If you have a great idea you’re trying to build or sell, you’re probably working almost 24/7 to make your dream a reality. At Smartsheet, we want to help. That’s why we built a work and project management tool that makes you ridiculously productive.
This month we’re going one step further to help out by doing 3 things:
- We sponsored TEDxSeattle (last week) and are sponsoring and hosting Startup Weekend, Bellevue (coming 06/28-06-29).
- We gathered some great business advice and organized it into the nifty presentation below.
- We are giving away THREE (3) FREE subscriptions to Smartsheet to entrepreneurs, start-ups, and businesses.
How to Win a FREE Smartsheet Subscription For a Year!
- Leave a comment below. It can be a bit of advice about working smarter, better or more efficiently. It can be a question about entrepreneurship or work flow. It can be a comment about how excited you are to win. Pretty much anything counts.
- If you have a Twitter account, follow us on twitter and tweet out this post. If you don’t have a Twitter account, you can follow us on Facebook and share something from there. Or you can even follow us and share on Linked In or Google plus. We’re flexible, we just want to stay in touch and get your help spreading the word. That’s seems fair, right?
Now for the words of wisdom from some entrepreneurs who have seen it all:
Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad
The Boring (but important) Contest Details
- The contest is open from June 26 through midnight July 8, 2013 PST.
- You can only win once and a Free subscription is good for one year for one Advanced account only. Retail value $299.99. (Awesome, right!)
- Only residents of the United States are eligible, excluding Rhode Island. (Sorry, we hate that rule too, but the regulations for international contests are sort of ridiculous, and would mean we couldn’t do any contests at all.)
- If you are having trouble sleeping, you can read the official rules here.
The Exciting Advice From Entrepreneurs
@harkdotcom | @aronchick
Be Brief. Everything you do, your mission and your customers should be able to be described in 10 words or less. Any more and your confusion will hurt your focus and your connection to your audience(s).
@twitter | @mamatweeta
When you're putting your pitch together, tell your story in a way that sounds like you--not how you think it should sound. Authenticity rules.
@optify | @roberteleveld
The bigger the market, the more focused you should be early on at doing one thing well and repeatably. Read "Crossing the Chasm" - as relevant today as when published 20 years ago.
@moz | @randfish
Startup founders often think the best product will win but, time and again, find themselves beaten by inferior products with superior marketing. Invest in both, and you'll have a much better chance at success.
@clarity_comm
Pretty much the only innovations of universal appeal were fire and the wheel. Figure out who’s most likely to need or want what you’re creating (and can pay for it!). Then look at their alternatives. Your path to sales is a lot easier when you’re filling a gap between what prospects want and what’s available than it is to talk them into choosing you from a group of close alternatives.
@level11consult
Manage by asking for outcomes, don't tell them "how" to do it. Tell them you want to get across the river, don't tell them to build a boat, there may be a better way.
@robert_ns | @replytoall
Do many things and do them quickly. There is no "one thing" that will make you successful...only many quick decisions that incrementally improve your model, product, business, pricing, design, architecture, etc.
@roverdotcom | @scottporad
Who is your target customer, and how are you going to reach them? Exactly and specifically. I've spent my entire career building web products and services, and for most products and services, that's a harder problem to solve than figuring out how to build them. "Build it and they will come" is not a good plan for success.
@roverdotcom | @scottporad
Walk before you run: you have to create a small business before you can create a big business.
@madronaventures | @tmporter
If you are thinking about starting a new company, make sure you talk to lots of potential customers, whether that means consumers or businesses. Whatever you think is the sufficient number of “voice of the customer” conversations to have, try to do at least 5x that number.
@danshapiro
Don't seek outside funding until your team, your idea, or your traction are irresistible. You only need one of those three things to be awesome, but it had better be really awesome.
@haikudeck | @adamtr
Don't focus on creating great product. Focus on giving your customers super powers.
@estately | @galenward
Create something that people will either Love or Hate: products that evoke indifference die.
@jason_s_warner
Be evidence-based. Few of the assumptions we make turn out to be true, so make answering the question, How can we test this assumption to prove that customers will pay us for this? part of your company's DNA.