1. Discover a growing market
One of the most obvious, yet forgotten, ways to create a business worth millions is to find a booming new trend and ride to the top of it. Analyze what’s hot right now. Spend time researching the niche and evaluate what competitors offer and what they don’t, and what you can! Take for instance, Nick D’Aloisio, a 17-year-old kid from London who coded a handy Iphone app Summly – a wise news aggregator collecting short news summaries from all major outlets. The app was bought by Yahoo within a few months for a whooping sum of £19 million. Whereas there already existed a huge amount of news apps on the market, none of them offered to pull out a summarized and concise list of all major events, based on your interests, location and preferences.
No wonder the app was hot to get acquired by Yahoo, as the possible revenue estimates were expected to double within a few years as more and more mobile users were getting tired of slow loading pages and clusters, opting for clean and neat products to let them solve their problems on the go.
2. Think over your monetization strategy from day one
A lot of tech startups fail with this one and merely focus on growing a huge user base, instead of thinking about decent ways to monetize. Twitter and Instagram are just two examples of such a phenomenon, but there are numerous companies who eventually failed due to their inability of creating revenue. If you are focused on becoming a millionaire in the first year, you have to work over your monetization strategy from day one!
Most profitable businesses operate with one of these models – they sell a lot of cheap products and services to a lot of people or they sell premium, big-ticket items to a limited list of buyers. Brian Clark of Copyblogger managed to turn a simple blog into a $7 million company by selling premium marketing courses and software for internet entrepreneurs and content marketers. Whereas, online marketplaces like Etsy dominate the search engine rankings with a huge variety of products worth from a penny to a few hundred dollars.
Now each model may have its draws and advantages, but more importantly than choosing which one you are to implement, you first have to create a defined plan for monetization. Understanding how you will make money from the start will save you from wasting time on the idea that something profitable will come up for you.
3. Be Number OneNow, Pepsi may earn a few billion dollars each year being number two product on the market, but chances are, you can repeat the same success are rather low. There is a bunch of mediocre products out there these days, but those companies are nowhere close to making a million in their first years. The truth is – you have to offer something so freaking great to wow your customers and create the necessary industry buzz if you want to succeed. For instance, John Morrow claims to offer best guest posting course that will connect you with top influencers in your niche, generate long-term traffic steam and actual sales. The spots get filled up within a few days after opening as the product seems to be one and only non-bullshit course these days that will teach you to grow your business with smart content marketing and guest blogging techniques.
If you are struggling to identify what exactly is going to make your product better, just ask around to your existing customers! A short survey with simple questions like “What else we can do for you?” and “What other features would you like our products to have?” will give you the lacking insights. And after implementing those recommendations, you will earn a bunch of loyal clients who will go on to refer more sales to you in the future.
4. Hire Rock stars
You should not expect to handle a multi-million dollar business on your own, right? Delegating and hiring top-notch stuff is one the crucial points to make or break your company. Hiring underperformers is cheaper and easier, yet this team will achieve none of the goals a few high-end professionals could complete within the same time-frame. For instance, Google invested in hiring best coders since early days and keeps the same policy until now. It’s needless to say how powerful this strategy turned out to be.
When looking for the initial team for your business venue, the first thing to do is ask around your professional network for referrals and recommendations. Pay special attentions to the sales executives you are hiring, as they will stand the biggest difference in your business’s bottom line. Keep them motivated and inspired to close the deals with whatever it takes!
5. Focus on data
The last, but not least, major point is to consume and analyze all data you can possibly get and act on it. Take advantage of Google Analytics by identifying and setting up your company’s key KPIs. Run split tests and implement new marketing strategies based on the data, in order to push the indicators even higher. Gain valuable statistics by analyzing your social media performance with KissMetricts or focus on improving your website usability with a series of tests by Crazy Egg. With numerous data analysis solutions out there, squeezing out the tiniest details about your possible consumers and audience has never been easier.
If you feel like you are lacking the skills, consider investing in a rock star analyst who will chew down all the numbers for you into actionable tips. If your goal is to manage a million dollar business, you need to take advantage of the markets data and act smarter on it that your competitors.
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