Running a business with your spouse: A dead-end or golden opportunity

Running a business with your spouse: A dead-end or golden opportunity

by | Jun 29, 2024

Business Insights

Running a business with your spouse: A dead-end or golden opportunity

June 29, 2024

Benefits and drawbacks of running a business with a spouse

Owning a business is a big enough risk in itself but running a business with your spouse can set all alarms off. Is working with your spouse really a bad idea? Or is this another myth of entrepreneurship? 

We have already prepared you with the costs of doing business, filing taxes for your business for the first time, but what to do when it comes to starting a business with your spouse? Simply stay away from unfounded opinions, especially from those coming from people who have zero expertise in the matter.

To help you make a rational decision if owning a business with your spouse is a journey you want to be a part of, we’ve listed the pros and cons of running a business with your spouse. So, read them carefully and see if the benefits outweigh the negatives for you

Benefits of running a business with your spouse

Someone said to always look on the bright side of life, so let’s start with the benefits of running a business with your spouse. Let’s go through the values it can bring to your business and to your marriage as well.

It can give a new dimension to your marriage

According to many, being business partners as well as spouses can put a whole new dimension on your marriage. Since you both run the business, you are more invested than an employee you could hire. Apart from that, you can completely trust your partner and openly discuss sensitive topics which makes this an ideal partnership. Lastly, growing together professionally is an amazing opportunity you can’t replace with something else.

You improve the financial stability of your family

Owning a business with your spouse provides you the opportunity to share something you are passionate about as well as create something you can leave behind. The entire profit will go to the family so if your business goal is for the financial future of your family, this will be the right way to do it.

Open communication

Open and honest communication is key to every successful partnership, whether a romantic relationship or a business partnership. Being business partners with your spouse will make it easier to adjust since you know each other better, thus, communication will be more honest, which will result in better decision-making for the success of the business. Also, your communication and listening skills will really improve both in working together and on a personal level. 

Always there to support each other

The most valuable benefit of running a business with your spouse is having someone to celebrate successes with and support each other’s failures. You will be always there to support each other, brainstorm new ideas, and work on your projects all day long without getting bored or frustrated.

The challenges of owning a business with your spouse

Running a business with your spouse certainly has its challenges as well. Therefore, to weigh the pros and cons, we are listing the negatives as well. Keep reading to find out why working with your spouse is a bad idea?

No balance between work and personal life

When running a business with your spouse, business and personal can never be separated. Even though, for many, creating their own schedule has proved better for achieving work-life balance, not being able to leave work at work is challenging.

When you start a business, you are prepared to sacrifice things to achieve greatness, but it’s good to know that at least for a few hours a day, you can stay away from work and clear your mind.

But, if you work and live together, it is likely that the stress caused by the business will affect your home life and you’ll find yourself during family time talking about business. It can be hard to distinguish boundaries between family issues and business matters. It may create tension as well and put your business under serious pressure.

Not knowing when to give each other space

Another reason why working with your spouse is a bad idea is not knowing when to give each other space. If you have strengths and weaknesses in different areas, dividing up the work can be challenging as well.

Couples testimonials: 4 tips for successfully running a business with your spouse

Going into business with your spouse has been the reason for ruined marriages and companies many times before. It seems like it’s hard to find the right balance and to separate work from private issues. However, for some of them, it has proven to be quite a success. 

Business certainly won’t get in the way of these romantic partners to celebrate Valentine’s Day.

Remember you are both focused on delivering this business together

My wife and I sold our house to set up our business Untamed. For over three years now we have been developing a styling tool designed to let you say goodbye to frizzy hair. 

How is private life affected? We are a startup, everything revolves around our business. Private life needs to be put aside if it does not benefit our business. As a small business person, you are involved in everything from warehousing to sales and marketing. There is no real-time to switch off. This will come later when our dreams and goals are achieved.

Do we always agree on what to do? Yes, I do. As Clare tells me! In all seriousness, there have been little or no arguments so far, we are both focused on delivering this business together. At the end of the day, we make a good team as Clare focuses on products and I concentrate more on the operational side of the business. Clare’s is heavily focused on marketing, and I am focused on manufacturing, distribution, and sales. 

Would we do it again? Of course, working on your own business is liberating, there is pride in building something from the ground up and hopefully making it a success.

Clare and Sean from Untamed

Recognize what each brings and stick to that

My husband and I run a business called Manley Talks. He started the company in 1999 and I did not really become involved until 4 years ago. I had my own career as a teacher and we have 2 children – now grown up.  

The biggest advantage of working together is that we can travel together and we have the flexibility to write our own timetable. The downside – we are very different. Manley is creative, a dreamer has very poor admin skills, and does not think logically. I am the opposite – I like admin! Tidy and logical thought processes. 

However, after the initial blow-ups, we have come to recognize what we each bring to the company. We still have crosswords, and sometimes work talk will dominate – but we are in it together – working towards shared goals, and that’s one of the best things that happened in my life.

Manley and Catherine from Manley Talks

Be supportive

My husband Kelly and I have just set up our own consultancy and it’s the first time we’ve officially worked together. We did work briefly together cleaning shoes at Melbourne Boat Show when we first got together and ever since then we’ve wanted to set up our own business! 

We love working together and find that it plays to both of our strengths as we are so different. 

I was already freelancing, when my husband decided he wanted to set up his own business. So I suggested we work together. I do PR and social media and my husband does web design, so it made sense to join forces and launch a consultancy together. 

It can be hard switching off in the evenings and it’s all too easy to grab the laptop on the sofa and get some work done. 

I’m super chatty and Kelly is more of a thinker so it’s great having such a balance between us. We both encourage each other to do our best and are really supportive, which I think you need when you are a team.

Thankfully, we have never really argued, even though we work together, which surprises a lot of people. I think a lot of people think we are crazy being married and working together but launching Hudia is really exciting and I wouldn’t want to share this new adventure with anyone else.

Kelly and Hester from Hudia

Having complementary skills works best

Jools and I run a small food business making healthy cooking sauces and we also import pasta from southern Italy. As small business owners, and it is just us two, we work very long hours. Our time away from the business is pretty non-existent.

If we aren’t physically working at the commercial kitchen we built ourselves, we are at home either working on social media, eating, or sleeping! The line between our business and our private lives (which I have taken to mean our time away from our business) is very blurred and switching off is almost impossible.

Jools has run his own business for 30 years so has an understanding of how a business works and Karen was in the education sector for 30 years. Hence, because our skills are complementary we work well together. 

Starting a business in your 50s is exhausting! We’ve had to learn skills that come naturally to the younger generation, i.e. the use of social media, but on the upside, the skills we have gained over the years have allowed us to approach the business with a more rounded experience and we have also been able to build our own commercial kitchen.

Karen and Jools from Nowt Poncy

Conclusion

There is not a person who can tell if running a business with your spouse is a good or a bad idea. It works differently for everybody as it depends on the people and their individuality.  Therefore, the only thing you can do is analyze your significant other as you would analyze a potential business partner you just met.

Can their qualities bring good to your business? Will they be supportive and be able to handle taking work at home? If he or she seems like a perfect business partner, the fact that you are married shouldn’t get in the way of building something amazing together.

And the other way around, if you don’t share the same goals about your business, the fact that you can trust him or her more than you trust any other potential partner will probably not be enough to succeed and it may even harm your marriage.

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12 critical B2B marketing KPIs to keep track of

12 critical B2B marketing KPIs to keep track of

by | Jun 29, 2024

Business Tips

12 critical B2B marketing KPIs to keep track of

June 29, 2024

B2B marketing KPIs to keep track of

Just like everything else about B2B, determining the crucial KPIs you should be measuring can be a tricky job. Even though B2B marketing KPIs can often be the same as B2C, at their core, they have their differences. That’s why sometimes B2B marketing KPIs can be challenging to marketers who come from D2C backgrounds.

Oh, and if you were wondering what KPI stands for, it’s Key Performance Indicators.

Why do we need these B2B marketing KPIs actually? Because it’s not enough to craft a marketing strategy, put it to action and let it run on itself. You’ll have to keep an eye of the progress.
Let’s say you’ve put your focus on email marketing but the KPIs show it’s not doing as good as content marketing. You’d be unaware of this if you don’t keep track of your B2B marketing KPIs. Resulting in wasting time and resources, when all you want to do is minimise expenses. So in order to know what works and what don’t you need KPIs.

12 B2B marketing KPIs you should be measuring

Of course, your B2B marketing KPIs will greatly depend on your marketing strategy and OKRs, but the following examples can serve you as a guide for what you should focus on.

First Time Appointment

Our most important B2B marketing KPI is the First Time Appointment (FTA), which is a 1-hour in-person/video meeting with a qualified prospect to explicitly discuss their technology challenges, business goals, and the ROI if their problems are solved. We know we can close a specific percentage of FTAs within 90 days.

Perryn Olson, CPSM, Chief Strategy Officer at ECS + My IT

Customer Acquisition Cost

Being a founder of a Digital Marketing Agency, I believe Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) is the most crucial metric in B2B marketing KPI. Customers are everything in business in order to make money, but you will need to invest resources into marketing to acquire them. CAC is your total expenses divided by the number of customers. It will give you an idea of how expensive a single customer is to acquire.

Stewart Dunlop, CEO of PPCGenius.io

First Activation

First activation i.e. the first experience a customer has with your product, is an important B2B marketing KPI that’s often overlooked. Just because someone converts to a customer doesn’t mean they’ll use it. Every moment after the conversion to a customer is important to turn them into a loyal customer, repeat customer, and advocate. Understanding the first activation can often show what are the series of steps that lead a customer to have an Aha moment. Focusing on these metrics will increase retention and revenue down the customer pipeline.

Nick Swekosky, CEO of Market Metrics

The Barrows Popularity Factor

In general, the key things that you want to know about any of your advertising and marketing are…

1) Does it sell?

2) How much did it sell?

3) Which copy and which products and which prices and which promotions worked best?

4) And how can you increase your sales, increase your profit and decrease your risk?

To do this kind of analysis, the best metric to use is some easy-to-use advertising math I developed called The Barrows Popularity Factor.

It’s math that actually lets you QUANTIFY the relationship between advertising and sales and businesses of all kinds can use the math to help them increase their sales, increase their profit and decrease their risk.

The reason the math works so well is very simple.

It reduces the relationship between your advertising and sales to its lowest possible common denominator…namely: How much did you sell? divided by/ How much did you advertise? (But the key is this, don’t do the math in dollars, do the math in units per gross impressions.)

In mathematical terms, the formula looks like this: The Barrows Popularity Factor (The BPF) = How much did you sell? (in units) divided by /How much did you advertise? (in gross impressions)

The answer you get is a rate of return on gross impressions. (Gross impressions is the number of ads multiplied by the audience per ad.) Once you can quantify your rate of return on gross impressions, then you can use some additional math to help you determine the best way to spend your advertising budget.

Robert Barrows, Advertising & Public Relations at R.M. Barrows

Time Between Social Referrals or Social Mentions

One B2B marketing KPI that many marketers either aren’t able to track—or aren’t thinking about—is the time between social referrals or social mentions. When you have a customer who’s happy with your product and service, this becomes an incredibly valuable indicator of how good a fit your ongoing product offering is for current customers, and how good a job your customer service and marketing teams are doing of keeping your customers engaged and coming back for more.

Erika Heald, Founder of Erika Heald Marketing Consulting

Website Traffic

Individuals visiting your site likely lead. Furthermore, leads ultimately convert into clients, depending on the nature of your content marketing. On the off chance that your B2B organization runs an eCommerce webpage, site traffic is a metric you should follow. Persistently observing site traffic gives you a look into who your guests are, the place where they’re from, how they land on your site – and eventually, what they need from you. The capacity to foresee what your clients hope to accomplish from your site permits you to focus on showcasing content that offers to your center crowds.

Abby, Editor at Wellpcb PTY LTD

Customer Retention

How long do people keep returning to you? Or do they just buy and say goodbye? Many fail to understand that getting new customers is much more expensive than reactivating existing customers.

The number of customers at the start of that period (S)

The number of customers at the end of a period (E)

The number of new customers acquired during that period (N)

Mariano Martene, Head of Growth at Octopush

Revenue

For B2B, revenue is often overlooked as offline conversions become difficult to track and customers tend to see a long sales cycle. As such, marketers revert to tracking goals such as form submission volume or clicks to call. But the issue with tracking goals in Google Analytics is that they’re leads, not sales. At least not yet.

As we approach a new year, we hope to see a renewed focus on attributing revenue back to the marketing campaigns that influenced them. Having a full understanding of a customer journey and using marketing to influence each stage will allow B2B marketers to get more from their budget, and their time.

Dave Smithbury, Head of Marketing at Ruler Analytics

Customer Effort Score

While a lot of B2B businesses measure long-term KPIs such as Net Promotor Score (NPS) or Customer Retention, many I have worked with still do not track the effect of individual interactions of the clients with their business – one way is the Customer Effort Score (CES). It is a simple question like “How easy was it for you to get what you wanted from us today?”, immediately after an interaction. This can be a pop-up on a website or a text message. CES is important because it will enable marketing and sales together to optimise the customer touchpoints and sales funnel at every step without doing guess work when getting an overall score like NPS or other surveys. 

Riccardo Weber, Founder of True Innovation

Funnel Conversion Rates

A lot of emphasis is placed on the top and bottom of the funnel – MQL/MQAs and Revenue – but there is also a lot of value in understanding what happens in between. Identifying the highest-converting channel, campaign, or profile can improve not only efficiency throughout the funnel, but also program spend. Working smarter, not harder is the aim of any good marketer and looking at conversion rates enables better quality prospect acquisition as well as identifies areas to double down on (or reduce!) your investment. They also play a critical role in forecasting and budgeting, allowing you to work backward from a revenue target to estimate the volume needed at each stage of the funnel.

DeAnn Poe, Vice President of Marketing at ZoomInfo

Customer Lifetime Value

One of the important B2B marketing KPIs that I think often gets overlooked is Customer Lifetime Value. Customer Lifetime Value is basically the average amount of money a customer will spend on your business until they have a bond with your company. It helps to evaluate how much profit a customer is bringing to your business. Through CLV, you will know how much customers like your products and services. It will give you an idea about what you are doing right and what needs improvement. CLV is important because the higher the number, the greater the profits.

Avinash Chandra, Founder and CEO at Brandloom

Velocity

Velocity is an important KPI to measure when looking into B2B marketing and setting its KPIs. Velocity KPIs are used to measure the time that a potential customer takes or spends at each step of its way when finalizing a purchase. It is on you what time duration you want to set in between different milestones as the KPI, so that you can measure the duration and judge accordingly then. Most people study MQL to SQL velocity, however, you can also measure SQL to quote velocity or quote to close.

Bradley Stevens, CEO at LLC Formations

Conclusion

When it comes to B2B marketing KPIs some are very obvious others are often overlooked yet extremely important. Hence we hope these examples served you right or inspired you to think of other B2B marketing KPIs that you should keep track of.

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How to start a wholesale business from scratch (2025)

How to start a wholesale business from scratch (2025)

by | Jun 4, 2024

Business Tips

How to start a wholesale business from scratch (2025)

June 04, 2024

How to start a wholesale business a zero experience

With consumerism hitting record highs, and eCommerce flourishing, “how to start a wholesale business?” is a question that beats many wannabe entrepreneurs. If you’re one of them, you’ve landed on the right page.

In this article, we’re going to cover all the basics you need to know about starting a wholesale business from scratch and excelling in it. We even went the extra mile and spoke to several professionals from the wholesaling sector to ensure we got the best tips for you

Starting a wholesale business – what do you need to know?

Before you let your mind weave an entire wholesale business plan it’s important to understand its essence i.e. what is wholesale business? Moreover it is also important to learn how to buy wholesale for resale purposes.

Wholesalers are business entities that buy goods in bulk directly from manufacturers or distributors, and then sell them in smaller quantities to retailers.

Although in modern times there are examples of B2C wholesaling, wholesalers per definition sell their goods to other business entities. This means their buyers are not the end consumers, but instead the retailers and similar business organizations the consumers buy from.

Because wholesale businesses buy in bulk, they usually get special discounts and overall cheaper prices.

In conclusion, wholesalers are sort of mediators between manufacturers and retailers. This puts them somewhere in the middle of the supply chain

18 tips for starting a wholesale business from experts

We asked fifteen exeprts to share with us the 

1. Get an ERP system set in place that integrates with your inventory management tool such as scanners.

2. Have an accessible website that allows for wholesale pricing that integrates with your inventory system and accounting system

3. Set incremental sales goals every 6 months to build steady growth

4. Determine the wholesale or distribution model. Wholesale and distribution are two different models. Wholesale is to connect wholesalers and retailers, and then retailers sell products to consumers. And distribution directly links the manufacturer or wholesaler with the final Consumer.

5. Choose a suitable and reliable supplier. Understand and analyze suppliers through multiple channels and multiple dimensions, and reach cooperation. Suppliers cannot be selected based solely on the price of the Product.

6. Know the necessary legal documents. Before starting a business, you need to obtain the necessary wholesale license

 

7. Find a direct supplier of the goods or products you want to sell because if it will come directly from them, the products will be priced lower compared to if you will be buying it from other resellers too.

8. Find an in-demand product that is not easily perishable so you won’t have any problems even if you won’t be able to sell everything all at once.

9. Find resellers whom you would pass your products to. These resellers will be the ones to sell the product for you and you would serve as their supplier.

10. Don’t forget to focus on service. It’s a core function which will create the most customer loyalty for your business – whether that means answering customer questions, pushing out upgrades on your products, or repair and maintenance.

11. Your relationship with the manufacturers of the products you distribute determines your strategy. Whether you primarily focus on margin or volume depends on how much exclusivity the manufacturers will grant.

12. Build an A-team to help you manage all the complexity of a wholesale business: managing supplier relationships, developing new customers, tracking inventory and warehousing, purchasing, estimating, billing, and financial reporting

13. Most important is to ensure you’ve got the basics right:

  • Have you worked out a sales forecast?
  • Have you got enough stock to fulfil the forecast, not just the initial pipeline fill, but also onward sales.
  • Have you calculated enough margin for everyone in the chain, including building in a promotional allowance.
  • Hitting launch date is all important. Make sure you’re confident of production timelines.
  • Marketing campaign is next and whilst it runs in tandem with stock, logistics and warehousing, it really is no good if you have nothing to sell.
  • Focus on selling online, use popular ecommerce tips to see how to take advantage of online opportunities for wholesale. 

14. Build trust not only with your customers but also your suppliers:

  • Make sure to build a rapport of trust. There will be times when cashflow is tight and someone will let down the other.
  • Trust is nurtured at the outset by being clear from Day 1 particularly around trading terms, payments, deliveries etc

15. Have a clear vision:

 

  • As I have often been told by those around me whose words I listen to, ‘nothing good ever comes easy’.
  • Have a plan for the best of times ahead but be absolutely prepared for the worst of times. Plan ahead and try to foresee scenarios of things going wrong with the business and its supply consistency. These times will come, so best to be prepared.
  • At the end of the day though, try to have fun. This is business, its trading, not healthcare. So take a deep breath and get stuck in!

16. Consider what IP (intellectual property) you may be able to build into your business. You don’t just want to sell other brands, you ideally want to build up a brand that you also own.

17. Cash flow.  As a wholesaler yo u will be dealing with a large number of customers, each with different payment terms.  Think carefully about what terms you are getting offered from your suppliers, and try to extend those as much as possible to offset the terms you will need to give to your customers.

18. Marketing and product training.  Products don’t just sell themselves, so think about how you can support your customers with marketing, promotional initiatives and product training to make sure that your customers are doing everything they can to sell your product to their end customer.

9 wholesale business ideas to help you started

Here are some ideas that could help you decide your niche before you start your wholesale business.

1. Home improvement products

We’re all at home. Even after the lockdown eased up, we’re still gravitating towards our home. So it’s no surprise that people have turned to renovations, DYI projects and home improvements. Considering that, the demand of home improvement products is rising and will continue to do so. Especially in the Northern Hemisphere where summer is at full speed.

2. Food

Food is something that has always been and always will be in demand. That’s for sure. However, food sales have hit record highs during the lockdown, so it is no wonder that refrigerated distribution services are on the rise ass well . And since people are still scared of a second wave, they won’t stop stockpiling. Especially not when autumn arrives and colder temperatures are on the horizon.

3. Electronics

Food is something that has always been and always will be in demand. That’s for sure. However, food sales have hit record highs during the lockdown. And since people are still scared of a second wave, they won’t stop stockpiling. Especially not when autumn arrives and colder temperatures are on the horizon.

5. Beauty products

I don’t know who the first woman was, but I guess it all started from her. Women love beauty products. And as appears, in recent years men seem to like them too. There isn’t a single celebrity left without their own beauty line: Lady Gaga, Kim Kardashian, Rihanna, Jennifer Lopez, Kylie Jenner, Gwyneth Paltrow… The list goes on and on.

According to Forbes “The cosmetic industry is growing faster today than ever before with an estimated market value of almost $805 billion by 2023. It is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.14% from 2018 to 2023.”

6. Backyard entertainment

I may have come up with that term on my own but trust me on this one. Borders are closed, travel is restricted. In other words, a lot of people won’t go on their traditional summer vacation this year. So they’re naturally looking for alternatives. A friend of mine recently wanted to buy an inflatable pool. And guess what: 6 stores he went to were out of stock! 

Market potential! Heck yeah!

Add grilling, outdoor furniture, pool floats, sunbeds, umbrellas, lighting, sound equipment… to the equation and you have a ready-to-go wholesale business idea.

7. Fitness

As contradictory as it sounds, the most obese generation in history is also the most athletic one. Everyone’s (at least trying to) eating healthy, exercising daily, jogging, meditating… Many during lockdown started exercising because they were afraid to get fat with all that food and staying at home. 

I mentioned the celebrities owning beauty brands, but activewear and athleisure are not far behind.

8. Kids toys and educational materials

With the closing of many kinterdens, nursery schools, playgroups and maternal schools around the world, parents are practically held hostage. They are expected to work and take care of their children at the same time. 

The logical direction of this situation is that children need to entertain themselves and parents will buy all sorts of toys to have just one uninterrupted video call with their boss.

9. Organic goods

Organic this, organic that. Suddenly, the food, cosmetics, and consumer goods we used until yesterday are no good and causing all sorts of health problems. Several years ago it was hard to find a shelf in the deli with organic products, and now we have entire stores selling organic-only products.

This isn’t going away anytime soon and the demand is growing by the day.

Conclusion

Starting a wholesale business from zero can be a dauting task for anyone new in the field. We hope that with the extensive list of resources that we have gather in this article, you will feel more bold when it comes to work on your dream and start your own wholesale business. 

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26 best apps for entrepreneurs who strive for success (2025)

26 best apps for entrepreneurs who strive for success (2025)

by | Jun 4, 2024

Business Tips

26 best apps for entrepreneurs who strive for success (2025)

June 04, 2024

Best apps for entrepreneurs

With thousands of entrepreneurship apps emerging by the day, promising everything from increased productivity, mindfulness to higher performance, it’s hard to tell which ones are the best apps for entrepreneurs. In other words, it’s tricky to create a list of apps for entrepreneurs that everyone would agree they tick all the boxes.

With this in mind, we went above and beyond with our research to put together a list of must-have apps for seasoned and rookie entrepreneurs alike.

Top apps for entrepreneurs in 2025

The secret to entrepreneurial success is being dedicated, motivated, and organized. Luckily in today’s world, we have an app for everything. Therefore, we are listing you the best apps for entrepreneurs that will help you achieve your goals, divided into several categories to make it easier for you to find what you need.

Sales and marketing entrepreneurship apps

Buffer can make managing your social media marketing much easier and less daunting. The software allows you to share your posts across multiple social networks. You can also use Buffer to schedule content so that it is posted at the best moment for your followers to see it. Additionally, Buffer is an Enterprise League member, which means you have a chance to catch a great deal from Buffer on our B2B collaboration platform as well. 

Square – Accepting credit and debit card payments in person with Square is definitely a breeze. All you need is your smartphone and a tiny reader, which Square will send you when you sign up. You can accept both standard and chip cards, which simplifies the sales process. If you make sales at a countertop or in a store, you can also upgrade to Square Stand.

Copper is one of the best apps each entrepreneur should have in 2023. This CRM software takes pride in its full integration to Google Suite so managing contacts and tracking deals across platforms is easier. It also features quick sales reports and sales projections so decision making is a lot easier. The best thing is they have a high level of security that keeps your data safe from any attacks.

Work management

Any.Do is one of the best apps for entrepreneurs mostly because it helps you stay organized and get more done. With its straightforward interface, you can add tasks either verbally or manually and may even share tasks with your contacts if you’re connected to your Facebook account.

You can also create an alert and highlight it to give it priority over other chores. Additionally, you can add additional notes and save them in a personal or business folder. Any.Do also supports syncing with multiple devices to ensure that you are constantly on top of your game.

Trello makes project management enjoyable and simple. You can work with other team members and visualize what has to be done using the app. Depending on what works best for your team, you can organize tasks into cards, lists, or boards.

Moreover, it contains numerous tools that allow you to view which projects are in progress, who is working on them, and what their status is. You can also give projects to staff, set deadlines, and categorize activities based on priority. It’s a simple yet effective approach to managing all of your tasks in a single intuitive, user-friendly mobile application.

Evernote is your small notebook for penning your thoughts that has a freeware version for the Web, iOS, and Android. With Evernote, you can organize your data across all of your devices. Sync files, save web pages, take images, make to-do lists, and record audio reminders using this app. 

Todoist is a task management tool like many others, but one feature that puts it in the best apps for entrepreneurs is the ability to observe real-time progress and trends in productivity. There are eight levels of Todoist Karma that can be unlocked as you advance.

Scoro it’s a comprehensive solution that combines a lot of the features that entrepreneurs look for in a project management tool. It has a real-time KPI dashboard, shared team calendar, meeting scheduling, contact management, time tracking, billing, detailed reports on project progress/finances, quoting, and invoice with pre-set templates.

The web and app interface is designed very well and has a relatively quick learning curve. Plus, all of the integrations that Scoro allows really help in saving you a ton of time and increasing productivity.

Content creation

Canva –  You need to create social media content, a doc, web design, infographic, promo poster, or something else? Canva is the best entrepreneur app for the job. Tons of ready-to-do templates and social media designs, all customizable. It unlocks every part of your creativity. Although, it’s fair to say the free version is kind of limiting.

Freepik – With a huge stock of high-quality photos, vectors, and illustrations, Freepik is the perfect resource for creatives. You can find the best design elements for any project.

Unsplash – Want to find royalty-free pictures that don’t have an outdated, 90s like vibe? This is the right place. An awesome resource of high-quality stock photos from renowned photographers and editors.

Self-improvement entrepreneur apps

Instapaper it’s the simplest and cheaper read-it-later app to use. On the other hand, it’s packed with features and functionalities that are more in pace with the needs of the modern entrepreneur. The best thing about it is that it’s integrated with Kindle.

Audible – With our busy lives and everything going on, it’s easy to say we don’t have time to read books. However, this app makes all these excuses sound lame. Audible holds thousands of reading materials, podcasts, and other resources in their library. Expand your business knowledge on the go.

With Blinkist your hectic entrepreneur’s life doesn’t give you the excuse to not upgrade your business knowledge. With the daily responsibilities of entrepreneurs in mind, the developers of Blinkist made sure their content is easy to digest. Hence, a typical listen is somewhere between 5 and 15 minutes. The fact that they have a huge library and a plethora of topics to choose from undoubtedly makes them one of the best apps for entrepreneurs. So the next time you go jogging or are stuck in traffic, turn on your Blinkist app and soak up the knowledge.

Remote communication

Flowdock is an easy approach to collaborate with members of the team on various projects since it combines chat and email functions. The greatest thing is that the app is compatible with the majority of browsers and mobile devices, and it includes capabilities like drag-and-drop, file uploads, and activity streams.

Your team members will be notified immediately if there is a change to the project, and they will be able to comment via chat messaging.

Slack is the ultimate communication app for entrepreneurs that allows team collaboration. It brings together people and information, facilitating effective communication. Moreover, it integrates with almost all the tools and apps your organization already uses.

Hence, if remote or hybrid work is going to become ever-more popular you can use Slack to communicate daily with your team. It’s easy to create different channels for different projects and save important messages.

Through Loom, you can create short screencasts as you narrate and explain what you’re doing. Hence the reason Loom found its place on this best entrepreneur apps list. Simply download the app or add the Chrome extension and start recording your screen. The best thing about it is that the video automatically uploads on the cloud from where you can quickly share it.

Entrepreneurship apps for mental health

Pep Talk is one of the best apps for entrepreneurs that provides life-changing curated playlists of audios. They are perfect for listening every time you need a boost in motivation or need to be inspired. The app’s free with In-App purchases and you can even purchase a monthly or lifelong subscription that it’s totally worth it since you will discover thousands of international speeches and thought leaders. 

Streaks – Being successful requires focused action and discipline, which means having good daily habits will improve your life, hence your mental health. Therefore, Streaks is one of the best apps for entrepreneurs because it helps you form good habits. All you need to do is create a to-do list and every day you complete a task, your streak will be extended. On the other side, if you break the chain, your streak will reset to zero days.

Insight Timer – There are a lot of things successful people sacrifice to achieve greatness, but your mental health shouldn’t be one of them. To help you achieve that, here’s one of the best free entrepreneurs app for meditation, sleep, and yoga.

Insight Timer has live events, a wide range of meditation techniques, group meditation sessions, and a massive library of soothing music that you can choose from. You can choose from over 90,000 FREE guided meditations spread across 200 topics of interest.

Security

Dashlane is a simple solution for protecting all your data, starting from passwords to personal info. It uses unbreakable end-to-end encryption to secure user data, provides more useful extras than almost any other competitor, has a wide range of high-security features, and offers more added value than similarly priced competitors.

SplashtopSOS – Ensuring your privacy and security for remote teams has never been easier. The automatic deployment for end users is great and linking it with a forwarder makes it brandable. Furthermore, it has all functionality for all different devices for one great price compared to the competition.

Splashtop solutions are built to give your company control over securing the data while giving your team the flexibility to access it from anywhere. Features include two-factor authentication, blank screen, multi-level password security, remote connection notification, screen auto-lock, session idle timeout, logging, and much more.

Bonus entrepreneurship apps that will simplify your life

DropBox, a free cloud-based file-storage service, provides instant connectivity and allows you to share photographs, documents, and movies with any laptop or mobile device. This tool is quite useful for sharing files with your team, as it eliminates the need for back-and-forth emailing. You can easily share the most recent version with your team thanks to the version control tool.

With CamCard, you can snap a photo of your business card and have all of the information immediately imported into your phone contacts and other email accounts. You may be certain of faultless scanning due to its accuracy. The nicest aspect is that you can also sync data between devices. 

While it is customary to exchange business cards at conferences, it is also quite easy to misplace a business card and, eventually, a business opportunity! Allow this not to happen to you.

Expensify can keep your receipts when traveling so you may recover office expenditures when you return home. All you need to do is take images of your receipts with your phone’s camera and Expensify will keep a digital record chronologically. Expensify also allows you to track mileage, dining prices, and other business travel expenses.

TripIt is a must-have app for entrepreneurs as it assists you in planning your forthcoming trip. Just forward your hotel, restaurant, flight, and car rental confirmation emails to plans@tripit.com, and the information will be instantly transferred to your master itinerary, allowing you to examine all of your upcoming arrangements at once.

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10 rules for success from Jack Ma

10 rules for success from Jack Ma

by | May 28, 2024

Business Tips

10 rules for success from Jack Ma

May 28, 2024

Jack Ma rules for sucess

Jack Ma, Alibaba CEO, is the second richest man in China. Even though he grew up in an isolated country, in his adulthood, he succeeded to put his name on the map with shiny letters due to his Alibaba success.

His road to greatness accidentally started back in 1996 when he visited the U.S. for the first time. He went there on a mission to recover payment for a Chinese firm but got introduced to the internet and from here on, everything is history. His first search was “beer” which left him disappointed that no Chinese brand showed in the results. It was then and there that he decided to do something about it.

Yet, he failed to do it the first two times. However, he didn’t give up and four years later with the financial help of 17 friends, he brought the mighty Alibaba to life. By 2005 his firm had already made over $25 million, and fast forward to today, he is retiring with around $40 billion in his pockets.

Jack Ma’s top 10 rules for success

The internet was surely a trigger, but Jack Ma success has come as a result of his own rules. So in order to help you achieve your own dreams and become a winner, we made a list of his most famous 10 rules for success. Listen to Jack Ma advice and build your own empire!

Get used to failing

Jack Ma is very familiar with failure. He applied to college 3 times before they accepted him. Even KFC didn’t find him fit. Most people will quit on the first try. Probably that will be the defining moment of their life – they will stop chasing their dreams and move on to something else. Jack Ma is different, he never gives up.

Keep the dream going​

Jack Ma secret to success was to keep his dream alive no matter the cost. His favourite fictional character Alibaba inspires his story. In a meeting, he explained the phrase “Keep your dream alive” was the secret keyword that opened the door of success similar to Alibaba’s story. Now you know why his companies bare that name.

Company culture is key

He started with only 18 young people in his company to arrive at a number of more than 20,000 employees today. The key factor binding them all together is transparency and openness to criticism. They are all treated like family and even have access to interest-free loans for property down payments.

Ignore the haters

When he developed Alipay, many people were advising him that it was destined to fail. Even some of his closest friends bashed him by telling it was the worst idea ever. He put his ignore cap on and continued his way. If he listened, he wouldn’t have built a secure payment method with over a half-billion satisfied users.

Get motivated from pop culture

Jack Ma loves The Godfather, Forrest Gump, and The Bodyguard. These are the movies that he watched over and over again as he was a kid. The inspiration came from the actors and how they dealt with delivering their lines. From their acting, he realised that when people are showing their real faces and speaking from the heart, the impact will be powerful. That’s why he motivates others to stay true to themselves.

Learn to say “No”

Jack Ma is bombarded with ideas on a daily basis. He usually answers with no. As the CEO of Alibaba, he thinks if he strays elsewhere for one second from the primary mission of his company, Alibaba will be in trouble. However, if the idea is aligning with Alibaba’s goals and it represents an excellent opportunity to grow, the definite answer would be yes.

Create a strong brand name

Jack Ma choose Alibaba as the name of his company for numerous reasons. One of them, we mentioned before – his favourite fictional character. Another one would be the internet because a name that is known by many is a plus. Moreover, it begins with the first letter of the alphabet “A”, which means in directories his firm will show on the top of the page.

The customer always comes first

Jack Ma created a revolutionary business philosophy that changed the world forever. The customers comes first, then the employees and last are the shareholders. The customers are the ones to provide revenue for a company, and employees are the main drivers of innovation.

Don’t complain

Jack Ma believes that people who complain are potential clients. If you offer a solution to a particular problem, you’ve targeted a potential audience of millions. Best Jack Ma advice for young people is to stop complaining and look for answers.

Let passion be your main drive

In the beginning, when speaking with his marketing team, he explained to them to create a sales pitch not to tackle Chinese websites only, but sites located in the U.S. as well. His passion for growth has been the factor that leads to his success. He also encourages his employees to have a startup attitude, not a corporate one.

Conclusion

Jack Ma through his experience shows how any entrepreneur around the world can bring their dream to fruition. As an entrepreneur, you can learn from his hard work, philosophies, and resilience. If you use them right, your door to success will open sooner than expected.

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