Most Cost-Effective Ways to Grow a Startup

Success in entrepreneurship can be elusive. European startups, in particular, have fallen behind startup hubs across the pond like Silicon Valley or in various Asian cities like Tokyo and Seoul. However, the scales are starting to shift as European startup founders are beginning to drive up investments and support. Starting in 2019, European startups have earned over Beyond gaining financial investment capital, it will take resiliency, adaptability, and awareness on the part of the founder/s, who must also implement cost-effective ways to grow their startup. Some of the best measures to succeed are as follows:

Focus on Customer Experience

You’ll need to retain existing customers and find new ones, and a great way to do both is by providing excellent customer experience (CX). Recently, Customer Think found that the customer experience starts before the customer’s initial visit to the store, both virtually or in-person. This much is evident in UK retail stores that gave expert information and advice for potential customers remotely. 70% of these customers ended up making purchases. Tellingly, consumers appreciate great and frictionless experiences, and this underscores why you must focus on CX if you want to scale.

You can provide excellent CX even on a shoestring budget. Simple things like remembering a customer’s name, giving a smile or cheerful greeting, attending to clients’ needs promptly, and resolving issues immediately can help enhance your startup’s CX. In other words, strive to create a welcoming environment that will entice customers to do business with you again. In doing so, those same customers will spread the word – something that is referred to as word of mouth marketing.

Outsource Digital Marketing

Hackernoon explains that digital marketing helps in driving customer engagement, identifying consumer behaviour, building brand awareness, and increasing online visibility. And already helped startups like Tipple and Airtasker scale. But Ayima Kickstart notes that digital marketing comes with challenges, the biggest of which are the lack of technical know-how and the scarcity of optimised content. Not to mention, digital marketing can be costly, with SEO campaigns, in particular, being one of the most expensive aspects.

You can keep costs down by outsourcing your startup’s digital marketing. Digital marketers nowadays offer affordable packages that will cover all your digital marketing needs, like providing technical knowledge in SEO, crafting relevant content backed by market research, developing links to high-quality websites (to get yours to rank naturally in searches), and recommending ways to improve your online presence. And by outsourcing, there’ll be no additional expense in payroll and benefits, thus lowering the long-term costs.

Explore Joint Venture Partnerships

Forging partnerships is good for business as it expands your network of potential customers, suppliers, business partners, outsourcing talent, and venture capitalists. It also gives you a partner to share marketing costs with, which will then lower your startup’s expenses.

To find a venture partner, look for two to three startups within the same industry who are serving the same end-users. When you find them, pitch your collaboration idea, making sure that you explain in-depth the reason you want the partnership and your plans to make it work. Outline what’s in it for your potential partners, so you can entice them to sign up. Then, you and your partners need to work together to make the partnership work well.

Get Support — for Free!

In a World Economic Forum write-up on pandemic business management, entrepreneurs Marc Penzel and JF Gauthier emphasise how getting government support is key to business growth. And there is plenty of support going around, especially after the pandemic hit. There have been grants and zero-interest loans allocated for businesses worldwide. There are also employment support schemes such as the German program, Kurzarbeit (shorter work-time), which lets employers furlough workers part-time. Despite reduced working time and pay, the German government covers up to 67% of a worker’s lost wages for up to a year. Other countries like Austria also employ a similar program, covering up to 90% of lost pay.

The key is to research these support programs and apply for whatever is relevant for your business. This way, you can get funding for expansion, reimbursement for employee training, and opportunities to improve your income. Additionally, look to peruse government resources on improving cash flow, upskilling staff, enabling the flow of credit, and getting additional tax support.

As you explore the given suggestions, make sure that you are growing as a business owner, too, so you can better handle the challenges and come up with innovative strategies. One thing that will lead to self-improvement is reading, and you can start by reading books such as How to Become a Business Angel and Engineering Your Startup.

Remember: Many successful CEOs read at least one book a week, partly because they enjoy it but also to continue learning. So, check out the articles on the Business Angel Institute blog as well for more tips on growing your startup, getting investment support, and more.