First, let’s define what we mean by “business processes.” These are essentially a series of tasks aimed at delivering activities, services, or products to either internal or external customers. When you’re in the startup phase, having well-defined business processes is critical for ensuring smooth operations. They help keep things running smoothly, and there are ten key reasons why implementing them is essential:

1. Enhancing Inbound Sales Conversion Rate:

Are your marketing and sales processes clearly defined and aligned? Startups often need help converting inbound leads. By establishing an efficient inbound sales process, like prompt follow-ups, you can significantly improve lead conversion rates.

You will need to run a report from your CRM system or product to track any inbound sales leads which have not been called within 30 mins, 60 mins, 2 hours, and 24 hours.

2. Boosting Team Productivity:

Uncertainty can hinder productivity. By mapping out major processes for each role, you can establish a productive rhythm for your team. This clarity empowers them to focus on their work and accelerates acquiring new customers.

3. Facilitating Quick Onboarding of New Hires:

Processes provide a structured approach to efficiently train new hires. Balancing training and critical tasks can be challenging in startups, but incorporating essential strategies into their training can speed up their acclimation to the role and their interactions with colleagues.

4. Accelerating Product Releases:

Efficiently managing bug fixes and product release schedules is crucial for startups. By mapping these processes and establishing decision-making criteria, you can streamline your product development cycle.

5. Optimizing Revenue Collection:

Clear agreements on billing cycles and credit terms with customers are essential. Defining billing and collection procedures and implementing them consistently can prevent disruptions to revenue flow.

6. Enhancing Staff Happiness:

Streamlining expense and holiday approval processes can alleviate unnecessary pain points for your team. By establishing clear guidelines, you can simplify administrative tasks and minimize employee frustration.

In addition, you will need to agree on the holiday form tracker and what happens with unused days. This is a very simple process to create. Here’s an example of our holiday tracker:

7. Improving Customer Onboarding:

As your startup grows, customer onboarding becomes crucial. Documenting the onboarding process and exploring automation opportunities can enhance the experience for new customers and reduce churn.

8. Enhancing Visibility and Customer Satisfaction Rating:

Effectively capturing customer feedback and analyzing top questions can provide valuable insights. Establishing key performance indicators (KPIs) and documenting customer service processes can help manage inquiries more efficiently, leading to improved customer satisfaction.

You can check out more on these here

9. Optimizing Partnership Engagement:

Strategic partners can significantly impact your startup’s revenue and market share goals. Establishing a comprehensive onboarding process for partners, including reviewing agreements and managing tasks, ensures opportunities and potential legal issues are noticed.

10. Scaling Your Organization for Growth:

Process management is crucial for startups aiming to scale effectively. Adopting process management tools can drive cost savings, revenue growth, customer satisfaction, and facilitate organizational scalability.

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Implementing effective business processes does require dedication and effort, but the rewards are significant. You can create streamlined processes by establishing clear task priorities, assigning responsibilities, and visualizing the connections between tasks. Don’t forget to explore the recommended process management tools mentioned earlier to find the best fit for your startup’s needs.

As your startup grows, you may want to consider investing in a dedicated platform to optimize your outbound operations. One such tool worth considering is TAMI, a leading data provider and market intelligence tool. It can help you size your market, identify your ideal customers, and provide means to contact them quickly. If you’d like to learn more, you can book a free meeting with a member of our team to evaluate a bespoke solution for your needs.

So, get started on implementing those business processes and watch your startup thrive!

The post 10 Key Reasons Why a Business Process is Critical for a Startup appeared first on TAMI.

CB Insights recently asked the startups of Twitter how long they could last if the company was burning money. Out of 224 respondents, 39% stated that they had less than 6 months’ worth of cash remaining to run their business. In fact, ‘running out of cash’ is considered to be one of the most common reasons why startups fail. This very real problem got me thinking about the difficulty that entrepreneurs face in setting up and running their business for the first couple of years, so I decided to share some tips on how to fund your business until your company is ready for venture capital investment.

1. Bootstrap Your Company

Tap into savings, home equity, or family loans. I know it may be risky, but you can’t expect others to invest in your company if you haven’t contributed some of your own! Savvy investors want founders to show confidence with their own funds, and they tend to favour entrepreneurs with more than “just” sweat equity in the game.

2. Sales

This is by far the best way to fund your business. The best salesperson should be the CEO; this is your company and your product/service to sell. So don’t be afraid to pick up the phone and start cold calling! I have successfully reached out to CEOs and VPs of global companies and converted this into revenue. Relying on inbound traffic can be quite an arduous process, and you could ultimately run out of money before things start to pick up. Check out lead generation services that can fill your first email campaigns or outbound sales campaigns with high-quality leads similar to ours. For example, we at TAMI provide eCommerce sales leads both for Enterprise Companies and startups.

3. Friends and Family Funding

Consider raising funds from friends and family. In Ireland, the Employment and Investment Incentive (EII) allows individual investors to obtain income tax relief on investments made in your company (subject to certification under EII). You must seek this certification directly from the Revenue Commissioner under the condition that the company has not been operating in any market for more than 7 years following your first commercial sale.

4. Sign up Strategic Partners Early On

There’s nothing sweeter than finding a supplier, distributor, or especially a customer, who stands to gain so much from your solution, that they are willing and able to help foot the bill. For example, one of our customers became a partner and now we’re seeing the green shoots of revenue coming in.

5. Banks

Debt funding is notoriously difficult to secure for startups. Find the bank in your locality that supports early-stage companies. In Ireland, a good one to consider is AIB which provides a range of services from:

a. Startup loans up to 100K at a reduced rate
b. Asset financing
c. Bank overdrafts
d. Business credit cards
e. Expertise

6. State Funding

In Ireland, there are two main types of funding:

Local Enterprise Offices (LEOs) provide a range of financial supports designed to assist with the establishment and/or growth of enterprises (limited company, individuals/sole trader, cooperatives, and partnerships) employing up to ten people.

Enterprise Ireland runs a Competitive Startup Fund (CSF), where you have the opportunity to win €50,000 in investment. This is followed by High Potential Startup Funding (HPSU) where EI can invest up to €250,000 in follow-on investment (subject to match funding by a VC or private investor).

7. Tax Refund – Research & Development Credits

This is a great way to fund your startup if you’re involved in Research and Development. The Irish Revenue reissued concessional treatment for R&D tax credits in February 2017. This concessional approach means that the Revenue, as a rule, will not seek to challenge the scientific/technical merits of any claim where the following conditions are met:

a) An Enterprise Ireland or IDA R&D grant was received in respect of a project
b) The R&D tax credit claimed in any given period is €50,000 or less (this equates to a claim containing less than €200,000 of R&D expenditure)
c) The company is a small or medium enterprise (SME)

In Ireland, the R&D tax credit regime is not being utilised to its full effect by startups or SMEs. The Department of Finance Report on Tax Expenditures in October 2016 reported that two years previous, only 24% of the repayable credit was paid to firms with fewer than 250 employees.

This regime can be invaluable to your startup, as it offers companies a 25% tax credit on expenditure on R&D in addition to the 12.5% corporation tax deduction. This 25% credit can be offset against corporation tax liabilities, or alternatively, received as a cash refund (subject to certain criteria). Find a company that can process the application for you. We use Mazars, and their services have been excellent.

8. Reduced Tax Bill – KDB

In addition to the R&D tax credit regime, it may be possible for startups to qualify for the Knowledge Development Box (KDB), a new regime effective from January 1st, 2016 that offers an effective tax rate of 6.25% on qualifying profits derived from underlying intellectual property. The KDB regime is very closely tied to the R&D tax credit regime in terms of scientific/technical qualification and, as such, availing of the R&D tax credit is also an extremely useful stepping stone to avail of the KDB.

9. Crowd Funding

You could also raise funds via cloud funding platforms; check out the company LEAF which raised over $2,000,000 in crowdfunding by allowing their customers to pre-order their product (I actually met these guys last March in Tel Aviv, and their pitch was amazing!) Here are some of the top crowdfunding companies for you to consider:

Source: http://www.crowdfunding.com/

Conclusion

Securing venture capital money is a long and slow process. Typically, VCs look for €100,000+ in monthly recurring revenue. You may be lucky, should this happen in your first year, but for many companies, this happens from year 2 onward…by which time you may have run out of money. My recommendation is to focus on sales as soon as you launch your product. If your product is not market-ready, look to bootstrap or raise funds with friends and families. State funding may appear difficult to secure, however, Enterprise Ireland and Local Enterprise Offices have a variety of funding options that range from €25K to €250K. We have found them incredibly supportive.

I wish you the very best of luck with your startup; if you need help to fill your sales funnel, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us!

The post 9 Tips on How to Fund Your Startup Until You’re VC Ready appeared first on TAMI.

Setting up a business is incredibly tough; you start off trying to be all things to all people: the CEO, Finance Director, Sales & Marketing Manager, Head of HR, the list goes on. But it takes time to build a great company (and needless to say having the right people to help you do it is a pretty big contributing factor!), and there is a certain DIY element to many of your endeavours in the beginning, be it optimising your website for SEO, understanding which CRM is better to use, how to be fully tax compliant, etc. In fact, it’s been suggested that reading blogs is one way for entrepreneurs to feel more inspired about their startup journey, with many offering helpful tips and advice on the day to day running of a small company (source).

According to Enterprise Ireland, 2018 saw a 30% increase in the number of entrepreneurs enquiring about setting up a business (more than 1,300 enquiries in total), with the Government organisation investing €23 million in Irish startups last year (source)…this means that there is a continuing appetite for entrepreneurs around the country to commercialise their innovative ideas, which is of course good news for the Irish economy!

In light of this, we wanted to highlight some of the great Irish resources out there for entrepreneurs that may be seeking tips and advice for their own business. While there are thousands of startup blogs available on the Internet, we wanted to check out the ones closer to home…and good thing we did, these blogs really are great!

Business Achievers

Business Achievers (formerly smallbusinesscan.com) is a networking hub and business portal created by Ulster Bank, to help connect entrepreneurs to industry thought leaders and generate new business opportunities. It hosts a very active blog full of wonderful insights around motivation, marketing and management (alliteration not intended!). It’s a user generated content platform, with contributors ranging from veteran CEOs to Digital Marketing Managers, Sales Directors and CFOs all over the world. It also has a regular feature called ‘Gaining Momentum’ which focuses solely on influential Irish business leaders.

Articles on Business Achievers are published every few days which makes it current and relevant to startups in Ireland. Check out these posts:

• VAT in Ireland: Top Business Tips
• Start Up Struggles: How to Cut Costs and Improve Efficiency
• Why You Need to Revisit Your Customer Segmentation Over Time
• Follow them here!
  Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook

  Startups.ie

  As mentioned on the website’s homepage, Startups.ie was established “by entrepreneurs to be a starting place for people interested in setting up their own business.” This is also actually a great resource for anyone who might be interested in learning about the wonderful talent that Ireland has to offer when it comes to enterprising ideas! Most of the articles focus on the success of small businesses here in Ireland, e.g. funding rounds, acquisitions, partnerships, etc, as well as helpful guidance for those just starting out.

  Check out these posts:

• The Most Common Mistakes New Business Owners Make
• Top Tips for Trade Marks
• Back To Marketing Basics: Getting Your Message Clear Before Anything Else
• Follow them here!
  Twitter | Facebook

  Thinkbusiness.ie

  Powered by Bank of Ireland, Thinkbusiness.ie is another great tool for startups, providing some very helpful case studies and guides on a variety of different topics that are useful to know about when setting up and running a company, including how to apply for a business loan, running a financial health check, creating a business plan template, etc. They also have an entire section dedicated to Brexit, offering advice on how to prepare for it, how to deal with any uncertainty or risks, etc.

  Check out these posts:

• Taking the Pain out of Payroll
• A Short GDPR Guide for Small Businesses
• Designing an Effective CSR Strategy
• Follow them here!
  Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook

  Dublin Globe

  Dublin Globe, a predominantly tech based publication for startups, is definitely ahead of the curve when it comes to updates on all the latest news from the Silicon Docks and beyond! They also provide market insights from around the globe, indicating future trends in different sectors. However, most of their news is centred around Irish tech companies as well as upcoming events around the country.

• Follow them here!
  Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook

  New Frontiers

  New Frontiers is an Enterprise Ireland led programme that is delivered at local level around the country through the various Institutes of Technology. The blog is a wonderful bank of information based on expert advice from Ireland’s top entrepreneurs, as well as a ‘Featured Startup’ segment focusing on a different company each month. For the most part, content contributors are members of the New Frontiers programme themselves so they are well versed in dealing with the daily struggles of running a startup. What’s also refreshing about this blog is the fact that the focus is equally distributed among startups from all over the country, not just those in Dublin and surrounding areas.

  Check out these posts:

• Lean Startup: Using Customer-Focused Development Processes
• Negotiating is Like Going into a Church
• Cork: 14 Entrepreneurs on Their Way to Success
• Follow them here!
  Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook

  Smallbusinessadvice.ie

  Based in Co. Cork, Smallbusinessadvice.ie is a non-profit, business community run programme that helps company owners overcome the challenges of the current economic climate and how it affects small businesses around Ireland. According to its website, 1,250 businesses have benefited from the service over the last 7 years. The blog is very helpful because it uses an introductory based approach to discuss business functions such as Finance and Marketing – functions that might seem daunting to those who are less familiar and only really learning about them since setting up a business.

  Check out these posts:

• Marketing Your Business – With Little or No Budget
• How to Maximise Your Company’s Social Media Presence
• The Importance of Technology in Business
• Follow them here!
  Twitter | LinkedIn

  Cube Digital

  Cube Digital is actually a Dublin based SEO agency, but their blog is mainly centred around small business growth. And although most of the articles are heavily Marketing focused, they do offer some great, actionable insights for business owners who are starting out fresh and maybe not so au fait with lovely acronyms like SEO, PPC, CTR, CPL, etc. It’s also claimed that a ‘fear of Marketing’, or an inability to effectively execute marketing plans/campaigns is a contributing factor in many startups failing…so Cube Digital’s articles may definitely be worth a read if any new business is struggling to get to grips with the ins and outs of technical SEO, content creation, or keyword density mapping!

  Check out these posts:

• How to Increase B2B Sales Leads Through Your Website
• SEO Case Study for Engineering Company
• A Beginners Guide to Google SEO
• Follow them here!
  LinkedIn

  Business & Finance

  Dubbed Ireland’s leading business media group, Business & Finance is another great resource for startup owners to sink their teeth into! There is a huge bank of information on the blog, with some really interesting sections, including CEO Q&A, Ones to Watch, and 60 Seconds With – all of which are based on Irish companies. They also feature a business person and company of the month in recognition of the wonderful talent that Ireland is lucky to have when it comes to entrepreneurship and innovation!

  Check out these posts:

• Spotlight on 2018 Irish Companies
• Staying Relevant is a Key Challenge for any CEO That’s in the Game a Long Time
• Having a Great Support System is Vital When Starting Off
• Follow them here!
  Twitter | LinkedIn | Facebook

The post 8 Great Irish Blogs for Startups to Read in 2019 appeared first on TAMI.