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E-commerce, also known as electronic commerce or internet commerce, refers to the buying and selling of goods or services using the internet, and the transfer of money and data to execute these transactions.
October 23, 2020WHAT IS E-COMMERCE?
E-commerce, also known as electronic commerce or internet commerce, refers to the buying and selling of goods or services using the internet, and the transfer of money and data to execute these transactions. E-commerce is often used to refer to the sale of physical products online, but it can also describe any kind of commercial transaction that is facilitated through the internet.
Whereas e-business refers to all aspects of operating an online business, e-commerce refers specifically to the transaction of goods and services.
E-commerce has evolved to make products easier to discover and purchase through online retailers and marketplaces. Independent freelancers, small businesses, and large corporations have all benefited from e-commerce, which enables them to sell their goods and services on a scale that was not possible with traditional offline retail.
E-commerce has evolved to make products easier to discover and purchase through online retailers and marketplaces (Source: internet)
Types of Ecommerce Models
There are four main types of e-commerce models that can describe almost every transaction that takes place between consumers and businesses.
1. Business to Consumer (B2C):
When a business sells a good or service to an individual consumer (e.g. You buy a pair of shoes from an online retailer).
2. Business to Business (B2B):
When a business sells a good or service to another business (e.g. A business sells software-as-a-service for other businesses to use).
3. Consumer to Consumer (C2C):
When a consumer sells a good or service to another consumer (e.g. You sell your old furniture on eBay to another consumer).
4. Consumer to Business (C2B):
When a consumer sells their own products or services to a business or organization (e.g. An influencer offers exposure to their online audience in exchange for a fee, or a photographer licenses their photo for a business to use).
There are four main types of e-commerce models (Source: internet)
The Advantages and Disadvantages of E-commerce
E-commerce offers consumers the following advantages:
- Convenience: E-commerce can occur 24 hours a day, seven days a week
- Increased selection: Many stores offer a wider array of products online than they carry in their brick-and-mortar counterparts. And many stores that solely exist online may offer consumers exclusive inventory that is unavailable elsewhere
E-commerce carries the following disadvantages:
- Limited customer service: If you are shopping online for a computer, you cannot simply ask an employee to demonstrate a particular model’s features in person. And although some websites let you chat online with a staff member, this is not a typical practice
- Lack of instant gratification: When you buy an item online, you must wait for it to be shipped to your home or office. However, retailers like Amazon make the waiting game a little bit less painful by offering same-day delivery as a premium option for select products
- Inability to touch products: Online images do not necessarily convey the whole story about an item, and so e-commerce purchases can be unsatisfying when the products received do not match consumer expectations. Case in point: an item of clothing may be made from shoddier fabric than its online image indicates
Business leaders and startup founders always wonder how good meeting practices to boost their efficiency. Think of all the bad team meetings you have attended: Meetings where one person dominated the conversation, the room argued in circles, or the content shared was repetitive – and could have easily been an email.
October 19, 2020HOW TO LEAD EFFECTIVE TEAM MEETINGS
Business leaders and startup founders always wonder how good meeting practices to boost their efficiency. Think of all the bad team meetings you have attended: Meetings where one person dominated the conversation, the room argued in circles, or the content shared was repetitive – and could have easily been an email.
Running an effective team meeting shouldn’t be rocket science. However, most managers are still running team meetings that are poorly organized, overly long, and lack clear takeaways.
First, we need to define some terms clearly. The meeting is a generic term which describes any conversation between at least 02 persons via any tools/devices. Efficiency is a broad term which depends on a variety of the organization’s objectives. So how could we agree together with the same definition of an efficient meeting?
Create a meeting agenda and encourage everyone to prepare ahead of time
You can’t have an effective team meeting unless all the attendees are prepared to contribute to the conversation.
Start by creating a shared meeting agenda that is visible and editable by everyone on the team. This will give all attendees an equal chance to prepare and contribute.
Spending time preparing for large meetings is one of the most important things you can do as a leader, since those meetings are the ideal scenario to communicate ideas and impact how everyone on your team makes decisions.
Collaborating on a meeting agenda won’t just make all your meetings more productive, it will also be the first step towards building a more inclusive company culture, where everyone’s ideas and contributions are valued.
Good meeting practices (Source: internet)
Only meet to create value
Meetings are for creating value, not playing politics, covering your backside, or simply because “that’s how we’ve always done things.”
If the meeting doesn’t create value, cancel the meeting. You’ll reap instant savings from the freed up staff time, not to mention the opportunity for them to do other more valuable work.
Meetings are a great place to brainstorm ideas, to reach a key decision, to gain full buy-in from your staff, or to coordinate execution. Just make sure the area you’re brainstorming on, or the decision you’re making, or the project you’re coordinating on creates enough value for your company to make it yield a healthy return on your meeting investment.
Take a moment to recognize employees
Great managers praise in public and criticize in private. That’s why another practice you should adopt as a leader is taking a moment to recognize employees during your team meetings.
Here are two things to consider if you’re thinking about praising a teammate publicly:
Adapt to people’s individual preferences. While the majority of people like to be praised in public, some people might dislike public mentions. You should ask employees if they like public recognition during one of your one-on-one meetings.
You don’t have to be the only one recognizing people. One more thing you can do is add a Feedback/Shoutouts section of your meeting agenda. This is a great way to encourage other employees to recognize their teammates.
Take a moment to recognize employees (Source: internet)
Ask about roadblocks and concerns
In a study titled The Iceberg of Ignorance, Sidney Yoshida concluded that only 4% of an organization’s front-line problem is known by top management. In order to prevent this, you can use one-on-ones and team meetings to ask your teammates about the blockers that might be impeding them from doing their work.
Assign clear action items and takeaways
Action items are arguably the most important components of your team meeting. They’re an essential part of making sure that your meetings involve new discussions, ideas, and decisions – and aren’t just scheduled to exchange updates.
What’s the best way to record action items from your team meetings?
We recommend writing them at the bottom of your meeting agenda and assigning them as the meeting evolves. This will allow you to go back and reinforce what the team agreed on at the end of each meeting. Using a meeting agenda app can help you and your team build this habit.
Assign clear action items and takeaways (Source: internet)
Clarify and follow up on action items
It’s one thing to have a productive meeting, but to reap the value of that meeting, stuff has to get done. At the end of the meeting, go back and explicitly clarify action commitments out of the meeting.
Clarifying who owns which tasks, by when, and how they’ll “close the loop” by reporting back its completion is half the battle for accountability. The other half is ongoing follow up to make sure all assigned tasks get done. As a default, the meeting leader should be responsible to check in with all the task holders on status and to hold them accountable if not done as agreed. Of course, he or she could delegate this follow up responsibility, but as a default, this works well.
One final comment on execution–as the leader in your company you must role model the behaviour you want others to emulate. Are you clear at the end of meetings as to who owns which next steps and by when? Do you follow up with them and hold them accountable for their assigned tasks? Do you consistently execute your action assignments out of meetings? A culture of accountability is built in great part by leaders consistently doing the behaviours they want their teams to absorb.
Conclusion
Any business or startup founding team can easily design their coordinate system and numerical logic to track their quantity matters of the meeting. They also can design the cultural communication to boost their quality matters of discussion. Then they have a best practice to conduct good meetings to run the business toward long-term success.
In the early stages of a startup, one of the safest ways to raise money is to raise capital from venture capitalists.
October 8, 2020HOW DO YOU RAISE CAPITAL FOR A STARTUP?
Money is the first concern, every startup needs money to grow, that’s for sure. In the early stages of a startup, one of the safest ways to raise money is to raise capital from venture capitalists. But do you know, When do you start to raise capital? How can you raise capital? The following are some of the most basic concepts when raising funding for a new startup.
What funding rounds do startups usually go through?
In the process of looking for investment sources for the project, startups often go through fundraising rounds such as seeds, series A, B, C… The gap between funding rounds is 6-12 months. The round-up of fundraising typically involves the steps of collecting company data, researching investors, preparing and practicing for presentations, meeting investors, and raising funds. Next is building the relationship, submitting proposals and specific plans, passing the appraisal round, ending the fundraising round with the transfer and paperwork. The startup will go through the following fundraising rounds:
- Pre-Seed
- Seed
- Round Serie A
- Serie B
- Serie C
- IPO
Source: internet
Only Raise Capital when you genuinely need more money
The more money you raise from investors, the more you give up control. When still self-funding and developing, don’t focus on raising capital. The process of raising capital will require a lot of time, energy, and concentration. You may find yourself distracted and confused. Instead, a focus on product development is advisable.
Understand that raising capital is just the starting line, it’s not the destination. You’ll recognize when your startup really needs more money. Do not sell false promises to investors. Don’t plan and promote this idea with the goal of making money from investors. Be realistic, specific, and create the necessary growth momentum before actually raising for capital.
Just raise the necessary amount of money
Million dollar figures sound interesting. You may start thinking, “What would I do if I had 1 million dollars? What if an investor offered 10 million dollars, what would be the plan to use this money? ” This is not a good way to think, and somewhat elusive. Instead, as your startup grows to the next level, consider how much money you need to achieve your goals. For example, suppose you propose an amount of 1X in exchange for a 20% stake. However, the investors see the potential in your startup and propose 3X or even 5X in exchange for a 51% stake. If you decline this proposal, they won’t invest. When investors really see potential in a startup, they often want to control. Do you waver?
The more money raised, the more control your investors are going to want to have. Beyond percentages this means terms and conditions which add more protections for their money and more limitations on what you can do on your own.
In earlier stages you may crave and price flexibility and the ability to make all your own decisions far more than money. So, find a happy balance.
There are well known dangers of having too much money. It can lead to overspending, spending on the wrong things, slacking off, lack of creativity or focus on a more profitable model, more distractions and friction between the founders. Don’t come up short, but be alert to these risks.
Choosing an investor, choose carefully
The right investors can add value to your startup, far beyond the capital they bring to your business. You need to be careful in selecting the investors because seed investing is an early-stage investment requiring particular skills and experience.
When selecting an investor, consider the person, not the number. Select someone who can guide you through difficulties, who will be willing to mentor you and help you become a better founder. You also want someone who can help your startup identify and improve its shortcomings and develop its potential. Before deciding on an investor, make sure that they will stick with you during the remainder of the startup life.
Source: internet
Be careful of legal issues and types of paper documents
You may have heard a lot of shortcuts in founding a startup because many founders lack experience with contracting. There are many obscure phrases that you may think you understand but actually don’t. The problem is that startups often must operate in a very economical manner. Some founders are unwilling to pay for quality legal services in drawing up capital contracts. Paying for good quality legal expertise is an extremely wise decision. If investors discourage you from using money for this, they may not be professional and may be unreliable. In this case, you should choose other investors. Failure to do so may cause you to lose your enthusiasm and assets simply because you saved money on a few unqualified attorneys at the beginning. There are numerous forms of funding, many terms, an abundance of agreements, and multiple ways in which investments can be diluted.
Deals are structured many different ways. The legal documentation spells out the terms, covenants, conditions, responsibilities, and rights of the parties in the transaction. The money sources make deals every day, so naturally they are more comfortable with the process than the entrepreneur who is going through it for the first or second time. Covenants can deprive a company of the flexibility it needs to respond to unexpected situations, and lawyers, however competent and conscientious, cannot know for sure what conditions and terms the business is unable to withstand.