Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth…
– Mike Tyson

Which, let’s face it, happens to most start-ups and entrepreneurs. Around 75% in fact.

You have the best idea. You spend days, weeks, and months perfecting a 40-page business plan filled with five-year forecasts, 18-month roadmaps, and in-depth marketing strategies. You confidently pitch it to stakeholders and investors.

And then?

Then you get punched in the mouth.

Potential investors go quiet or “haven’t had time to read it” and you’re left with an expensive, wasted deliverable and a chunk of time that you’ll never get back. Worse still, your product isn’t any nearer launching and you haven’t secured any buy-in or investment.

What. A. Waste. Of. Time.

Traditional business plans are of little use to start-ups, and of no real interest to investors.

But what’s the alternative?

A one-page business plan inspired by Eric Ries’s Lean Start-Up methodology and specifically designed for emerging entrepreneurs: The Lean Canvas.

The Lean Canvas is a living framework that allows you to quickly capture your idea or concept, thoroughly validate it, and then continuously share, improve, and most importantly move on it.

Ok, I know what you’re thinking:

• How can a one-page Lean Canvas possibly replace a 40-page business plan?
• How can I tell the entire story of my business on one-page?
• Is a Lean Canvas really enough to help me secure investment or buy-in?

I have the answers to all these questions and more in this Process Street post.

Ready to dodge some punches?
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A go-to-market (GTM) strategy is the way in which a company brings a product or service to market.

No matter how good your idea is, you need a go-to-market strategy.

Why?

Because statistically speaking, your business is more likely to fail than succeed.

In fact, if you’re a startup, your chance of failure is a dreary 90%. That’s not to say that your idea isn’t a brilliant one, or that you haven’t got what it takes to bring it to market.

Startups fail for different reasons. Perhaps the market is already awash with companies offering the same solution as yours, or the market isn’t mature enough to welcome your product. Or, maybe the cost of developing and launching your product is so steep that it’s unprofitable.

If successful, a go-to-market strategy will be your salvation and prevent you from failure. The question is, how do you develop a winning strategy? Which factors should you consider?

I asked our VP of Marketing Bryan Sise these very questions. Through the course of his career at companies like Twilio, SendGrid, Twitter, Dynamic Signal, and now Process Street, Bryan has noticed what contributes to GTM success.

In this post I’ll share with you what he has to say. I’ll cover what a go-to-market strategy is, types of go-to-market strategies, the key steps to building a successful go-to-market strategy, and what GTM strategies we use here at Process Street.

• What is a go-to-market strategy?
• 6 factors to consider when building a go-to-market strategy
• Types of go-to-market strategies
• Key steps to building a successful go-to-market strategy
• Go-to-market strategies at Process Street

Let’s get strategizing.
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The other day, my household experienced one of the great tragedies of the home delivery era: our grocery delivery was canceled.

You know what that means. I had to go to the grocery store. Like, physically, in person, go inside the grocery store.

I survived, but phew. Let’s just say there were a few close calls.

All in all, though, it was a successful trip. I picked up a couple of prescriptions, had an eye exam, switched the pet insurance, got some advice about first-time homeownership, and even remembered to get dinner fixins. I would’ve gotten my oil changed and tires rotated, too, but I don’t have a car so… Yeah. I didn’t do that.

This is what economies of scope look like. Economies of scope are when it’s more cost-effective to produce related items together than it is to produce them individually. In the 21st century economy, it’s also an increasingly familiar model as brands continue to expand their offerings to consumers.

As a consumer, this model is great. We don’t have to run around all over the place to take care of all our responsibilities. For companies, it’s not a bad model, either.

Economies of scope – offering all of these services under one roof – companies are actually spending less by offering more.

But wait – how does that work?

Well, I’ll tell you:

• What do we mean by economies of scope?
• Economies of scope: Pros and cons
• Economies of scope vs economies of scale
• Economies of scope in action
• If all your friends jumped off a bridge…

Welcome to Process Street! Right this way, please.
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We’re an ambitious bunch here at Process Street.

In terms of numbers, we’ve published over 1,000 onsite blog posts, over 300 offsite blog posts, penned 5 huge ebooks, attended many an external webinar, and created many a podcast, too. And this is only our content marketing team’s efforts. If I were to discuss the phenomenal accomplishments of our other departments — from engineering to sales, product to customer success — we’d be here all day.

Despite our company-wide accomplishments, we knew in 2020 that we could push ourselves further (especially considering our $12m cash injection from Accel, Salesforce, and others). Naturally, we turned the ambitious goals and objectives we’d set ourselves up a notch.

This meant that, rather than only working with KPIs, we threw OKRs into the mix as well.

Not to toot our own horn too much, but I can say with confidence that the choice to do so went in our favor. In fact, we’ve had some of the best months ever since deploying OKRs!

This is why, in this post, I’m going to tell you everything that we learned from internally deploying OKRs at Process Street. Specifically, I’ll give you a quick recap on what OKRs are, go over our method for implementing OKRs in detail, recount my experience of getting used to (and then loving) OKRs, on top of providing 5 tried-and-tested tips for deploying OKRs at your company.

Just read the following sections to get completely clued-up:

• OKRs: A quick breakdown
• How we deployed OKRs at Process Street
• Deploying OKRs: How do they impact the rest of the company?
• 5 tips and tricks for deploying OKRs at your company

It’s time for you to pivot to OKRs and hit challenging targets like a pro, too.

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This is a guest post by Brayn Wills, the current Knowledge Management Specialist at ProProfs knowledge base. He is responsible for creating unique and relevant content on the knowledge base and keeping track of the latest developments in the realm of knowledge management. In his free time, he is either reading a new book or exploring offbeat destinations.

When a crisis strikes, it brings along daunting challenges that require businesses to reevaluate their strategies. One such significant challenge is customer churn. It can impact a business drastically if left unchecked.

Statistics show that, on average, most companies experience a monthly churn rate of 7.5%. If left unchecked, this can be catastrophic for a company’s bottom line.

A rapidly shrinking customer base means reduced profits that can have a severe impact on an organization, especially during a crisis. What’s more, crisis situations tend to exacerbate the root causes of churn, meaning businesses need to be extra responsive and attentive to their customers during these times.

While you cannot prevent all customers from leaving your company, you certainly can take concrete steps to keep customer churn in control.

In this post for Process Street, I will cover:

• What is customer attrition?
• Customer expectations and mindset during a crisis
• 6 Effective ways to reduce customer attrition
• How to provide extra value to customers during a crisis
• Move beyond promotion to meet customer expectations
• Customer retention solutions with Process Street

Read on to uncover the pragmatic ways to reduce customer churn during a crisis by understanding and providing value to your customers.
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Imagine you knew absolutely everything there was to know about the company you buy from. I’m talking about their goals, values … even the challenges they face. It would be pretty radical right?

Or rather, the company in question would be radically transparent.

Radical transparency is a phenomenon that’s gaining traction, and this post is here to tell you why. I’ll be taking a look at what radical transparency means and how the approach is put into practice at Gitlab, a DevOps platform founded upon an open-source ethos.

To jump to a specific section of the post click the appropriate link below:

• What is radical transparency?
• A brief introduction to GitLab
• What does radical transparency look like at Gitlab?
• A look into GitLab’s employee handbook
• What does radical transparency look like in practice?
• Radical Transparency: Concluding thoughts

Let’s get started
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Everyone knows that unicorns don’t exist.

Or do they?

The latest findings have reported that there are now over 600 unicorns thriving in the wild. Experts in the field often cite unicorns’ unique capacity for managing hyper growth that’s allowed them to experience such a surge of success.

However, unicorns still face a perilous existence: two-thirds of unicorns never reach full maturity. This is partly due to a lack of sustainable resources in their environment, but with valuations of $1 billion or more, they are also highly coveted by collectors.

Say you want to raise a gangly young foal into a noble specimen of unicorn-ness. Where do you start? How do you make sure your prospective unicorn makes it into that elite one-third of successful hopefuls?

Fortunately for you, Process Street knows a thing or two about unicorn rearing and maintenance, and this post will cover the basic strategies of managing hyper growth for the best possible outcome: a fully matured unicorn.

Peruse the following chapters for the best advice we have to give:

• What makes a unicorn a unicorn?
• What is hyper growth?
• The 3 stages of hyper growth
• 4 strategies for managing hyper growth well

Giddy-up! (Last horse reference, I promise.)
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I love winning.

It doesn’t matter what’s involved or what the prize is, I’ll do what I can to achieve my goal of clinching that ‘winner’ title.

When I was 6, my primary school held an egg and spoon race as part of its sports day activities. The prize was a yardstick of chocolate. Let’s just say that, by lunchtime, there were tears and tantrums elsewhere while my face was smeared with chocolate.

To this day, I’m still (perhaps unhealthily) incentivized by goals. Particularly in the workplace. I’m not alone in this though, as numerous studies show that goal-setting improves employee performance and engagement.

Do you relish winning, too?

And do you want the next quarter to be your team’s best quarter ever?

Then you need to know about OKRs (objectives and key results). It’s basically an adult version of the egg and spoon race.

That’s why, in this short, informative Process Street post, I’ll define OKRs, describe their business benefits, give advice on how to write solid OKRs, and also provide OKR examples from the likes of Google.

Just make your way through the following sections to learn all about OKRs:

• What is an OKR?
• The business benefits of the OKR methodology
• How to write inspiring, useful OKRs
• 3 OKR examples — including ones Google use
• Moving forward as an OKR-aligned team

Now, let’s make this quarter more than OK.

Let’s make it internally record-breaking, thanks to OKRs!

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This is a guest post by Jack Paxton, the co-founder of VYPER, a marketing tool that helps brands build email lists, social followings, and revenue using viral giveaways, referral, and reward programs. Jack spent millions of dollars testing different marketing strategies at his marketing agency. He then also co-founded Hyax a fast, conversion & design-focused course and funnel builder for creators.

Famous SaaS brands like Dropbox and PayPal witnessed explosive growth in their platforms. Since 2007, Dropbox has grown into a $4 billion-dollar company, and PayPal went from 1 million users to 5 million in the same year (2000).

Dropbox and PayPal are two entirely different businesses operating in different markets. However, they share a similar viral growth strategy, one that is still used today.

Any ideas on what this strategy might be?

You got it, they both harness the power of referral marketing.

SaaS brands worldwide, including us at Process Street, are realizing the benefits of referral marketing: to constantly acquire new customers, build platforms, and promote customer loyalty and trust.

In this article, we present world-famous referral programs to determine what made them successful and how you can do the same.

Click on the relevant links to jump to your section of choice. Alternatively, scroll down to read all we have to say, to optimize your growth strategy via referral programs.

• What is referral marketing?
• The power of referral marketing
• How to create a successful referral program

Let’s jump to it!
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Agent *reader*, I call upon you today as we’re at a time of crisis. Humans have annihilated 83% of all wild animals and are disrupting a natural climate balance, throwing us into a projected future that is 4.1 – 4.8°C (39.38 – 40.64 °F) warmer.

It’s our duty, as citizens, business owners, and employees to change the narrative for our children’s lives; to kickstart a transition into a more sustainable future, one that enriches biodiversity and a balanced climate. And for this, we turn our attention to sustainable cities.

According to the World Health Organization, the global world population living in urban areas is expected to increase to 66% by 2050, making cities a perfect place to transform society and support biodiversity and a balanced climate.

In this Process Street article, we’ll become time-travelers, zipping into the future to assess two separate predicted scenarios.

• Scenario 1: The continuation of human activity as normal.
• Scenario 2: Transforming into a more sustainable future, starting with our cities.

Today, we meet at a crossroad, where our future could go two ways. We’ll explore these two separate scenarios, before addressing the role of sustainable cities in creating a more desirable world. We’ll look at how businesses must adapt to survive in a future that is carbon-neutral with rich biodiversity.

After all, who wouldn’t want such a future?

• What are sustainable cities?
• Our future cities are sustainable
• Sustainable cities: Key takeaways for corporate sustainability

Seat belts on, time-machine ignited, to the future here we come!
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