Category: Entrepreneurs

Estonia is on its way to becoming the most-developed digital country in the world and therefore a good destination for start-ups that want to operate online.

When thinking of Estonia, it might come to your mind that it’s close to Russia, has a medieval capital city that is also a UNESCO world heritage or that it is one of the least densely populated countries in Europe. But the small Baltic country has much more to offer than that. In fact, it is often referred to as the world’s first digital nation and has become dependent on the internet. Estonians have evolved into a digital community that does their taxes without leaving the house, votes for an election through an app and looks at their health record online. The government has made 90 percent of all its services available on the internet and they can be accessed simply with an ID-card and a personal password.

The government started the project e-Estonia in the late 1990s when they decided that every school in the country should have access to the internet. Since then, school kids learn how to program computers by the early age of seven. Just a few years later, in 2000, the government declared that the Internet is a human right and they started to make it available everywhere in the country, even in rural areas.

Since Estonia a digital nation, it is easy to start a business in the country even without being physically there. Since 2014, it is possible to become an e-Resident of Estonia simply by applying for it online. That doesn’t mean you are entitled to live in Estonia, nor does it give you any social rights that local Estonians have. But after picking up your ID-card, you are allowed to bank in Estonia and to start an online business that is registered in the country. This should not be seen as a way to avoid taxes in your home country, but as a great opportunity for digital nomads, who like to enjoy the freedom of living anywhere in the world.

Running a company in the EU can open up a whole new market, especially for small manufacturers, that are actually based somewhere else. When running a company from a digital nation like Estonia, you want to make sure that your business fits into the modern standards of the country. Therefore, you should have an eye on the latest trends in eCommerce and adapt your website accordingly. While customer service can be improved by implementing a chatbot to your webshop, using a production scheduling software can help you to manage your manufacturing when your business starts growing after being introduced to a new market. Keep that in mind and improve your website before starting to sell from Estonia.

Countries like Estonia show that nations can be flexible in the way they manage their borders to suit the digital age. By giving people the option of becoming a digital resident, the country opens its economy to a worldwide audience and is already seeing the results: It has 31 start-ups per 100.000 inhabitants, which places the country third in Europe.

Setting up your business for victory is an important part of becoming a successful entrepreneur. Your business model could be flawless and your clients or customers banging down your door, but they may get cold feet if they believe you are disorganized and unreliable. There are a number of ways to stave off these suspicions by getting your ducks in a row from the very beginning. A few things to begin thinking about early are:

• How will you communicate with any future employees or potential clients?
• What will you be using to enhance your company’s brand in the age of social media?
• Where will you track ongoing projects and break down tasks?
• How will you manage all of the necessary documents to go hand in hand with running a business?

Communication

Depending on your tech savviness, you may already know that there are communities out there for people like you to join. Even if your company is just you, Slack is a great place to converse with similar minded people in pre-existing groups that could be spread out all over the world. Another way to up your communication game is to start thinking about security. Your information, as well as your clients and customers, could be communicated via the phone and it may be cheaper than relying on your personal cell phone to get some outside help. 8×8’s VoIP service provides many different calling abilities (long distance, international, etc…) with security you can trust.

Branding

Creating a voice for a company sometimes falls by the wayside. In this day and age, getting your company’s name and brand out there as early as possible is an important aspect of building a business. Websites like 99 designs help businesses get started with their branding by learning about what you’ll be doing and who your client or customer base will be and beginning the design process. It’s important to find a company that works with you and doesn’t just produce run of the mill graphics or websites. In the process of building a brand, some folks can find themselves in a bit of trouble for using images from the internet. It’s important to find images that aren’t copyrighted so a stock photo site is a good website to have bookmarked. While there are many such sites, Pixabay has a wide array of free photos with some paid suggestions as well.

Project Planning

A large part of building a business will be laying out what tasks need to be accomplished, who has ownership of those tasks, and what their priority is when stacked against other tasks. Using something other than a written to-do list can be beneficial, especially when it comes to long-term planning and deciding priority. There are a number of such programs that are available, one of the easiest and most simple to use being Trello. With very minimal set up, all the foreseeable projects can be mapped out. Also, while being easy to get started with, Trello has some more robust features that can allow for more in-depth project management.

Document Management

Every business, from the smallest Mom-and-Pop craft store to a big box provider, has documents that need to be maintained, and at times collaborated on. Document management systems play an important role not only in maintaining proper documents, but also in office security. Without a system in place, sensitive information could be at risk. Applications like Google Docs or DropBox allow the kind of flexibility in managing a wealth of different kinds of documents (word documents, PDFs, spreadsheets, presentations, etc), while keeping them backed up and secure in the cloud.

Deciding what tools to use for a business can be a daunting task, but it’s key to remember that nothing is set in stone. Even if you’ve been using the same platform for 10 years, it can be a great boost for your business to explore other options that may meet your needs even better than your current suite of tools. That being said, finding “the best new thing” can be distracting and sometimes unnecessary, but weighing the benefits and risks can help make any decision more clear.

Business is no longer just about profit generation or plain long-term sustenance. Nowadays, many enterprises, including the small and medium scale ones, genuinely express their concern for the environment and society at large and consequently create sustainability projects. Consumers more likely patronize environmentally- and socially-conscious companies. Increased patronage translates to increased sales.

Yet the capacity to craft sustainability strategy is as relevant as the capacity to maintain it. While the intention is noble, small entrepreneurs are sometimes forced to discard the proposed or the initially launched business sustainability projects because of budget constraints or project mismanagement. But this should not be the case. There are many ways to maintain and even improve the sustainable projects over the long run.

Define sustainability the right way.

Small entrepreneurs, carried away by the ongoing go-green and go-social trends, may hastily jump into the available social or environmental project. A shipping company, for example, should not just engage in a feeding program for children only because the rival company has held a successful feeding activity for the undernourished. While this is a great initiative, a sustainability program should at least be aligned with the business operations or the company core values. After all, sustainability is relative. It can mean reduction of plastic containers and it can also refer to less CO2 emission and more education programs for the local residents. A shipping company, therefore, can be better off raising coastal or roadside cleanups and a long-term ocean protection campaign. This is a more practical approach to maintaining a sustainability project. Since it is closer to the nature of the business, it becomes more of a natural response to the environmental need, rather than an obligation or an added expense.

Scale your project.

Sustainability projects do not need to be grand; they only have to be effective. In other words, there is no right scope for a sustainability project. For small entrepreneurs, scaling the project to a level that is financially and operationally doable would be a good move. As mentioned, sustainable measures hinged on the company core values or operations are ideal because they translate to a convenient application. For instance, a distribution company can monitor their monthly or yearly consumption of fuel and adopt new strategies to reduce the previous month’s or year’s average consumption. In Melbourne, many start-ups and small to medium enterprises choose to outsource the distribution of their goods via logistics companies. This is not only cost-effective but also environmentally friendly, contributing to less carbon footprint.

Over time as the business expands, sustainability projects also expand. There will even come a time when a person entirely dedicated to the sustainability aspect of the business is already needed. Indeed, the key here is to think big, yet start small.

Keep a baseline.

Business owners can easily get lost in the process of creating significant changes for the society. This is why keeping a baseline data and setting a deadline will prove to be extremely useful. Knowing how many tons of plastics had been recycled since the start of the project or liters of gasoline saved since the shift to outsourced distribution companies will increase the motivation of small entrepreneurs. While not everything can be quantified (e.g., the joy in a child’s heart after completing a scholarship raised by your company), it is still best to impose quantitative measures even as supplementary data so as to measure productivity.

Be creative with concepts.

There are many ways for a business to be environmentally- or socially-engaged. The sky is definitely the limit when it comes to sustainable concepts. A consulting firm can raise free livelihood seminars. A furniture company can plant trees. A shopping center can shift to biodegradable plastics or introduce eco-friendly bags. And the great news is that the sustainability measure does not have to incur costs. A business can conduct a fund-raising campaign for a cancer patient and it already is a social cause which the customers will advocate.

Connect to the audience.

Informing the public about the social projects undertaken by the company is more than just publicity. It is about employer branding, which is critical to business growth. With the advent of digital technology, small entrepreneurs are now presented with several options that have a wider reach and fewer costs. Social media platforms are perfect avenues for free advertising. Sustainability projects, after all, are also informational campaigns. The market needs to understand why the enterprise is promoting such advocacy, what its vision is, how it relates to the business, and how the expected changes benefit them as consumers.

Indeed, in a highly competitive market, a firm’s sustainability measures can become sources of advantage. They could even be the drivers of growth for small entrepreneurs as consumer preferences are also leaning towards environmental and social consciousness.

About the author:

Jordan Packer is the Operation Manager of Effective Logistics – a reputable logistics company in Melbourne. He has extensive experience in warehousing, transports, and logistics for more than a decade. With many years of experience, he has a depth of understanding every company’s logistics needs. Check out their website – https://www.efflog.com.au/ to know more.

Some of the greatest success stories of the American dream revolve around people who had a great idea for a product and worked hard to develop it into something that brought them wealth and happiness. For many years, this type of creativity turned into profitability has been the model for how to achieve success.

The people who have reached this goal have succeeded with a number of different strategies, but they all share a few common traits, not just about themselves but about the products and services they have developed. Here’s a profile of just what makes some entrepreneurs successful where others fail.

A Product With Broad Appeal

For many successful entrepreneurs, it is not about creating something that sets the world on fire. Fads come and go, and while you can make a quick buck with trendy items, the best route for sustainable success is through products that lots of people will use for years to come.

Entrepreneur John Holahan achieved that with his SimplyThick company. The idea for his product was simple: He wanted to offer a product that was useful to consumers on a daily basis. For people with difficulty swallowing, the ability to thicken their foods made it easier for them to stay properly nourished and, consequently, to stay healthy. A product with that type of value is a powerful creation. It’s not at all flashy, but it creates real benefits, and that’s why the product has succeeded.

Unbelievable Determination

Almost everybody has brainstormed something that they thought could really be successful, and many of us have gone so far as to develop a prototype. From there, though, we lost focus or just weren’t willing to plunge ourselves into it and let it dominate our thoughts.

Walt Disney didn’t quit. He knew the market was there for his cartoon creations, so despite a series of failures, he persevered. He struggled financially. He probably doubted if he would ever succeed. But in time, through his hard work, he became the most famous animator in history, amassing a huge fortune that continues to grow to this day. Determination like that is what it takes to succeed.

Adaptability

Few companies are able to sustain indefinite success with no substantial changes to their offerings. Holahan has made continuous adjustments to SimplyThick, and today’s Disney productions are light years ahead of the 1930’s technology that built the company.

Apple has succeeded with that model. Had they never offered anything more than desktop computers, they would have been an also-ran as the field became crowded in the 80’s and 90’s. Instead, they not only pushed the technology of their existing computers but also ventured into mobile phones, heading an entire market segment so enthusiastically viewed by its customers that they’ll wait in line for hours to buy the newest model.

Becoming a successful entrepreneur takes a good product or service, one that can be shown to be superior to others in the market, or that is entirely new. But that isn’t always enough. It’s as much about the inventor as the invention, and when there is a hard-working entrepreneur behind the great product, success is usually close by.