Steps to Design Start-up Business Plan

Launching a business without a plan is like going on a road trip without a map or GPS to guide you. Whatever may be the type of your start-up business, you have to have a business plan in place. Its real value lies in the process of researching and thinking about your business in a systematic way. Another advantage of having a start-up plan is that, you can present it to the investors to give them a clear idea about your business.

Start-up plan is nothing but the “to-do” list of everything to start your business. Once you list out the actions that need to be taken, assign a responsible person for every action and write down the deadline by which it needs to be completed. Any task without a deadline will never get completed.

Review the following steps to write your start-up plan:

• Mission statement - This is your reason for starting your business. Maybe you want to provide a specific service that's missing in your community. Your mission statement should explain your reasoning in a few clear and effective sentences.
• Your own background and information – Add a section about yourself, mentioning your qualifications and experience.
• Employees’ information – List the names of your employees, if you have already identified them or else you may write the titles, job descriptions, the responsibilities they would be handling etc. You may also include the salaries and benefits you are planning to offer to your staff.
• Market study – This includes the description of market that you are targeting. It includes either the geographical locations or people of particular age groups.
• Competitors - Besides their name and business type, note a brief reasoning as to why each business is considered competition. End with why your business will overcome the competition and be successful.
• Partners - These would be the distributors, vendors and contractors that you may need to hire as part of your business.
• Description of your product/service - Be specific about how you plan on producing or providing the product or service, and how you will deliver it. You will also need to explain the methods you will be using to sell the product or service and what modes of marketing your will implement.
• Financial section – This includes information about your credit status, sources of funds, business expenses and projected sales and profits.

It typically takes several weeks to complete a good plan. Most of that time is spent in research and re-thinking your ideas and assumptions. Be sure to keep detailed notes on your sources of information and on the assumptions underlying your financial data.

If you need any help in launching your business, register at TheGongzuo.com for free. We have mentors and advisors to help you in every single task – from building your start-up plan to market your product/service.

Hottest Tech Start-ups in the US

Majority of the tech start-ups fail because the products or services that they offer do not create any long term value to their customers. Most don’t create any value at all. Whereas, the start-ups that have real potential for growth are those that are creating long term (20 years+) value for its clients. Most of those start-ups are the ones that are revolutionizing legacy industries like: banking, medicine, telecommunication and making it easier, cheaper and quicker.

Considering the marketable ideas that tech start-ups have brought forward, here’s the list of hottest tech start-ups for this year:

Product Hunt - With more than a billion websites now crowding the interwebs, discovering new products is a massive challenge. Product Hunt is a wildly popular online tastemaking hub that showcases the latest gadgets, games, podcasts and books. To date, Product Hunt has raised an estimated $7.1 million in venture capital.

DoorDash – It is the on-demand food delivery app that brings fresh food from local restaurants to customers in 250-plus cities throughout the U.S. and Canada. It has already raised $60 million through investments.

Boxed – An ecommerce start-up that lets consumers shop from their smartphones and laptops for groceries and other household items in bulk. Started by four friends, the young company now has a total headcount of 100 and a total investment of approximately $132 million.

Luxe Valet – It is a smartphone app for valet-parking. For an hourly rate (which varies by location), Luxe’s valets will park your car in the company’s lots. For additional fees, they can also wash your ride, put gas in it and change the oil.

Medium – When it started, “Medium” looked like only a blogging platform. But then, everyone - amateurs, marketers, politicians and journalists are welcome to publish written content of all kinds on the popular site. Medium was co-founded by former Twitter CEO. So far, company has raised $82 million in venture capital.

ClassPass – People can book fitness classes through its app-based gym membership platform. This start-up now employs some 300 people and connects a growing base of customers with exercise classes at some 3,000 boutique gyms and participating studios in 30-plus cities across the U.S., Canada, Europe and Australia. It has $84 million in venture capital.

Beepi – It’s an app to buy and sell used cars. The company is expanding steadily at a     20 per cent annual rate. It is the first company to sell cars 100 per cent online. So far, it has secured $149 million in investments.

Shyp – It is an on-demand shipping app that enables people to order a courier who will cart any item off to one of its warehouses. From there, goods are professionally packed and shipped off to their destinations. Shyp tied up a partnership with eBay, debuted several new features and brushed up its branding. Available at first in San Francisco and New York City, it also extended its package pickup reach to Los Angeles and Chicago.

Acorns – The goal of Acorns is to make investing less tedious and intimidating through automation. The smartphone app automatically invests users’ leftover change from routine credit and debit card purchases in exchange-traded funds. Acorns serve some 650,000 registered users who had opened approximately 300,000 investment accounts. Its latest funding round brings total of $32 million in venture capital.

If you think, you have a bright idea that can be turned into profitable business, TheGongzuo team is looking forward to take you ahead with your dream. We have advisors to guide you along the way; we will fund your creative idea and help you launch your business. Register today at TheGongzuo to turn your dream into reality

How to Raise $100,000 for Your Start-up Business?

Having an idea for a business is only a first step in the process. To turn the idea from a dream into a successful business venture, it requires time, energy, and of course, money. The main question most aspiring entrepreneurs face is “how much money exactly do I need?”

According to the data published by census bureau, baseline figures would be around $100,000. Entrepreneurs of all types, regardless of industry are more likely to be successful if they have adequate start-up funding.

Raising $100,000 might seem like a mountain to climb when you are just starting in the early days of your business, but it need not be that hard. Self-finance and banks are not the only options available to you. There are a few other ways to get going.

Founders must research the investor market, figure out which segments to focus on, reach out to the relevant contacts, and present a compelling solution. You can maximize your chances of fundraising success by following these four steps:

• Research - Within the IT domain, there are specialists in hardware vs. software, and further diverse areas within the software space. Some organizations only consider investing in early-stage companies (angel or seed), whereas others will filter for start-ups. Some investors may invest in 100 different companies, while the others may select only 10 and invest their funds. Considering these factors, you can evaluate the investors and have clarity on which organizations may have interest in your start-up.
• Analyze - Investors are long-term partners, and in order to develop healthy relationship, the interest needs to be common. Assessing various other factors such as their connections, experience in your niche field etc. is a great way to narrow down your choices. 
• Reach out – When you are ready with a shortlist of potential investors, convince them to meet you. Most investors are more likely to take a meeting with a founder if they have been referred by a trusted contact. So, networking is crucial to get favourable response from your target investors.
• Sell your business idea - You can maximize your chances of fundraising success by convincing investors that your start-up offers a high score. You can reinforce your idea by presenting them with your financial model and the assumptions underlying your growth estimates.

The other ways of raising funds include bank loans, venture capital, help from friends and family, personal finances such as credit cards and home equity etc.

If you have a great business idea and looking for an investor to fund your start-up project, register on TheGongzuo.com. We will introduce you to the investors who would be interested in funding your dream!

How to Start Tech Business?

With so many success stories of tech giants, budding entrepreneurs dream of creating another Google or Facebook. Before taking the leap, they should follow these suggestions:

• Have adequate knowledge - Starting a fast-growing tech business is incredibly challenging, and requires a variety of skills. The time you take for studying, allows you to explore your talents and find the one thing you really excel at. Don’t believe the myth of the college dropout who becomes successful entrepreneur. Building up a company, leading a team and sustaining a highly successful international business is hard work and requires a lot of knowledge. 
• Meet like-minded people - Spending time with ambitious and like-minded people will shape your actions. If you engage with friends or acquaintances who are developers, designers, entrepreneurs, and work for different kinds of start-ups, their experiences and knowledge will give you proper direction towards your goal. Surround yourself with mentors who are founders, CEOs, industry leaders to learn more about trends and important topics.
• Select right co-founders – For starting an IT company, you more than likely need a developer, a user interface/visual designer, one marketing person, and a finance person. With this kind of team, you can start your business. 
• Pick the right location - Depending on your new business, location does matter. If you are an Internet/software business, take care you pick a location that helps you to start. San Francisco is the number one choice for techies, but the costs of living are incredibly high and you will compete with the world’s most successful tech businesses for talent.
• Analyse your ideas carefully - Challenge every single idea with your team to the extreme. Be aware that most ideas that seem great in the first place, are either already taken or not so great once you’ve challenged them further. Finding best idea is about identifying the problems, and finding clever ways to fix them.
• Follow the trends – In technology, you have follow the trends, whether it is cloud or software-as-a-service. You want to create something that stays and adds value to people’s lives, both your customers and your employees.
• Prepare yourself to fail – Starting a tech business is hard. You will experience unbelievable lows, including running out of money, or seeing important people leaving or shutting down a business you worked so hard for. If you build a software product, you need to be prepared for downtimes or bugs.
• Focus on learning, not on earning - While it’s critical to become deeply skilled in one area of the business, the required skill-set to start and run a company is much more varied. Starting a tech business requires a strong sense for products, timing, trends and markets, which you can only acquire through experience.
• Find investors – When everything is in place, the next crucial task is to find the financers to fund your venture. You can reach out individual investors through your social contacts or approach banks. Before setting up meetings with them, you must be ready with your business plan to convince them how their money put in your business has potential to multiply.

If you are thinking on the lines of starting up your own IT company, register on TheGongzuo.com where you will get support from the mentors, advisors and investors to launch your business.

Profitable IT Business Ideas

Beyond every reasonable doubt, the advancement we are enjoying in our world today can be attributed to the advancement of technology. Technology has indeed given leverage to all aspects of the human endeavor. The technology industry is so wide and vibrant and there is still room large enough for those who are interested in the industry to come in and create their own impact. There are fantastic business ideas in this industry that an entrepreneur can successfully start and with time earn millions from.

Here are the business ideas in technology field that an entrepreneur who is interested in starting a business can choose from:

• Call centers – Designing, building and maintaining call centers is a business in the info tech industry that is profitable and thriving going by the numbers of call centers that are established in the United States. For this, you would need some IT certifications and trainings before you can successfully run this type of business. The business involves call center software applications development and installation, and hardware installation as well.
• Sale and servicing of IT equipment and machines - IT gadgets like servers, computers, fax machines, and routers et al are all machines that once in a while need to be serviced in order to enable them perform effectively and efficiently. Thus, if you have related info tech training, then you should consider going into the sale and services of IT equipment and machines. All you need to do is to be aggressive in marketing your services especially to corporate organizations and SMEs.
• Online library - You can start your own online library (e – library) and attract membership from different parts of the world. People pay registering fees and of course membership fees to make use of online libraries. If you looking towards starting a business in the info tech industry, then starting a well – equipped e – library is one of your options.
• Manufacturing computer/cell phone accessories – This is another thriving and profitable business in IT world. There is a large market for computer accessories such as laptop batteries, HDI cables, webcams, external memory drives and cell phone accessories such as earphones, batteries, chargers, Bluetooth devices etc. So, if you are looking into starting a business in tech industry, then this is one of your options.
• Developing and selling software applications – In IT arena, one of your options is to start developing and selling software applications; there is a large market for software applications. There are several smart-phone apps that are very useful for our day to day activities. With the help of web developers or smartphone app developers, your business can get rolling.
• Web designing services - Another thriving and profitable info tech related business that an entrepreneur can start is to offer web designing services. Statistics has it that there are well over 350 million active website on the internet and it is not enough to meet the demand of people visiting the internet; there are still pretty much to learn from the internet hence people are opening new websites on a regular basis.
• Blogging - It is safe to classify blogging under info tech industry simply because the internet is the major tool required to blog; blogging is all about educating or passing information to people via an internet portal. Blogging is one of the means several people all over the world are making money from the internet. Blogging is all about creating usefully and perhaps educative content for a targeted audience on the internet.
• Cloud computing - Cloud computing place emphasis on web-based applications.  It involves storing information in and retrieving it from remote but secure web-based servers, thereby allowing users to access information on the go without necessarily having to be with their office computers. There are huge profit opportunities for businesses that offer cloud-computing services.
• E-commerce - More people are now enjoying the convenience of buying things they need over the internet and having them delivered at their doorsteps—without leaving the comfort of their homes. If you have what it takes to start your own e-commerce store, then you should consider starting as soon as possible.
• 3D printing – With 3D printers, it’s possible to print the 3D model of an object from plastic, metal, or any other material. And not only can you see the output, but you will be able to touch it. Yes, that’s the next big thing in the print industry.

If you think, you have a bright idea that can be turned into profitable business, TheGongzuo team is looking forward to take you ahead with your dream. We have advisors to guide you along the way; we will fund your creative idea and help you launch your business. Register today at TheGongzuo to turn your dream into reality.