field.

3. Customer Cost of Switching
Some new businesses face the problem of convincing customers that it is worth the cost of moving away from their current provider. This is the reason for the fierce marketing campaigns of telecom carriers, as there is many times a cost associated with switching from one carrier to another. The new carrier must persuade the customer and provide incentives to make it worth the cost of switching.
 

4. Educating Your Market
Startups that offer an alternative to existing competitors, or those breaking in with a brand new idea, many times are faced with the task of educating their market about their product or service. This can take a great deal of time and money to accomplish, and it sometimes poses a very complicated barrier.

5. Access to Materials
You would think if you have a great product that is of benefit to consumers, that you could just get the materials and start mass-producing it, right? Sometimes it isn’t so simple. If established competing businesses who use the same raw materials already exist, they may have contracts with suppliers that disallows them from providing you with those materials.

6. Access to Distribution Channels
The use of main distribution channels can be a significant barrier to entry. When these channels are either exclusive or expensive, it can greatly impede newcomers to a certain industry.

7. Patents
Another instance where established competitors hold all the cards is when they hold the patents for a product, or even a crucial element of the product, such as a part that your product needs to operate. The incoming startup is forced to innovate by creating its own version of the product or part, thereby avoiding patent infringement and differentiating its own product from competitors.

8. Government Regulation
The government regulates many industries for a variety of reasons, which keeps the number of entering competitors down by forcing them to meet specific requirements. For example, automobile manufacturers must adhere strictly to a number of government regulations, such as fuel economy, emissions, and safety standards. This is one of many barriers for those who would enter the auto industry, which is why there are so few new competitors.

Reference:https://talkroute.com/8-barriers-to-entry-every-startup-should-know/

 

66

Company Registration(RJSC) / PRE-REGISTRATION

« on: June 19, 2019, 10:54:46 AM »

PRE-REGISTRATION – WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW KEY FACTS ABOUT COMPANY FORMATION

Company Name:  The name must be approved (cleared) before incorporation of the company in Bangladesh.

Directors: Minimum two directors are mandatory. Directors can be either local or foreign. Directors must be at least 18 years of age and must not be bankrupt or convicted for any malpractice in the past. The law requires that a director must own qualification shares stated in the Articles of Association. A shareholder which is not a natural person (i.e. a company) can select nominee director.

Shareholders: A private limited company in Bangladesh can have a minimum of 2 and maximum of 50 shareholders. A director and shareholder can be the same or a different person. The shareholder can be a person or another legal entity such as another company. 100% local or foreign shareholding is allowed in most sectors. New shares can be issued or existing shares can be transferred to another person anytime after the Bangladeshi company has gone through the incorporation process.

Authorized Capital: You must state the authorized capital in the Memorandum of Association and Articles of Association. It is the maximum amount of share capital that the company is authorized to issue (allocate) to shareholders. Part of the authorized capital can remain unissued. There is no minimum or maximum limit for authorized capital in Bangladesh.

Paid-up Capital:  Minimum paid-up capital for registration of a Bangladeshi company is Taka 1. Paid-up capital (also known as share capital) can be increased anytime after the incorporation of the company.

Registered Address:  In order to register a company in Bangladesh, you must provide a local address as the registered address of the company. The registered address must be a physical address (can be either a residential or commercial address) and cannot be a P.O. Box.

Memorandum and Articles of Association: The company to be incorporated must prepare a memorandum of association (MoA) and articles of association (AoA).
Reference:https://resource.ogrlegal.com/company-registration-in-bangladesh/

67

Facebook / Facebook best practices

« on: June 19, 2019, 10:41:10 AM »

Facebook best practices

1. Respond to messages
With Facebook Messenger, you can reply to customers as your business. Your inbox is located at the top of your page when you're signed in as a page admin.Facebook Messenger is an important customer service tool, and customers expect you to use it. In fact, Facebook tracks the response rates and times of brand pages so customers know how quickly they can expect an answer. Facebook Messenger is attractive to customers because they expect a fast response, and many people are more comfortable live chatting than calling.Messenger has several new tools and updates that make it easy for brands to engage with customers on the platform, including natural language processing for Messenger chatbots.According to a January 2019 New York Times article, Facebook is making plans to merge Facebook Messenger, Instagram messages and WhatsApp to create a unified messaging platform. This plan would make it possible for users on the three apps to communicate with each other, and you'll be able to connect with your customers on all apps.

2. Use insights to determine the success of your campaigns
Facebook Insights is an analytics tool. It's free to use, and it shows data on actions taken, page views, the number of people you've reached, the number of post engagements and more. This information can help you measure the effectiveness of your social campaigns and how to improve your posts.

3. Use publishing tools and schedule posts in the future
You can use Facebook Publishing Tools to schedule posts to go live in the future. You can also create videos, advertise your business, promote an event, make an offer, write a note and post job applications on your Facebook page.It's important to post regularly – at least twice a week. If you find that you're spending too much time on Facebook each day, try third-party social media management tools such as Hootsuite or Buffer. While creating and scheduling and multiple posts takes time upfront, it saves you time in the long run. [Interested in social media management and monitoring tools? Check out our best picks on our sister site, Business.com.]

4. Know your target audience
Facebook has excellent targeting tools. When you're promoting a post, you can target specific demographics, locations and interest groups. In order to have successful ads, you need to know who you're trying to sell to first. Once you know your target audience, use the targeting tools Facebook offers.

5. Be personable, not just sales
Even though you've created a business Facebook page to connect with customers and ultimately to make sales, your audience doesn't want to see advertisements. Try to create personable and engaging Facebook posts. [Related: How to Use Social Media to Drive Sales]

6. Offer giveaways and contests
It's difficult to drive organic traffic on Facebook, but regularly running giveaways and contests helps. Before you create a contest or giveaway, make sure you understand and are following Facebook's rules. If you don't follow the proper laws, you could be in legal trouble. Learn more about the laws and guidelines of social media contests and sweepstakes in this Business News Daily guide.

7. Create and advertise events
You can create events as a business on Facebook. You can invite anyone to these events and pay extra to promote them to a targeted audience on Facebook. Events can be a fun way to engage your audience and turn them into customers.

8. Share relevant content from other sources
It can be time-consuming to create and share only original content. Curating content from other sources can save time and effort. Networking with other sources can also benefit you in other ways, and they may share your content in return.

9. Have conversations
Don't publish a post and then not open Facebook for a week. Create and share posts to engage with your audience. Respond to comments, questions and concerns. If you're having conversations with your audience, they're more likely to become your customers.In January 2018, Facebook announced it made major changes to its newsfeed algorithm. With this change, Facebook prioritizes personal connections and engagement. In short, your posts won't be seen unless they generate a conversation.Another way to be engaging on Facebook is with its polling features. It's similar to Twitter's polls and is a great way to start a conversation or get to know your customers' opinions. To create a poll, go to your Page Manager and select Create a poll from the icon menu below the Write Something box.

10. Highlight business milestones
Highlight company milestones and celebrate anniversaries on Facebook. These posts usually engage your audience and will make you seem more personable. If you're offering a special promotion for any milestones or anniversaries, promote that on your page as well.

11. Use Facebook ads
The best way to reach your desired audience is to run Facebook ads. While these cost money, they're effective, because you can choose your target audience based on demographics, behaviors or contact information. You can choose a daily or overall budget for ads, select the amount of time an ad runs and adjust your desired audience. Facebook tracks the interactions on each promotion you run, which helps you develop highly successful campaigns in the future.

12. Create Facebook videos
If you're scrolling through your Facebook timeline, you might notice a lot of videos. That's because videos do great on the platform. One way to create Facebook videos is through Facebook Live, which allows you to broadcast to a large audience for free.With Facebook Live, you can have real-time conversations with followers and give them an inside look at your business. For more tips on how to effectively use Facebook Live, read this Business News Daily guide.

Reference:https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/7761-facebook-business-guide.html

68

Human Resource / Organizational conflict

« on: June 19, 2019, 10:23:20 AM »

Organizational conflict

Organizational conflict, or workplace conflict, is a state of discord caused by the actual or perceived opposition of needs, values and interests between people working together. Conflict takes many forms in organizations. There is the inevitable clash between formal authority and power and those individuals and groups affected. There are disputes over how revenues should be divided, how the work should be done, and how long and hard people should work. There are jurisdictional disagreements among individuals, departments, and between unions and management. There are subtler forms of conflict involving rivalries, jealousies, personality clashes, role definitions, and struggles for power and favor. There is also conflict within individuals – between competing needs and demands – to which individuals respond in different ways.

Personal conflict
A personal conflict involves a conflict between two people, most often from a mutual dislike or personality clash.According to Boston University FSAO, "Causes for workplace conflict can be personality or style differences and personal problems such as substance abuse, childcare issues, and family problems. Organizational factors such as leadership, management, budget, and disagreement about core values can also contribute."University of Colorado–Boulder cites as primary causes of workplace conflict as poor communication, different values, differing interests, scarce resources, personality clashes, and poor performance.Many difficulties in this area are beyond the scope of management and more in the province of a professional counselor or workplace mediator, but there are some aspects of personal conflict that managers should understand and some they can possibly help remedy. Social conflict refers to interpersonal, intragroup, and intergroup differences. Organizational conflict at the interpersonal level includes disputes between peers as well as supervisor-subordinate conflict.It was pointed out that there is a basic incompatibility between the authority and structure of formal organizations and the human personality. Human behavior cannot be separated from the culture that surrounds it.

Intragroup conflict
Conflict arises in groups because of the scarcity of freedom, position, and resources. People who value independence tend to resist the need for interdependence and, to some extent, conformity within a group. People who seek power therefore struggle with others for position or status within the group. Rewards and recognition are often perceived as insufficient and improperly distributed, and members are inclined to compete with each other for these prizes.In western culture, winning is more acceptable than losing, and competition is more prevalent than cooperation, all of which tends to intensify intragroup conflict. Group meetings are often conducted in a win-lose climate — that is, individual or subgroup interaction is conducted for the purpose of determining a winner and a loser rather than for achieving mutual problem solving.

Inter-group conflict
Inter-group conflict occurs in four general forms. Horizontal strain involves competition between functions, for example, sales versus production, research and development versus engineering, purchasing versus legal, line versus staff, and so on. Vertical strain involves competition between hierarchical levels, for example, union versus management, foremen versus middle management, shop workers versus foremen. A struggle between a group of employees and management is an example of vertical strain or conflict. A clash between a sales department and production over inventory policy would be an example of horizontal strain.Certain activities and attitudes are typical in groups involved in a win-lose conflict. Each side closes ranks and prepares itself for battle. Members show increased loyalty and support for their own groups. Minor differences between group members tend to be smoothed over, and deviants are dealt with harshly. The level of morale in the groups increases and infuses everyone with competitive spirit. The power structure becomes better defined, as the "real" leaders come to the surface and members rally around the "best" thinkers and talkers.In addition, each group tends to distort both its own views and those of the competing group. What is perceived as "good" in one's own position is emphasized, what is "bad" is ignored; the position of the other group is assessed as uniformly "bad," with little "good" to be acknowledged or accepted. Thus, the judgment and objectivity of both groups are impaired. When such groups meet to "discuss" their differences, constructive, rational behavior is severely inhibited.[9] Each side phrases its questions and answers in a way that strengthens its own position and disparages the other's. Hostility between the two groups increases; mutual understandings are buried in negative stereotypes.It is easy to see that under the conditions described above, mutual solutions to problems cannot be achieved. As a result, the side having the greater power wins; the other side loses. Or the conflict may go unresolved, and undesirable conditions or circumstances continue. Or the conflict may be settled by a higher authority.None of these outcomes is a happy one. Disputes settled on the basis of power, such as through a strike or a lockout in a labor-management dispute, are often deeply resented by the loser. Such settlements may be resisted and the winner defeated in underground ways that are difficult to detect and to counter. When this happens, neither side wins; both are losers. If the conflict is left unresolved, as when both sides withdraw from the scene, inter-group cooperation and effectiveness may be seriously impaired to the detriment of the entire organization. Disputes that are settled by higher authority also may cause resentment and what is called "lose-lose" consequences. Such settlements are invariably made on the basis of incomplete information — without data that the conflict itself obscures — and therefore are poor substitutes for mutually reasoned solutions. Again, both sides have lost. A specific approach to resolving inter-group conflict is outlined in the next chapter on organization development.

Reference:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizational_conflict

69

Brochure and Leaflet / Leaflets & Brochures- Advantages And Disadvantages

« on: June 19, 2019, 09:57:22 AM »

Leaflets & Brochures- Advantages And Disadvantages

Being a part of the digital era, the printed components of marketing are often overlooked and categorized as old-fashioned and ineffective. But on the other hand, there are many advantages of using these promotional techniques. With the digital advancements in every industry, the printed materials are vanishing. But, their importance and their value are still the same.

Advantages
Cost-effective: It is one of the key tools for small and medium scale businesses to promote their brand without making much expense. The leaflets and brochures are easy to produce and don’t even cost much to distribute them to the potential customers. They can easily be designed using a free and trial version of the software and then printing them using digital or offset printing in order to print the leaflets that can be cost-effective.

Includes a lot of information: Unlike digital marketing, there is lesser word count or character limit while advertising anywhere. When it comes to printed copies of leaflets or brochures, you can fill them as much as you can, but make sure that it does look eye-pleasing and is organised. The ideal leaflet includes appealing images and texts that make the layout easy to read and understand.

Easy to read: During leaflet design, the marketers will add only the key information about their brand that is important for their potential customers to know. The text also plays a crucial role in attracting potential customers and therefore it has to be clear and in an easy to read font style. The leaflets or brochures are designed to be visual and straight to the point so as to make them easy to understand.

Visually pleasing: The printed marketing materials are visually pleasing as they are a combination of texts and images. The main motive of the digital business leaflets and brochures is to grab the attention of the potential customers to achieve the business goals. The leaflets come in a range of styles including half fold, tri fold, gate fold, Z fold and many others.

Disadvantages
Easily Discarded: If the leaflets made are of poor quality and didn’t appeal the target audience then they would easily be discarded by them. Many times the people judge them on the basis of their visuals and if they like it visually, then only they open it and read it. Otherwise, keep it aside. Therefore, all businesses are required to design leaflets that are worth a second glance.

No long-term impact: Some people visualise leaflets as a waste of time and they do not spare even a single second to open and read the text written therein. This only happens to leaflets that are of low value and poor targeting.

Sometimes not considered to be important: These printed marketing materials are many times distributed to people’s homes. Some of them might be promoting something you aren’t interested in, while some of them are selling things you would not buy, therefore many people receive a leaflet only if they capture their attention, otherwise, they’ll discard it. Therefore for a business to succeed, it is important to create an eye-catching and worthwhile leaflet so as to ensure that it never happens to you.

Reference:https://medium.com/@ForestLitho/leaflets-brochures-advantages-and-disadvantages-e264a8e82cab

70

Successful Story / Warren Buffett Success Story

« on: June 19, 2019, 09:35:53 AM »

Warren Buffett Success Story | How Warren Buffett Became The World's Richest Man | Startup Stories

71

Facebook / 14 Facebook advertising objectives you need to know

« on: June 18, 2019, 11:36:47 AM »

14 Facebook advertising objectives you need to know

1 Local Awareness
When to use it: With reduced targeting options, limited to just age, gender and radius from your business the local awareness objective really isn’t that useful.Using this objective you have two options, 1) run an ad showcasing your page or 2) run an ad linking to your website. These are the same objectives as, a Page likes or website click campaign only less effective.Avoid using a local awareness campaign and use a website clicks or page likes campaign instead.

2 Brand Awareness
When to use it: On larger scale branding campaigns where there is no specific action you want a user to take. This objective will appeal to larger businesses who can afford to run pure branding only campaigns. If you’re a small business however, almost every other objective will be produce better and more meaningful results.

3 Reach
When to use it: Similar to the brand awareness campaign objective, the reach objective is designed to show your ads to the maximum number of people in your audience.What’s great about the reach objective is that Facebook has introduced Frequency capping, meaning that you can set the minimum number of days before the same person sees your ad again.This objective is going to be particular useful when you have a small audience size and want everyone to see your ads, but now you’ll be able to control how regularly they see them thanks to the frequency capping controls.

4 Traffic .
When to use it: When you want to send people from Facebook to your website and they don’t need to take a specific action such as sign up for a guide or webinar. Best used when promoting content, particularly blog posts.

5 Engagement – Post Engagement
When to use it: If you already have an organic post which is performing above average in terms of engagement and you want to get it in front of more of your Facebook page audience or a completely new audience this is the objective for you. Additionally, use the boost post objective when you have a small audience size that requires a low daily budget, such as £1 per day, to reduce ad frequency problems.

6 Engagement – Page Likes
When to use it: If you want to build awareness for your business by increasing the number of likes on your page.

WARNING: Page likes are a topline (vanity) metric, if people don’t actually ENGAGE page likes are essentially worthless, a better objective to build awareness are content based boost post and website clicks campaigns.

7 Engagement –  Event Responses
When to use it: You can only use this objective to promote events specifically created on Facebook. Not many businesses still use events on Facebook but if you are one of the few that do, then this will allow you to get your event in front of more people.If you run events using software other than Facebook such as your own website or Eventbrite then you’ll want to choose a conversion campaign objective.

8 Engagement –  Offer Claims
When to use it: Like with the event objective, this applies only to offer posts created on Facebook. Having run both offer and website click/conversion campaigns for clients we’ve found that straight offer campaigns perform worse than website click or conversion campaigns. So, stick to website clicks or conversion campaigns if you are running a special offer on Facebook.

9 App Installs
When to use it: When you first launch an app the first 72 hours are critical and you want to get as many downloads as possible to increase your app store ranking. An app installs campaign is a great way to kick-start your downloads.

10 Video Views
When to use it: Video content is becoming more and more popular, people love it, that’s why Facebook sees over 8 billion video views every day. It’s no surprise then that video views is now an advertising objective.If you have an awesome video that you want to share with the world, you should use the video objective. It’s a relatively new objective so the cost per view is extremely low, we’ve seen views cost £0.001.



11 Lead Generation
When to use it: Lead ads simplify the mobile signup process. When someone clicks on your lead ad, a form opens with the person’s contact information automatically populated, based on the information they share with Facebook, like their name and email address.Automatically populating the contact information that people share with Facebook makes filling in the form as fast as two taps: one click on the ad to open the form and another to submit the autofilled form.The issue though is that people don’t keep their email address up-to-date from when they first signed up to Facebook. Therefore, the response rate post signup isn’t as high as when you use conversion campaigns pointing to a specific landing page where information isn’t automatically populated.Lead ads also don’t allow you to provide as much information about your offer as if you were to use a specific landing page. Therefore, for signups that require a heavier cognitive investment from someone, such as a strategy session, phone call etc a conversion campaign will have better results.

12 Conversions
When to use it: When you want to drive people from Facebook to your website to take a specific action such as signing up to a webinar, downloading a guide or purchasing a product.


13 Product Catalogue Sales
When to use it: if you are an eCommerce company and want to show specific product remarketing ads to someone after they have viewed that product on your website.

14 Store Visits
When to use it: similar to the reach people near your business objective but best used when you have multiple business locations.

Reference:https://charlielawrance.com/how-to-choose-the-right-facebook-advertising-objective/

72

Impact Investment / 25 Rules for Investing

« on: June 18, 2019, 10:28:53 AM »

25 Rules for Investing

Rule 1: Bulls, Bears Make Money, Pigs Get Slaughtered
It's essential for all traders to know when to take some off the table.

Rule 2: It's OK to Pay the Taxes.
Stop fearing the tax man and start fearing the loss man because gains can be fleeting.

Rule 3: Don't Buy All at Once
To maximize your profits, stage your buys, work your orders and try to get the best price over time.

Rule 4: Buy Damaged Stocks, Not Damaged Companies
There are no refunds on Wall Street, so do your research and focus your trades on damaged stocks rather than companies.

Rule 5: Diversify to Control Risk
If you control the downside and diversify your holdings, the upside will take care of itself.

Rule 6: Do Your Stock Homework
Before you buy any stock, it's important to research all aspects of the company.

Rule 7: No One Made a Dime by Panicking
There will always be a better time to leave the table, so it is best to avoid the fleeing masses.

Rule 8: Buy Best-of-Breed Companies
Investing in the more expensive stock is invariably worth it because you get piece of mind.

Rule 9: Defend Some Stocks, Not All
When trading gets tough, pick your favorite stocks and defend only those.

Rule 10: Bad Buys Won't Become Takeovers
Bad companies never get bids, so it's the good fundamentals you need to focus on.

Rule 11: Don't Own Too Many Names
It can be constraining, but it's better to have a few positions you know well and like.

Rule 12: Cash Is for Winners
If you don't like the market or have anything compelling to buy, it's never wrong to go with cash.

Rule 13: No Woulda, Shoulda, Couldas
This damaging emotion is destructive to the positive mindset needed to make investment decisions.

Rule 14: Expect, Don't Fear Corrections
It is not always clear when a correction will strike, so expect and be prepared for one at all times.

Rule 15: Don't Forget Bonds
It's important to watch more than stocks, and bonds are stocks' direct competition.

Rule 16: Never Subsidize Losers With Winners
Any trader stuck in this position would do well to sell sinking stocks and wait a day.

Rule 17: Check Hope at the Door
Hope is emotion, pure and simple, and trading is not a game of emotion.

Rule 18: Be Flexible
Recognize and be open to the unexpected shifts in the market because business, by nature, is dynamic, not static.

Rule 19: When the Chiefs Retreat, So Should You
High-level executives don't quit a company for personal reasons, so that is a sign something is wrong.

Rule 20: Giving Up on Value Is a Sin
If you don't have patience, think about letting someone who does run your money.

Rule 21: Be a TV Critic
Accept that what you hear on television is probably right, but no more than that.

Rule 22: Wait 30 Days After Preannouncements
Preannouncements signal ongoing weakness, wait 30 days to see if anything has gotten better before you pull the trigger to buy.

Rule 23: Beware of Wall Street Hype
Never underestimate the promotion machine because analysts get behind stocks and can keep them propelled in an up direction well beyond reason.

Rule 24: Explain Your Picks
Buying stocks is a solitary event, too solitary in fact, so always make sure you can articulate your reasoning to someone else.

Rule 25: There's Always a Bull Market
It's OK if you have to work hard to find it, just don't default to what's in bear mode because you are time-constrained or intellectually lazy.

Reference:https://www.thestreet.com/static/25-rules.html

73

Product knowledge / Product life cycle strategies

« on: June 17, 2019, 10:55:26 AM »

Product life cycle strategies

The product life cycle contains four distinct stages: introduction, growth, maturity and decline. Each stage is associated with changes in the product's marketing position. You can use various marketing strategies in each stage to try to prolong the life cycle of your products.

Product introduction strategies
Marketing strategies used in introduction stages include:

1.rapid skimming - launching the product at a high price and high promotional level
2.slow skimming - launching the product at a high price and low promotional level
3.rapid penetration - launching the product at a low price with significant promotion
4.slow penetration - launching the product at a low price and minimal promotion
5.During the introduction stage, you should aim to:

Establish a clear brand identity
1.connect with the right partners to promote your product
2.set up consumer tests, or provide samples or trials to key target markets
3.price the product or service as high as you believe you can sell it, and to reflect the quality level you are providing.
4.You could also try to limit the product or service to a specific type of consumer - being selective can boost demand. Read more about the introduction stage of a product life cycle.

Product growth strategies
Marketing strategies used in the growth stage mainly aim to increase profits. Some of the common strategies to try are:
1.Improving product quality
2.Adding new product features or support services to grow your market share
3.Enter new markets segments
4.keep pricing as high as is reasonable to keep demand and profits high
5.Increase distribution channels to cope with growing demand
6.Shifting marketing messages from product awareness to product preference
7.skimming product prices if your profits are too low.
8.Growth stage is when you should see rapidly rising sales, profits and your market share. Your strategies should seek to maximise these opportunities.

Product maturity strategies
When your sales peak, your product will enter the maturity stage. This often means that your market will be saturated and you may find that you need to change your marketing tactics to prolong the life cycle of your product. Common strategies that can help during this stage fall under one of two categories:

1.Market modification - this includes entering new market segments, redefining target markets, winning over competitor’s customers, converting non-users.
2.product modification - for example, adjusting or improving your product’s features, quality, pricing and differentiating it from other products in the marking.
3.Read more about the growth and maturity stage of a product life cycle.

Product decline strategies
During the end stages of your product, you will see declining sales and profits. This can be caused by changes in consumer preferences, technological advances and alternatives on the market. At this stage, you will have to decide what strategies to take. If you want to save money, you can:

1.Reduce your promotional expenditure on the products
2.Reduce the number of distribution outlets that sell them
3.Implement price cuts to get the customers to buy the product

Fin another use for the product
1.Maintain the product and wait for competitors to withdraw from the market first.
2.Harvest the product or service before discontinuing it
Another option is for your business to discontinue the product from your offering.

Sell the brand to another business
1.Significantly reduce the price to get rid of all the inventory
2.Many businesses find that the best strategy is to modify their product in the maturity stage to avoid entering the decline stage. Find out more about product life cycle - decline stage.

Reference:https://www.nibusinessinfo.co.uk/content/product-life-cycle-strategies

74

Entrepreneurship / What we're now seeing is The Democratization of Entrepreneurship

« on: June 17, 2019, 10:14:54 AM »

What we're now seeing is The Democratization of Entrepreneurship

What's happening today is something more profound than a change in technology. What's happening is that these seven limits to startups and innovation have been removed.

The first thing that's changed is that Consumer Internet and Genomics are Driving Innovation at scale
In the 1950's and '60's U.S. Defense and Intelligence organizations drove the pace of innovation in Silicon Valley by providing research and development dollars to universities, and defense companies built weapons systems that used the Valley's first microwave devices and semiconductor components.In the 1970's, 80's and 90's, momentum shifted to the enterprise as large businesses supported innovation in PCs, communications hardware and enterprise software. Government and the enterprise are now followers rather than leaders.Today, for hardware and software it's consumers--specifically consumer Internet companies--that are the drivers of innovation. When the product and channel are bits, adoption by 10's and 100's of millions and even billions of users can happen in years versus decades.For life sciences it was the Genentech IPO in 1980 that proved to investors that life science startups could make them a ton of money.

The second thing that's changed is that we're now Compressing the Product Development Cycle
In the 20th century startups I was part of, the time to build a first product release was measured in years as we turned out the founder's vision of what customers wanted. This meant building every possible feature the founding team envisioned into a monolithic "release" of the product.Yet time after time, after the product shipped, startups would find that customers didn't use or want most of the features. The founders were simply wrong about their assumptions about customer needs. It turns out the term "visionary founder" was usually a synonym for someone who was hallucinating. The effort that went into making all those unused features was wasted.Today startups build products differently. Instead of building the maximum number of features, founders treat their vision as a series of untested hypotheses, then get out of the building and test a minimum feature set in the shortest period of time. This lets them deliver a series of minimal viable products to customers in a fraction of the time.For products that are simply "bits" delivered over the web, a first product can be shipped in weeks rather than years.

The third thing is that Founders Need to Run the Company Longer.Today, we take for granted new mobile apps and consumer devices appearing seemingly overnight, reaching tens of millions of users--and just as quickly falling out of favor. But in the 20th century, dominated by hardware, software, and life sciences, technology swings inside an existing market happened slowly--taking years, not months. And while new markets were created (i.e. the desktop PC market), they were relatively infrequent.This meant that disposing of the founder, and the startup culture responsible for the initial innovation, didn't hurt a company's short-term or even mid-term prospects. So, almost like clockwork 20th century startups fired the innovators/founders when they scaled. A company could go public on its initial wave of innovation, then coast on its current technology for years. In this business environment, hiring a new CEO who had experience growing a company around a single technical innovation was a rational decision for venture investors.The pace of technology change in the second decade of the 21st century is relentless. It's hard to think of a hardware/software or life science technology that dominates its space for years. That means new companies face continuous disruption before their investors can cash out.To stay in business in the 21st century, startups must do three things their 20th century counterparts didn't:A company is no longer built on a single innovation. It needs to be continuously innovating--and who best to do that? The founders.To continually innovate, companies need to operate at startup speed and cycle time much longer their 20th century counterparts did. This requires retaining a startup culture for years--and who best to do that? The founders.Continuous innovation requires the imagination and courage to challenge the initial hypotheses of your current business model (channel, cost, customers, products, supply chain, etc.) This might mean competing with and if necessary killing your own products. (Think of the relentless cycle of iPod then iPhone innovation.) Professional CEOs who excel at growing existing businesses find this extremely hard. Who best to do that? The founders.

The fourth thing that's changed is that you can start a company on your laptop For Thousands Rather than Millions of Dollars Startups traditionally required millions of dollars of funding just to get their first product to customers. A company developing software would have to buy computers and license software from other companies and hire the staff to run and maintain it. A hardware startup had to spend money building prototypes and equipping a factory to manufacture the product.Today open source software has slashed the cost of software development from millions of dollars to thousands. My students think of computing power as a utility like I think of electricity. They can get to more computing power via their laptop through Amazon Web Services than existed in the entire world when I started in Silicon Valley.And for consumer hardware, no startup has to build their own factory as the costs are absorbed by offshore manufacturers. China has simply become the factory.The cost of getting the first product out the door for an Internet commerce startup has dropped by a factor of a 100 or more in the last decade. Ironically, while the cost of getting the first product out the door has plummeted, it now can take 10's or 100's of millions of dollars to scale.

The fifth change is the New Structure of how startups get funded
The plummeting cost of getting a first product to market (particularly for Internet startups) has shaken up the Venture Capital industry.Venture Capital used to be a tight club clustered around formal firms located in Silicon Valley, Boston, and New York. While those firms are still there (and getting larger), the pool of money that invests risk capital in startups has expanded, and a new class of investors has emerged.

First, Venture Capital and angel investing is no longer a U.S. or Euro-centric phenomenon. Risk capital has emerged in China, India and other countries where risk taking, innovation and liquidity are encouraged, on a scale previously only seen in the U.S.

Second, new groups of VCs, super angels, smaller than the traditional multi-hundred-million-dollar VC fund, can make small investments necessary to get a consumer Internet startup launched. These angels make lots of early bets and double-down when early results appear. (And the results do appear years earlier than in a traditional startup.)

Third,venture capital has now become Founder-friendly.A 20th century VC was likely to have an MBA or finance background. A few, like John Doerr at Kleiner Perkins and Don Valentine at Sequoia, had operating experience in a large tech company. But out of the dot-com rubble at the turn of the 21st century, new VCs entered the game--this time with startup experience. The watershed moment was in 2009 when the co-founder of Netscape, Marc Andreessen, formed a venture firm and started to invest in founders with the goal to teach them how to be CEOs for the long term. Andreessen realized that the game had changed. Continuous innovation was here to stay and only founders--not hired execs--could play and win. Founder-friendly became a competitive advantage for his firm Andreessen Horowitz. In a seller's market, other VCs adopted this "invest in the founder" strategy.

Fourth in the last decade, corporate investors and hedge funds have jumped into later stage investing with a passion. Their need to get into high-profile deals has driven late-stage valuations into unicorn territory. A unicorn is a startup with a market capitalization north of a billion dollars.What this means is that the emergence of incubators and super angels have dramatically expanded the sources of seed capital. VCs have now ceded more control to founders. Corporate investors and hedge funds have dramatically expanded the amount of money available. And the globalization of entrepreneurship means the worldwide pool of potential startups has increased at least 100-fold since the turn of this century. And today there are over 200 startups worth over a billion dollars.Change Number 6 is that Starting a Company means you no longer Act Like A Big CompanySince the turn of the century, there's been a radical shift in how startups thought of themselves. Until then investors and entrepreneurs acted like startups were simply smaller versions of large companies. Everything a large company did, a startup should do--write a business plan; hire sales, marketing, engineering; spec all the product features on day one and build everything for a big first customer ship.We now understand that's wrong. Not kind of wrong but going out of business wrong.What used to happen is you'd build the product, have a great launch event, everyone high-five the VP of Marketing for great press and then at the first board meeting ask the VP of Sales how he was doing versus the sales plan. The response was inevitably "great pipeline." (Great pipeline means no real sales.)This would continue for months, as customers weren't behaving as per the business plan. Meanwhile every other department in the company would be making their plan--meaning the company was burning cash without bringing in revenue. Finally the board would fire the VP of sales. This cycle would continue then you'd fire the VP of Marketing, then the CEO.What we've learned is that while companies execute business models, startups search for a business model. It means that unlike in big companies startups are guessing about who their customers are, what features they want, where and how they want to buy the product, how much they want to pay. We now understand that startups are just temporary organizations designed to search for a scalable and repeatable business models.We now have specific management tools to grow startups. Entrepreneurs first map their assumptions and then test these hypotheses with customers out in the field (customer development) and use an iterative and incremental development methodology (agile development) to build the product. When founders discover their assumptions are wrong, as they inevitably will, the result isn't a crisis, it's a learning event called a pivot--and an opportunity to change the business model.The result, startups now have tools that speed up the search for customers, reduce time to market and slash the cost of development. I'm glad to have been part of the team inventing the Lean Startup methodology.

Change number 7
The last one is perhaps the most profound and one students graduating today don't even recognize. And it's that Information is everywhereIn the 20th century learning the best practices of a startup CEO was limited by your coffee bandwidth. That is, you learned best practices from your board and by having coffee with other, more experienced CEOs. Today, every founder can read all there is to know about running a startup online. Incubators and accelerators like Y-Combinator have institutionalized experiential training in best practices (product/market fit, pivots, agile development, etc.); provide experienced and hands-on mentorship; and offer a growing network of founding CEOs.The result is that today's CEOs have exponentially more information than their predecessors. This is ironically part of the problem. Reading about, hearing about and learning about how to build a successful company is not the same as having done it. As we'll see, information does not mean experience, maturity or wisdom.

Reference:https://www.inc.com/steve-blank/changes-to-entrepreneurship-innovation.html

75

Partnership / Difference between Partnership and Company

« on: June 17, 2019, 09:52:54 AM »

Difference between Partnership and Company

PARTNERSHIP
Indian Partnership Act, 1932 defines Partnership as ” Partnership is a relationship between two or more persons who have agreed to share the profits of a business carried on by all partners or any one partner acting for all”. The members of the Partnership firm are called as Partners. There are different types of partners such as Active partner, Sleeping partner, Nominal partner, Minor partner, Etc.Partnership Frim is created by agreement between two or more people by registering the partnership firm with Registrar of Firms according to Indian Partnership Act, 1936.Registration of a partnership firm is very simple process and Application for registration of firm must contain the following details

✔ Name of the firm
✔ Names of the partners and their addresses
✔ location where the business is carried on.
✔ Partnership tenure between the partners
✔ The main office of the firm, etc.

COMPANY
Indian Companies Act, 2013 defines Company as ” A Company formed and registered under this Companies Act or under any previous company law”. A company is defined easily as an association of two or more persons which is formed for doing business collectively and registered with Registrar of Companies according to Indian Companies Act, 2013.There are different types of companies like One Person Company, Private company and Public Company, etc.To get registered with Registrar of Companies, the promoters are required to submit the copies of Articles of Association and Memorandum of Association which consists of various information relating to internal management and external management of the company.

The company exhibits certain special characteristics, such as
✔ It have a Separate Legal Entity
✔ It contains Common Seal under its name
✔ It has limited liability
✔ It acts as an artificial person, Etc.

Reference:http://topdifferences.com/difference-between-partnership-and-company/