A scalable startup internet business is a business which has the potential to be scaled. That doesn’t necessarily mean it will be scaled though. There’s a few things which set apart a scalable startup from something which will only ever be a small business:
- Vision – Do you want a scalable business or a small business?
- Target market – How large is your target market?
- Systems in place – Are your business systems automated and how much can they take?
- Geographical area – Is your business local or international?
Scalable Startup Internet Business
The scale of your business often depends on the scale of your vision for it. Whether an owner has the foresight to see a massive business or just a small one can often be the determining factor in what it becomes. A business can’t grow beyond the thinking you bring to it. If you judge your business in terms of how little you can do to run it, it will most likely only ever be small. However, if you have a large vision and work hard on your business, and yourself, you can build a massive business, if your business model allows.
Scalable Startup – Target Market
Your target market has a lot to do with how large your business can grow. This is also tied up with geographical area which we will come to later on. How many customers can you serve and for how long? Can you build a customer base and benefit from the lifetime value of a customer, or do you only sell one product? Is your target market international and can you serve them? Who is your perfect customer? Knowing your target audience and having the right business model is vital for building a long term sustainable business. See why is target market important.
Systems In Place
What systems are in place in your business? What are their limitations and how do they work? An online business for example can benefit from automated sales platforms, email marketing, sales funnels and automatically delivered products. This is a scalable startup model. A traditional business has more limitations. It needs a physical premises, staff and customers.
Checkout tills, although now many are automated, still need a physical presence to run and serve customers. There’s a limit to how many customers can be served at once. Scaling a business with staff means increasing your number of staff in many cases. This is not so important with an online business since everything can be automated and websites can serve as digital ’employees’ of a kind!
Geographical Area
A physical business is also limited by its area. Short of building a franchise business, in order to scale up a local business many more costs are involved. Plus a bunch of physical changes might be needed. Increasing the size of a store, employing more staff, buying more equipment are just a few examples. A local business is limited in terms of how many customers it can serve too. An online business can deliver automated products and services worldwide and so is much more scalable than a local, physical business.
The Best Scalable Startup – An Online Business
One of the best scalable startup opportunities is an online business. There’s a few reasons why an online business ticks a lot of boxes for a scalable startup:
- It is low cost – Compared to a normal ‘bricks and mortar’ business there’s no stock to buy, premises needed or employees to hire.
- It can be done from anywhere – Work from a laptop from anywhere in the world with an internet connection
- It’s systems can be completely automated – from advertising to delivery of digital products, everything in the system is completely scalable.
- It is international – The target market is global and so it ticks more scalable boxes than a small physically based business for scalability,
Limited Business Model
A small business can be scaled with online advertising too. However, small businesses are limited by the people and systems within them. In the example of a small corner shop, a massive influx of customers would wipe out the stock in the shop. One man at the till wouldn’t be able to cope with the increased custom. Customers would turned away once it ran out of stock. An increase in the size of a shop would be expensive. More staff too costs money and bringing in more stock requires more space and more capital.
So with this above example, it wouldn’t work increasing the number of customers due to the limits of the business model. A scalable startup business should have the systems in place to scale up immediately.
Online Advertising
The tools are already available to scale any business up with online advertising. Most small business owners don’t even know how powerful online advertising is. Even though many would benefit from it they still don’t use it. Facebook and Adwords, for example, can allow anyone to tap into their target audience very quickly and easily.
Despite the power of online marketing, and even with those who use it, if a business model is limited with people, staff and physical location, online advertising will be deliberately limited to suit the business model. With an unlimited business model, online advertising can be scaled up massively.
An Unlimited Business Model
An unlimited business model, on the other hand, can accept multiple purchases simultaneously through a website automatically. It can communicate with potential customers through email and emails can be delivered all completely on autopilot. Products can be sold to many people at once through a single link in an email, or on a website.
Automated websites which deliver continual value through videos, webinars and by various other means can continue to deliver all on autopilot. Software, tools and systems can sold through website which continue to offer customer value month after month. Subscription products let the business owner earn money for the lifetime of a customer and continue to offer value on autopilot.
This kind of business model can be scaled with online advertising without limitation. The only limitation is the vision of the business owner in the case of a business model like this one.
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