Entrepreneur's Startups Spring 2021

WANT MORE HOW-TO ADVICE? PICK UP OUR COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE START YOUR OWN BUSINESS AT ENTM.AG/SYOB. To the ordinary entrepreneur, closing and finalizing the sale is the completion of serving the customer’s needs. But for the pro, this is only the beginning. Closing the sale sets the stage for a relationship that, if properly managed by you, the entrepreneur, can be mutually profitable for years to come. There’s a widely recognized rule that states that 80 percent of your business comes from 20 percent of your customers. Repeat customers are the backbone of every successful business. So now that you know how to land customers, it is time to learn how to keep them. BUILDING CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS It’s tempting to concentrate on making new sales or pursuing bigger accounts. But attention to your existing customers,…

Excellent customer service is more than what you say or do for the customer; it also means giving customers a chance to make their feelings known. Here are some suggestions for finding out what your customers want, need, and care about: 1 Attend trade shows and industry events that are important to your customers. You’ll find out what the competition is doing and what kinds of products and services customers are looking for. 2 Nurture a human bond, as well as a business one, with customers and prospects. Take them out to lunch, dinner, the ball game, or the opera. In the relaxed atmosphere of socializing, you’ll learn the secrets that will allow you to go above and beyond your competition. 3 Keep alert for trends; then respond to them. Read industry trade…

1 Provide expertise. “We have a mission to help people through guidance, which goes beyond just product. With [our cookware brand] Equal Parts, we have a robust offering of expertise on our website and brand blog. It’s a one-stop shop for home cooks that provides them with recipes, tips, and techniques. This helps create trust with our business, and our customers feel like they’re gaining value beyond a tangible product.” —NICK LING, CEO, Pattern Brands 2 Create incentives. “We have an ambassador program, where we provide our most loyal customers with a platform to create content that is shared on our social media channels. It transforms them from customers to brand advocates. We are strong believers in the power of community and use our channels as a two-way street for communication between us and…

Q: My business has always depended on in-person interactions. Do I need to create a robust digital offering to survive? —JERRY, ROCHESTER, N.Y. COVID-19 rocked every aspect of work, life, and the work-life balance. The big question now is how well entrepreneurs can adjust and set up their businesses—not just for survival but also success. Here’s one big part of that answer: The digital evolution we’ve experienced is here to stay. According to a McKinsey survey, 77 percent of consumers will continue using digital channels moving forward. That doesn’t mean your business needs to go fully virtual, or that you need to create online-only offerings, but it does mean you should embrace the opportunity to add digital solutions to your existing offering. Embracing digital—now and forever—is a simple way to limit your future…

Christine Schindler was obsessed with handwashing way before COVID-19 came along. In 2017, as foodborne illness outbreaks were plaguing businesses like Chipotle and wreaking havoc on public health across the country, she understood how to solve the problem. “No one walks into a restaurant with a vial of E. coli,”says Schindler, a biomedical engineer. “Eighty-nine percent of foodborne illness outbreaks caused by restaurants are directly linked to poor handwashing practices.”She got to work on a solution, called PathSpot, that would utilize spectral imaging to detect illness-causing contaminants on a restaurant worker’s hands all in a matter of seconds. But there was a problem: Although Schindler knew how to build the technology, she had no idea what kind of product a restaurant would actually use. “I truly had hundreds of different versions I thought…

When Madison Semarjian was a college freshman, she had an idea for an app: It would be like Tinder, but for clothing—using AI to learn her personal style, and then pulling together outfits from a wide range of retailers that she could swipe left or right on (and of course, buy). Semarjian couldn’t shake the idea, so she spent all of college creating it—developing the tech, raising money, and signing partnerships with major brands like Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s, and Prada. She called the app Mada, and it launched in January 2020. It was a hit with the media and style lovers because nothing like it existed. But that quickly changed. A startup called The Yes soon launched with similar functionality and major backing; it’s co-run by the former COO of Stitch Fix and…