Every budding entrepreneur enters the market with a whole lot of excitement mixed with fear. The fear of failure often stems from the uncertainty about how well the business will perform. The fear is often aggravated because of limited resources, the presence of market competition, and the inability to scale operations or retain clients.
You could have the perfect product, an excellent branding strategy, and yet you may not be able to scale business operations like you want to. An increasing number of entrepreneurs are turning to growth hacking tips for entrepreneurs for sustainable business growth.
What is Growth Hacking?
Contrary to what the name suggests, we aren’t giving you a hack or a quick way to grow your business. Growth hacking refers to the process of using multiple business marketing tools to devise a strategic growth strategy that makes efficient use of limited resources.
The focus here is on building long-term clients and customer satisfaction. You don’t just want to increase the number of clients, but you want them to come back and become loyal customers. Growth hacking focuses on:
- Identifying problems
- Finding innovative solutions
- Run multiple trial tests
- Devise marketing and sales strategies.’
- Set measurable goals backed by findings from trial runs
Growth hacking is devising a strategic growth strategy by efficiently using limited resources in a set time frame. Here, it is essential to understand that even time is a limited resource, and you will have to set aggressive goals for growth to improve efficiency. We present you with a few growth hacking tips for entrepreneurs looking for sustainable development.
1. Focus on Scalable Products and Services
Your product is relevant in the market at this particular moment, but will it be as relevant a couple of years down the line? Do you have a backup plan or another product that you have in the production line for a later stage?
Business planning involves planning for at least the next five years. At any given point in your business cycle, you should have a strategy for the ensuing five years, and you should be actively working towards achieving those goals. Don’t just focus on finding a profitable product or service; focus on what’s after this.
Doing so will help you create a solid business model that will attract investors. By having multiple products, you minimize the risk of failure, which enables you to create a strong portfolio that will attract a varied audience. Think of it as a practical implementation of ‘Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.’
2. Create an Ideal User Profile
Traditional marketing tactics usually involve increasing awareness and identifying the visitors’ dominant characteristics to create a user profile that you then use to create targeted marketing campaigns. That is a very time-consuming and inefficient marketing process.
You can efficiently shorten the process by identifying an ideal potential user profile and create a targeted marketing strategy accordingly. This helps create a more efficient and clear marketing strategy.
3. Digitalize from the Beginning
Handling business operations manually is extremely inefficient as it takes a lot of time and requires an additional workforce. Given the current pandemic, hiring new workers, finding a physical workplace to accommodate employees can be challenging.
Start with an automated system so that it is easier for you to manage business operations with limited resources. Setting up cloud storage, having an automated email system, automated training system, automate your inventory management system, and automated invoice system can substantially increase efficiency.
4. Focus on AARRR
AARRR is a tried and tested strategy that stands for Awareness, Acquisition, Retention, Revenue, and Referral. This strategy is also known as the Pirate Funnel and can be your sure shot guide to profitability and scalable growth.
Make sure you set measurable goals for each stage, like how many visitors you expect during the awareness stage. You will have to use different digital marketing and analytics tools to analyze the number of visitors, monitor their activity, track the retention rate, and track the high paying clients. You can then use this data to create a referral program so that you can increase your client base.
MENA Startup Ecosystem
The startup ecosystem is on the rise, especially in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. With governments introducing favorable policies and various investment opportunities for budding entrepreneurs, the young population of the region is now turning to startups after graduation.
According to business reports, investments in the Middle East alone are expected to exceed USD 1 billion in value. Investment in startups has been on the rise since 2015. However, the region noticed a drop in individual investment value in 2019.
As per CB Insights, investments exceeding USD 1 million fell from 59 in 2018 to 48 in 2019 partly because of the slow market and partly because of increased scrutiny by investors. Given the current crisis, budding entrepreneurs need to learn how to create detailed and strategically planned business models that can scale and grow fast, even with fewer resources and investments.
At Sustain Leadership, our focus is on supporting entrepreneurs across stages , build a sustainable business growth strategy, and be ready to attract the right investors, by integrating the growth hacking techniques that fit their business model, industry and market.
