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The process of converting an idea to launch can be a very difficult and expensive process for entrepreneurs. Adeo Ressi, founder of TheFunded and startup accelerator, Founder Institute, has a ten step plan to help all entrepreneurs.

According to Ressi, even though there is no foolproof recipe for every launch, his plan will help you to get a business off the ground for less than $2,000.

Ressi presented the program at the Founder Institute’s Boston location. This plan includes a few steps where you secure your startup’s online identity, enhance your appearance of legitimacy, understand your startup’s priorities and target consumer, and finally, get it to the point of a rough web launch.

Below is a bullet point summary of Ressi’s ten steps to launch-

1. Get your domain and e-mail working: “When you register your name, you should register the misspellings as a .com, you should register the primary and the .net or .org or it will be sold back to you for thousands of dollars later…”
Approximate cost: $160

2. Produce some mock-ups: “You want to show the key functionality that you’re trying to bring to the marketplace…You just need three sort of pivotal experience screens that will demonstrate your core idea or three…mock-ups of the physical product…you’re trying to capture how it will be done.”
Approximate cost: Free

3. Logo and materials: “Get a good looking logo so at least you look legitimate…” says Ressi who recommends 99designs. After you pick the winning design, “you contact him [the designer] offline, you say I want you to do my business cards, I want you to do my Power Point backup and I want you to do my mock-ups. Now for not so much money you’re getting everything you need to appear somewhat legitimate to the world.”
Approximate cost: $750

4. Pitch deck: “You always want to have a pitch deck; even if it’s bad…you need something to start with to go on that refining path.”
Approximate cost: Free

5. Create a landing page: Ressi recommends Unbounce.com, which is a drag and drop landing page.
Approximate cost: $60/year after free trial

6. Create a company blog: “I recommend doing blog.yourcompany.com…it keeps it in a consistent place as your company scales…You want to be posting on your blog, at this phase, one or two times a week.”
Approximate cost: Free

7. Test marketing: “First thing I strongly recommend is immediately test marketing using Facebook and Google ads. Not so much for the value of driving people to your bullsh*t website, but to understand what messages resonate with your target audience and then so you can then refine your marketing messages.”
Approximate cost: $250

8. Survey customers: “So now you’ve got these leads coming in, survey them… you want to understand, the demographics, who are they. You want to clarify what the pain points, like why did they sign up, were they just stupid and duped into it or did they really feel that something was valuable and what was it that they find most valuable.”
Approximate cost: $200

9. Create a sticky note roadmap: Write all of your company’s features on separate sticky notes and then group them in logical buckets. “What I do, is I put on the left side I put the most important group and then at the top, the most important features. So on the top left is the most important thing I have to do…When you have that roadmap in front of you, you can sort of visualize the one thing that flows through everything and usually there’s an unknown around that.”
Approximate cost: $100

10. Ghetto launch. Test the unknown. “Whatever you can find that can test out your core stuff that’s free…Identify the metrics, collect the data and validate…”
Approximate cost: $250

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The Business Book Bestseller List

This list includes some of the bestsellers in business category. A must read for every entrepreneur, owners of startups and managers.

1. The Why of Work by David Ulrich; McGraw-Hill

How leaders can influence whether workers perceive their work as meaningful and why that is so important.

2. Reengineering Health Care by Jim Champy, Harry Greenspun; FT Press

Shows how reengineering methodology should be applied to health care, both within individual companies and throughout the entire system.

3. Retirementology by Gregory Salsbury; FT Press

Guide to helping Baby Boomers think through their plans for living, saving and spending.

4. Inside Every Woman by Vickie L Milazzo; John Wiley & Sons

Vickie Milazzo discusses the obstacles she and other women overcame on their paths to success.

5. Rich Dad’s Conspiracy of the Rich by Robert T Kiyosaki; Business Plus

A mix of comments from readers of Robert T. Kiyosaki’s website combined with his insight and commentary.

6. Click by Ori Brafman, Rom Brafman; Broadway Business

Investigation of the forces behind what makes us click with certain people.

7. Six Pixels of Separation by Mitch Joel; Business Plus

Reveals the inner secrets highly successful Internet capitalists use to expand business and to reach global audiences.

8. HR Transformation by Dave Ulrich, Justin Allen, Wayne Brockbank; McGraw-Hill

Step-by-step guidance for transforming HR departments to meet the unique strategic needs of businesses of the future.

9. The Power of Pull by John Hagel, Lang Davison, John Seely Brown; Basic Books

How the power of pull can draw out the best in people and institutions by connecting them in ways that increase understanding and effectiveness

10. Keep Swinging by Jay Myers, Darren Dahl; Morgan James Publishing

Lessons from an Inc 500 company on overcoming adversity and achieving small business success.

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There are more than 50,000 Android Apps are available. So, how do you find out which ones you need? Don’t worry, we have found them out for you.

These five business apps for Android phones are very useful for your business. They provide unique and very useful features for businesses. These apps can help you to do more with your mobile phone running on Android. You can get adequate functionality in situations like when you are waiting for your car, train or flight etc.

1. DataViz Documents to Go: Free Reader, $14.99 full version

This is a mobile office suite. This can be a handy addition to your Smartphone. Documents to Go allows you to view Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Adobe PDF files on your Android device with the free version. With the paid version, you can view, edit, and create Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files and view Adobe PDF files.

So, you can make changes to your documents and proposals, slideshow, spreadsheet on the go. It’s possible to access your files and modify them even when you are in the elevator or taking the escalators or grabbing a coffee at Starbucks.

Before a big meeting with your client or even with your boss, you can change the contents within seconds. You can also send them as attachments in a mail.

2. PWN Document Scanner: Free trial, $3.98 full version

Suppose you are in a meeting and you need a few copies of the documents or you needed to have the soft copy of something on the whiteboard. Your laptop cannot scan documents. What do you do|? DO you run to the photocopier downstairs for getting the pages photocopied? No.

There is an Android app that can help you. Document Scanner can scan any document or photo with your phone’s camera. It will allow you to save it, convert it to a PDF, then e-mail it or upload it to Google Docs for sharing and storage.

You can scan as many numbers of documents you want. And, if you’re at a conference or seminar where all the notes are posted on a whiteboard, you can also scan the board and save the notes on your phone.

3. Big in Japan ShopSavvy 3.5.5: Free

If you are looking for the best deals on computer equipment, communications products, office supplies, office furniture, and even paper consumables, then this app can save you lots of time.

You just need to use the phone’s camera to scan the barcode (or manually enter the barcode numbers on your keypad) of the products you need. ShopSavvy will take those barcodes and will search local and online vendors for the best prices. You can view the reviews of the products ShopSavvy recommends. You can order directly from your Smartphone. You can even create price alerts that ping you when the products go on sale.

4. Flaviu Negrean Talk to Me: Free

If your business deals with people of different countries (employees, clients, consultants) and you need to use different languages with them and you do not know these languages, then it may create a problem for you. It’s not possible to deal with clients without knowing the language they understand.

One Android app can help you here. Try a translator application such as Talk To Me. This app uses Google Voice Recognition, Translate, and Text-to-Speech to translate among English, Spanish, French, Italian, German, Chinese, and Japanese.

You can simply speak into the phone and the phone talks back in the selected language. If you have this app, you do not need to attend any language class, buy Rosetta Stone languages teaching applications; do not have to take a dictionary with you all the time.

5. Google Voice: Free, except for international calls

You can get a single phone number and forward all your phones–home, work, cell, and others–to the single Google phone number.  You can manage the single phone number through a web-based application similar to Gmail.

Google Voice could save companies and their customers’ time and effort, and it’s free for all domestic calls. It can save lots of money. International calls are charged according to a fee structure on the Google Voice website.

How to use it?

You can get a single Google phone number. Give your phone numbers to your clients, associates, and employee and forward them all to your Google phone number. When someone calls you, you can pick the call from the Google phone number.

Any voicemails that you get are transcribed to text and sent to your e-mail address. You can also listen to voicemail before answering the phone, host conference calling, call screening, call blocking annoying telemarketers, and check call history.

You also get the Mobile App, which will reduce mobile phone service costs as you will need to pay to send and receive text messages. It’s free.  Check Google Voice site for more information about this application.

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It is possible to build an online business from your home. Home based online businesses have been tried and tested for a long time and entrepreneurs have shown that it is possible to build an online business right from your home.

Many people often wonder how to start and grow an online business. If you follow the following eight steps, you are sure to be successful in building an online business.

Step 1: Find a need and fill it

The most important thing is that if you want to succeed as an online business, you need to find a need and fill it. Those businesses which are able to fulfill a need are the one which are successful. It is important to build something to fulfill a need rather than building something with lot many features that doesn’t fulfill any existing need. People will buy those things which fulfill their needs rather than buying something with many excellent features.

Your product should be able to solve a common problem of the people. People should be searching for a solution of a problem of their and your product should be able to solve the problem, if you want to make sales.

How do you research your market? Here are some easy steps for researching your market:

• Visiting online forums is a good way to find brilliant ideas from the questions people ask and the problems they discuss
• It is also important to find out the keywords people are using to search for a solution
• It is also very important to check your potential competitors and the solutions they are offering

Step 2: Write sales copy that sells

If you want to sell something, you need to have a sales copy that’ll motivate your readers to buy your product. Even if you have a great product but your sales copy is not able to motivate your readers to buy the product, you will not have any sale. Many average products also do extremely well in the market due to a very good sales copy that is created to sale things.

Your sales copy is the marketing piece for your products and services, which will allow you to funnel your readers to the final sales step. The headlines that you use in your sales copy are very important in making sales. What can you do to write a sales copy that sells?

• Arouse interest with a compelling headline
• Talk about the problem your product can solve
• Show your trustworthiness
• Testimonials are very important in your sales copy
• Talk about the benefits and not the features
• Offer a guarantee.
• Your sales copy should be a able create a need

Step 3: Design and build your website

If you want to build an online business, you need to have your own website. Whether you develop it yourself or get it developed by a developer, it’s up to you, but you need to have an attractive website with easy navigation. Your website should be very simple and easy-to-use and should focus on selling the product.

Some tips will help you here-

• Use a font that is simple and plain
• The navigation should be clear and easy
• Use of images, videos, audios and graphics are good if they help you in conveying a message
• Collect email addresses of your visitors with the help of an opt in form

Step 4: Use search engines to drive targeted buyers to your site

Search engine optimization of your site is very important because search engines are the biggest source of traffic for your website and business. Search engines get you 75-85% of the total traffic.

If your website is totally ne, then you should use pay-per-click advertising. There are 2 benefits of using such advertising-

• Your ads will show up on search pages immediately
• You can test various keywords, headlines, prices and selling approaches

However, search engine optimization is very much necessary because it will help you to get in the first few ages of the search engines.

Step 5: Establish an expert reputation for yourself to drive even more traffic to your site

People come to experts to find solutions to their problems. People like to go to someone who is known as experts rather than experimenting with someone unknown.

To build your reputation, you will have to offer different types of resources to your visitors. They should find everything about a niche topic in your blog or site. Your site should have very high quality content. To become a known figure to become an expert in the industry, you can offer free content (articles, videos or other useful information) and distribute the content through online article directories and social media sites, create “send to a friend” links on your site’s content and participate and talk in forums and social networking sites where your target customers visit often.

Step 6: Use the power of e-mail marketing to keep in touch with your visitors and turn them into buyers

Building an opt-in list has many advantages. It can create an ongoing business for you. Email marketing can be great way to get more readers and prospects which can be turned into buyers of your products and products you are promoting.

It allows you to-

• Create a lifelong relationship with your readers and buyers
• The response is 100 percent measurable
• Email marketing is cost effective and economical
• You can easily automate email marketing

Step 7: Increase your income through back-end sales and upselling

It is economical to sell to repeat buyers. About 36% of the people who bought from you in the past would buy from you again if you follow up. This is why it is possible to upsell and back-end sell products and services to your existing customers. When you try to sell some products to your existing customers, it will cost you less than a fresh lead.

So how can you get your buyers to buy again?

• You should offer products that complement their original purchase
• You can also offer them coupons or rebates for the next buying
• You can also offer other related products on your “thank you” page, which is shown after they purchase something from you

Step 8: Start an affiliate program to maximize your sales and revenue

When you have an established business, you can start your own affiliate program. Your affiliates will promote your products for a commission. This will open up multiple revenue streams for you. Why should you go for it? An affiliate program is a simple, low-maintenance way to grow your business. You just need to set up the program once. After that all you need to do is to share your marketing materials with your affiliates and pay them for making sales.

It saves your money on advertising, marketing and managing sales people of your own. They will advertise for you and you will pay a commission only when they make a sale.

New business owners- strictly follow these steps for sure success.

People who have been in the business for some time now can review the steps and make their adjustments. A review will help you to find out what you are missing in the final success process.

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There are many basic online tools which will help you to grow your business.

Do you think you’re doing everything possible to grow your business? Check again.

Many small businesses can take advantage of cheap (or even completely free) online tools but most of them are not taking it. In a recent Citibank small business survey, it has been found that small businesses are not using all the possible online tools available to them. In the survey Citibank asked 552 executives at companies that posted revenue of more than $100,000, and employed 100 or fewer workers across the U.S. Among the respondents, about half (47 percent) don’t believe that Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are of value to their business. Twenty one (21) percent believe that these sites are for personal use. About 18 percent acknowledge their ignorance about the use of the sites.

Younger executives of the companies are more likely to know about the social media sites. However, the survey found out that about 27 percent of those business owners under age 45 had used Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter in the past year. About 16 percent of business owners over age 45 used these sites.

Other Unused Tools

40 % small businesses surveyed don’t have a website

62% don’t send marketing e-mails to promote their business and

84 percent haven’t engaged in e-commerce.

However, 74 percent of the companies who have a website, say it’s an effective way to bring in business.

Online tools can provide great marketing and communication power to small business, provided they harness the power offered by social media. Even the basic online tools, such as email marketing, can drive their sales. Other methods of online marketing including online ads, search engine optimization can also help in a great way to get more traffic, increase customers and grow small businesses.

What do you find to be the best online tool to promote your business?

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It is difficult to start a business without money. Many people believe, and it is true that, for starting a business you need to have good amount of money. However, there are some businesses that you can start with a very low investment. There are businesses that you can start with just $100 or less. You can start your business and get going with such a low investment. Here, we provide you information about some low-cost startups that you can start right away.

Blogging

Businesses and other organizations have their own blogs. Now, everybody’s into blogging. But, blogging can also be a business. It is possible to blog for a living.  Blogging as a business will depend on your capability of creating very good content and attracting more and more traffic to your blog. Based on the quality of your content, people will visit your blog. The more traffic you get, the more money you can make.  The cost of running a blog is minimal, and your profits can be huge.  Startup Cost: As low as $50

Consulting

If you are an expert in a particular subject, you can start a consulting business. In this business, people will be eager to pay you for getting your expert advice. If you want to be successful at consulting, you’ll have to put in lots of hard work and discipline. However, you’ll also need good networking skills to make it a success. You’ll need good clothes, good business cards, slick brochures and a good website to attract more clients. Startup Cost: As low as $100

Writing/Editing Service

You need nothing except your writing skills. If you have it, you can start a writing/editing service within days. You’ll need good writing skills, impeccable grammar and spelling knowledge. If you have these skills, you can start your own writing business and start making a living as a freelance writer or editor.   Along with various freelance jobs offering websites, Craigslist will help you to get work. Your startup costs can actually be zero if you have a computer and Internet connection. Startup Cost: As low as $0

Event Planning

If you like working outside, meeting people and hosting parties, then you can start an event planning business right from your home. You need to have good people skills along with knowledge about local and locality. The client pays for your services along with the cost of the venue and other events. The overhead is very low.  You’ll need some good, attractive business cards, a good-looking website to start this business. You need to be able to work under pressure, enjoy pleasing your clients and love working outside then this business is for you.  Startup Cost: As low as $100

Professional Organizer

Professional organizer are very much in demand because people, families and businesses always need someone to help them getting organized. If you are a born organizers and you like to organize everything, then this business is for you. There is possibility of specializing in small-to-medium businesses, home offices, or households or combining one or more of them.  There are many more opportunities for professional organizers. Referral and relationships can help you to get work and do better. It is possible to get started with no money!  Startup Cost: As low as $0

Tax Preparer

You do not have to be an accountant to do people’s taxes. You don’t even need a license. If you know how to correctly fill a tax form and are aware of the ever-changing tax laws, you can start your business as a tax preparer. You can have some training before you start out. Using networking and free ad networks you can get work and grow your business. Startup Cost: As low as $50

Virtual Assistant

Virtual assistant business is a very profitable and attractive business that you can start today. The scope and opportunity for a virtual assistant business is excellent. More and more businesses and individuals are hiring virtual assistants for their work. To start a virtual assistant business, you will need to have good general office skills, written communication abilities, and the ability to multitask. Startup Cost: As low as $50

Professional Mediator

If you are a born peacemaker and you love to mediate between two fighting parties, then this is you’re your business?  You will need neutrality and disinterest as virtues to shine in this business. You will find people and businesses as clients who want to avoid costly arbitration and litigation. It is possible to charge an average of $80-$100 per hour for your services. You do not need any certification or licensing for this. You’ll need to be comfortable networking with lawyers and others in the legal community.  Startup Cost: As low as $100

Fund Raiser

Many organizations and businesses may require funds at different points of time. Then they will hire your service as a fundraiser. Fundraising business needs very good people skills and marketing talent. Most of the clients will be from charities and nonprofit organizations. Your clients will hire you for raising funds and donations for them. You should be able to market well, present yourself as trustworthy to do well in this business. You can charge per hour or can get a percentage of the funds you raise. Startup Cost: As low as $100

Pet Waste Removal

Many people will shy away from this one. People don’t like to handle poop themselves, and so they are happy paying someone else to do it. If you have transportation and some basic tools, you can start this business immediately and without any money. You can use your vehicle to market your services. Flyers and going door-to-door are other good ideas. Startup Cost: As low as $50

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