Entreprecurious

Little things can go a long way in making your startup company appear bigger than it is. Carelessness about these seemingly small details can leave big blemishes on your credibility, directly limiting your ability to grow. And ability to grow is undoubtedly one of the single most important strengths that any startup can prove to investors, allies, and competition alike.

The days building up to any startup’s launch are overlooked insofar as research and case studies are concerned. These are the days when the company’s entire foundation is laid; partnerships are formed, suppliers are contracted, distribution channels get established, competition is approached, investors are engaged, networks are constantly contacted, and internal operations and responsibilities are ironed out.

This foundation period, this first several months, is when you have to start looking big, not later. Looking like an established company will help you:

• get noticed
• get responses from contacts
• get good deals from service providers
• get your name out and about around town
• get credibility from investors (both current and future, alike)

and

• not get taken advantage of

10 (simple) ways to look bigger than you are:

(starting with the most basic)

1. Set up a formal entity. Most likely, you’ll be an LLC, but regardless of particular corporate structure, be sure to have one. If you are not set up, you are unlikely to get taken seriously by any number of service providers, potential clients, suppliers, partners, etc.
2. Get unique business cards made. Not having a business card is certainly one way to look unprofessional and unprepared in no time flat. Regardless of the fact that everything is digital now, and that it would make more sense to plug someone into your cell phone than hand them a paper business card, the world is resisting to change. Business cards are still the number one most trusted, fail-proof way to get into someone else’s rolodex (or gmail contacts). I emphasize getting unique business cards because most are boring and identical, thus business cards can surprisingly be a great way to raise someone’s eyebrows. Below is my business card, which I like simply because it stands out. Anything that stands out is good. Make your card dark black. Give it a camouflage background. Make it a circle instead of a square. Make it a fold out origami swan. You get the picture:
3. Be on Google. Everybody uses Google. If someone’s gonna find you, you better show up somewhere on a Google search for something about you. It’s easier than you may think: follow these instructions on Google. The longer you spend researching these instructions and acting on them, the better your results will be. But do yourself the favor and don’t miss this uber-critical step. If you cannot figure out your way around Google Webmaster tools, that’s okay! At least you tried. Now go and find a consultant in town who can help you out. Any SEO consulting firm will be able to help you out–it’s worth the money.
4. Get a domain name and build a website. And when people find you on Google, they’ll wanna click on the link to your website! Depending on your company, the website is of less or more importance. It goes without saying that it’s more important for a web marketing firm to have an elegant website than a local pizza shoppe. That said, any company has a lot to gain by having at least a clean and simple site. For the vast majority of startups out there, the site need not be anything more complicated than a place to inform potential customers and investors about your offerings and offer up a bit of your company’s personality in the ‘about us’ section. The cost building such a site will obviously vary greatly between companies, but should not necessarily exceed $5,000 in 99% of cases. If you pay more than that for a very simple, yet clean and easy to navigate website, you’re overpaying. A savvy Google-searcher will find a plethora of site development options, both in America as well as overseas.
5. Have a ‘full website.’ That is, don’t skimp on the details. There needs to be ‘about us’ pages, investor’s information, news & press, a blog, a ‘contact us’ form, and potentially a TOS and Privacy Policy (in the case of website startups that take, store, or distribute any user information or sites with credit card processing functionality). You cannot be blatantly liable to law suits by not having one of these last two, if you’re particular startup requires these.
6. Have good email addresses. At some point, a Gmail address isn’t going to cut it. Have your website developer set up a basic email system (I recommend using Google Apps–it’s free and carries the familiar and intuitive Google User Interface with it). Give yourselves email address at your domain name, and be similar across the board in terms of email names, for instance: Psmith@yoursite.com and Ljohnson@yoursite.com, NOT pamsmith121@yoursite.com and Lennyjohnson4life@yoursite.com.
7. Have an infrastructure (and show it off with your website’s ‘contact us’ page). Have a customer service department, a marketing department, a strategic partnership department, an investors services department, etc. even if it’s just the co-founders themselves pretending to represent an entire department. Correspondingly, your ‘contact us’ page should lead viewers to further informational email addresses such as info@yoursite.com, partners@yoursite.com, marketing@yoursite.com. Now, obviously you shouldn’t go overboard–most startups don’t have an in-house HR department, insurance branch, holdings corporation, etc. But still, the basics should be covered.
8. Write gooder (emails and copywrite). Writing clean, concise, response-worthy emails is an alarmingly underappreciated skill for any entrepreneur to hold. It can mean literally all the difference between getting responses from the people you need responses from, and never hearing back from anyone. You could write a 50-page blog post about how to write more efficient emails, and I’m not even all that efficient myself, so I won’t try to explain how to do this here. All I will say is this: re-read your emails before sending them, this should be more than enough to step up your email game big time. Most of the time, something blatantly wrong will stand out, and at least you won’t send stupid shit anymore. Sending blatantly stupid, arrogant, or incoherent messages is the fastest way to get people to click the ‘ delete button.’ Likewise, having good professional copy for site content, marketing materials, and advertisements is critical. Nothing makes a company look more vulnerable than a simple typo. Shows lack of focus. So focus!
9. Have professional-looking marketing materials (electronic and paper). Being able to say, “let me send along some of our marketing materials” is an incredibly powerful ability, believe it or not. People say to themselves, “o, they’ve got marketing materials? They’re legit. They must have people working on lots of different stuff around there if they’ve had the time to craft marketing materials.” And don’t just have them to have them, have them to show them off. Make them look good. Hire a consultant for a couple hundred bucks if you need to, but just make sure they are laid out nicely and can attract someone’s eye. And don’t forget about mass emails, too! RatePoint is a GREAT GREAT resource for this. Check them out and just try it for 30 days for free. The price is right, too, at just $10/month. You’ll get hooked.
10. Appear legally well-represented. This is as simple as putting ‘TM’ marks above your logos, copyright disclaimers at the bottom of Powerpoint presentations, or having Terms of Service/Privacy Statements on your website. Any lawyer can give you a run down of these specific basics, but they are really easy to do yourself–which saves money, of course! See the ‘TM’ above our logo on my business card above. This is what I’m talking about. That easy!

That’s about it for now. I hope this helps someone out there and good luck!