Why and How You Should Support Startups?
There’s a lot of talk and buzz around start-ups these days. I had a chat with a friend and we had a conversation on entrepreneurship. As it turned out, he posed a simple question, “How can I help your start-up?”. I thought about this for a while and came up with some ideas and actionable items. As an outsider may you wonder why should you get involved or even support start-ups? Start-ups are about generating new ideas and executing them. Finding new way of doing things. Innovation or maybe just doing things times x better. Start-ups are real driver of economic growth. They come in all sizes and shapes with mission to change things. Some trying to disrupt the market, while others are bringing new ways that will improve efficiency or productivity. They create jobs and opportunities for all. Start-ups bring economic growth and prosperity resulting in healthier communities. So how can you support a start-up?
1. Make introduction to your network. While your industry may not relate to the entrepreneur take a few minutes to reach out to your network and see if any of your connections can help. This form of help any be anything from feedback on a product to introducing key industry connections.
2. Like, follow and share on social media. Brand awareness is much needed. It is a bit of cliché but for a start-up every user and single follower counts. Share the pages with your network. Start-ups need every ounce of attention and support. You can also forward the service to your friends and families who might be interested.
3. Become a beta user. Yes, some start-ups need beta users. Become a beta user to provide feedback on the product development. Some of the products will even help you and you might even land a great deal as an early user or customer!
4. Offer to become an advisor or mentor if you have built a business before. Your expertise is hugely valuable to a start-up. Start-ups are not only have to deal with limited resources and time but also expertise. Why not advise the next big start-up in your community and be part of it?
5. Buy and do business with start-ups when you can. When you buy from a start-up you’re not supporting $10 million executive salary bonus but you’re supporting a small team trying to create opportunities and new jobs for themselves and others in the community. So when choosing vendors give start-ups a serious consideration!
6. If you sell product or service introduce “start-up discount”. Start-ups need services, products, supplies or consultations. For example, if you’re running an accounting firm offer some discount for early stage start-ups with not much sales for tax return. It’s a win-win for both. When the start-up grows it will remain a loyal client.
7. Support educational programs that will have job-creators not job-takers. This is a bit off topic and the discussion on educational institution is certainly a whole different ball game. Let’s start having programs that generate the next skilled and fully prepared entrepreneurs equipped with superior knowledge and network to tackle the market. With the current education system and the huge gap between the real-world all current programs are geared towards creating job takers. Pumping more job-takers is not the solution to unemployment. Entrepreneurship and creating sustainable businesses is the way to go!
8. Vote for leadership and policies that support start-ups, entrepreneurship and innovation. It does take a village to raise a start-up. Having a coherent ecosystem with right policy is one of the key ingredients for start-ups to succeed. Whether it is a hiring incentive or tax credit providing the right legislation or policies can make a difference between successful long-term businesses to having no jobs in the community.
So next time your entrepreneur friend approaches you consider those ways of helping out. Let’s all get out there and start helping and supporting start-ups to build more prosperous and healthier communities together.
