Hot answers tagged plan
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What you need is a Go to Market Strategy. The components of which are listed below:
Market Analysis: Redo your market analysis to make sure your target market is still valid. As a general rule, you should be monitoring your market during product development so you can react to changing needs.
Competitor Offerings: Scan the competitive landscape to see if ...
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In my opinion, even with the reduced revenue from a discount, there are several potential advantages to the yearly plan:
1) The customer commitment - you've essentially locked them up for a one year term which reduces potential churn.
2) Since you've received the payment in advance - all of the funds are available immediately and no potential ...
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and welcome to this site! :-)
Investors generally want to see that entrepreneurs are 110% committed to their business. When you pitch investors you must have one and only one pitch. So what you need to do is to research your ideas' potential thoroughly, pick one, and kill the other.
That said, Paul Graham of Y Combinator recently said that he mostly ...
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Stick to one idea and focus on it. That's what investors want and it makes sense in that you have limited resources and you should spend them in a single direction. For instance, researching the competition for two different, even related, products takes longer than for a single one.
Pick the best of the two and focus on it, both in the business plan and in ...
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Proof of viability is the key. So showing commitments to sales from customers and showing evidence that the product you want to complete is feasible (like a prototype or commitments from team members that have made a similar successful product in the past) would address those concerns.
Banks have difficult hurdles to pass as they really only want to fund ...
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There are a range of things you should think about before jumping in.
Potential Negatives:
Partner. If you have a partner, do they support you in the transition, are they prepared to take a complete change in lifestyle and in someways be with a completely different person ... You will be focused on different things, you will be driven, you will stressed ...
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First, ask yourself how stable is your stable job. I was in a similar situation, I was an attorney in an established law firm, and I struggled with myself a lot when leaving for joining a company that might not be there anymore in one year. Guess what, a flip of the economy and my ex-employer fired 30 attorneys in one day. No advance notice. Finance does not ...
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I'd say go for both, and maybe even quarterly, if it's not a hassle, but the responses you'll get will depend on the nature of your service and the price point.
For instance, I use some business software with a support license that I could pay monthly, quarterly, or annually. Since there's no question of me wanting to drop it, and the annual cost isn't too ...
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In my opinion, I would offer monthly subscriptions as the default. Don't even bother offering a yearly discount. If you go yearly, you are limiting your options in the future to expand your customer base.
Monthly Pros
Less risk for the customer could lead to more conversion
Ability to offer a free trial, which is no risk for the customer and could convert ...
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I used to offer an annual plan option. I got rid of it, though customers can still opt into it by contacting me. Why? Two reasons:
It's giving away money. Offering a discount for annual payment leaves money on the table. Of course, you don't have to offer a discounted rate.
Attrition rate is higher. I probably lose twice as many customers to attrition on ...
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In my dealings with Business Plans and proposals, I've found that investors and much appropriate audiences will still like to see that you realize you're not going to be generating revenue during development stages. The proverbial 'they' will look at this information and use it to evaluate whether they believe the development timeline is appropriate in ...
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I never choose the yearly option unless it's a domain name of which 1 year is the minimum. You're saving money on a yearly plan, but you have to front more cash upfront and a lot of people can't afford to pay large amounts of cash upfront even if they're getting a discount in comparison to the monthly plan.
I pay by the month because it's the most sensible ...
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You are in trouble: if your success is 100% dependent on your potential partner, then your partner has all the leverage. If they say NO, you are dead, correct? So they can ask for anything they want from you.
The real question is whether you even have anything of value to them. Why should they be interested? You think they'll make more money thanks to you? ...
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I think you should consider offering a one day pass for free. People tend to be very relucant to pay for something they can't see. If they can see your product for a day, and see the value of the product, they will be that much more willing to pay.
A lot of companies use this strategy, and ask for the user's creditcard information up front. They can cancel ...
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Consider offering a free product to increase the size of your total funnel.
Totally agree with SteveD's point, the LTV of annual subs tends to be different than the life-time value of monthly subs.
Consider highlighting the annual option at a discount but also offering a monthly option.
Watch out for the paradox of choice. I tend to disagree with ...
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In my opinion the value of business plan style documents is that they make you think about all the different issues. I think you will get value from identifying your risks and how you will mitigate them, making it a formal plan I think is less valuable particularly for startups where you are likely to pivot regularly and your documents may quickly become ...
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I agree that focusing on one thing when you have limited resources, energy and time is a good principle, but you don't say how complementary the two activities are. I'm working currently on a suite of products/services that are highly complementary, but because it's only me doing the work, I obviously can only finish one at a time. Once everything is in ...
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I will answer absolutely yes. But "plan" to me is a process and the information created at the end of that process no matter what final form it takes. It could be a 100 page marketing plan, a one-page executive summary or everything in your head. It can literally be a month long, around the clock effort or a half day working session or even a couple hours at ...
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You don't need a 'formal' marketing plan, but you do need to have a plan of action. Doing nothing but allowing google to index your site will get you nowhere.
There are many good books on this subject. Many have been mentioned on this site, if you search for 'marketing books'. My greatest discovery in marketing, is that the best marketing strategy is not ...
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Ideas really aren't worth anything. Sorry, but there it is.
Anyone funding you is going to look for evidence of your credibility, compatibility and commitment. Your job is to demonstrate each of those three.
Credibility - what can you say with authority about the problem you propose to solve, the gap in the market you've identified? How do you prove your ...
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I recently wrote this article as an intro to a 15 page guide on How to Secure Angel Investor Funding. This guide is available for free on my blog, www.theexecutiveplan.com
According to a report by the Angel Capital Education Foundation (ACEF) only between 1 and 4% of entrepreneurs that apply for angel investment funding will make it through this process ...
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