Hi, everyone. This is Alejandro Cremades, and today we’re going to be talking about
how to launch a business. Coming up with the idea and figuring out how to bring it to market
is already the first step. Then the next thing that you want to do is to make sure that you’re
bringing that idea to life in a way that is as powerful as possible. So, with that being
said, let’s get into it. The first thing before you even launch, you
want to make sure that you understand your Why because the thing is that part of this
business that you’re going to be launching is going to include that storytelling. It’s
your personal story with it, whether you’re looking at onboarding customers, at onboarding
investors, or onboarding your own employees. Everything starts with your own personal story
with the business of Why you’re bringing it to life. That’s how you’re going to
influence others. That’s how you’re going to inspire others. For that reason, your own
personal story and that Why it is critical. The next thing is, you want to make sure you
are really building up the community, whether it’s either rallying up your own network,
telling them about this new launch that you’re doing. It could also be a Coming Soon page
that you establish where you’re starting to receive those emails, those links that
you can target later on. You want to build the community early. You
do not want to wait to open those doors, and then all of a sudden, nobody is there. You
need to make sure that you have a clear understanding as to how you’re going to be driving people
very soon, very fast, and then you’ve got to do that very early on. So, you need to
plan, and you need to build that community as early as possible.
Also, before the launch, what you want to do is some business planning. You need to
have a clear understanding of what’s going to be that 18-25-month roadmap of execution.
You want to know what are going to be the different milestones; you want to know who
you’re going to need from an employee perspective: advisor perspective, director perspective,
whatever that is. But to have a clear understanding as to what the journey and the road ahead
is going to be so that you can execute toward it.
Then you want to start testing and get feedback. Maybe that could be a qualitative analysis
and quantitative analysis. That’s via either getting on the phone with potential customers
and asking them a set of questions so that you can get an understanding of what they’re
responding, and see if there are any patterns. Then also what you want to do are surveys
so that you get even more touchpoints, and you get to identify what are some of the pain
points of those customers early on? That way, whatever you’re bringing to market, you
have a clear understanding that there are already people that have a need. There are
already people that are explaining to you what those pain points are, and that way,
you’re addressing them head-on just with data, not with your own assumptions.
Next, you want to get clear as to what is going to be the structure of your business.
Is that going to be an LLC? Is that going to be a C Corp? Are you going to be registered
in New York, in Delaware, in California? Typically, if you want to build a business that is hypergrowth,
that you’re going to need potential money, what lawyers recommend – and obviously,
you should consult with your corporate lawyer – is a C Corp. in the state of Delaware
because those are the ones that investors like the most, and because most lawyers in
the U.S., if not all of them, know Delaware law because that is what they teach them in
law school. With that being said, you need to get clear as to what is going to be the
corporate structure of your business. Next, you want to get a bank account, and
you also want to set up your credit card processor partner in the event that you’re going to
be starting to accept payments. This could be like Stripe or Square or whoever that is.
You need to have a clear understanding as to how you’re going to be taking that money,
how you’re going to get compensated by your own customers, and you need a place where
you’re depositing all of that money. With that being said, you really need that structure
on the bank account and then also on the credit card processor partner that you’re going
to be using to secure those payments. Next, you need to understand how much money
are you really going to need to launch the business? How much money will be for the marketing
or the PR or whatever you need to launch with a bang? Again, you want to leave a bit of
a cushion because, at the end of the day, what you may anticipate typically tends to
be a bit more. With that in mind, make sure that you have a clear understanding of how
much money is going to be required to bring it to life.
The next thing is, you want to test. You want to test as much as you can. That is, maybe
you have a landing page, maybe you already have the product or the service. Before you
put it out there, try to get your first or second-degree connections to engage with it
so that they can give you some feedback. Maybe there are some holes that are there that you
haven’t seen or you’re not aware of, and that way, crowdsourcing that process of testing
is really nice, and it could be super effective as you’re thinking about putting it out
there on the marketplace. Then you want to do a launch event, for example.
At that point, you’re inviting press; you’re inviting influencers, so to get the word out
there so that people on social media are talking about it, you’re tagging people at the event,
or whatever that is, you need to get people aware. You need to get as many people talking
about the launch of your product. If you can get on media outlets, on blogs talking about
you, maybe reporters excited and writing about what you’re doing. I think that’s amazing,
and perhaps you can get them all to talk about it at the same time so that you can create
that positive storm around it, and it goes viral.
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