Startup Success and Niche eCommerce Within the Health Care Industry

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• Startup Success and Niche eCommerce Within the Health Care Industry
• Use Twitter on a Mac? There’s an Enhanced App
• Case Study: How to Use Amazon’s Strategy for Your Business
• British Incentives for Small Business Loans: Take a Page From the US
• “United Breaks Guitars” is a Fun and Fantastic Read

Startup Success and Niche eCommerce Within the Health Care Industry Posted: 28 Apr 2013 04:00 PM PDT The health care market is receiving increasing attention from entrepreneurs around the world looking to improve a complex field. Modern medicine continues to face budget deficits and inferior technology in both developed and developing nations. Health care IT (Internet technology) has taken off in the last few years. Also active is the field of ecommerce — across all sorts of niches, including health care. eCommerce Within the Ayurveda Health Care Niche Nirogam, an Ayurvedic product e-retailer, finds itself competing in an already booming natural health market. Nirogam Founder, Puneet Aggarwal, was born into the merchant class in his native India. His father was an entrepreneur running a metal fabrication factory. After his graduation in 1988, Puneet followed his father's lead and started a business. This first venture, Ivycomm Systems, addressed a growing need for online presence as India began to adopt the Internet. Puneet's work introduced him to research scientist Dr. Pushpa Khanna, who had recently discovered an insulin-like substance in plant form. As her new website gained traction, Dr. Khanna developed an oral tablet of the substance known as Gourdin. She then asked for Puneet's assistance in selling it online. His initial outreach to those who had shown past interest was immediately successful. Taking a cue from their first product, by 2002 the two had expanded their offering to 10 herbal products. This shift toward all natural health solutions is based on an ancient Indian system known as Ayurveda, a system of alternative medicine emphasizing natural methods of healing and good nutrition. There is a strong bias within U.S. and U.K. regulatory authorities favoring conventional pharmaceuticals over holistic medicine. This strongly affects sales and addressable market, despite the growing popularity of Ayurveda in the Western world, especially in places like California. In India, of course, Ayurveda is a known and highly respected science with a large number of existing brands offering products across various categories. Nirogam is intended to educate patients regarding alternatives to modern drugs, and to provide a resource for those seeking a holistic option. In addition to natural wellness products, Nirogam offers herbal supplements, organic foods and natural cosmetics. The site is designed as a discovery platform, unlike the marketplaces of close competitors HealthKart, NaturalMantra and Satvikshop. This model captures a wider audience. As many potential buyers are unfamiliar with the solutions offered, Nirogam offers an informative guide based on known symptoms. Nirogam also has an active social media presence and provides a forum for relevant medical discussion on their company blog. It’s a Family Affair The business is a family affair, and Puneet often seeks business advice from his mentor and father Satish. In turn, Satish must be proud of his son. Nirogam's annual revenues are nearing half a million dollars, with a monthly growth rate of 15 percent. Puneet plans to expand to additional niche markets in health care. New websites will follow the current model, providing comprehensive diagnostic information as well as a community and commerce. Back in 2007, I published my formula for web 3.0 — an integrated user experience that is context-specific and brings content, commerce and community together, alongside vertical search and personalization. Nirogam has brought together, in the context of Ayurvedic medicine, most of those elements. In the future, personalized diagnosis may be a service to add to the roster. Conceivably, somewhere down the line, you could be dialing into a video-conference with an Ayurveda doctor in Kerala to get a personalized consultation for that pain in your upper back. If you are interested in exploring the ancient science of Ayurvedic medicine, Nirogam is worth a look. Ayurveda Photo via Shutterstock The post Startup Success and Niche eCommerce Within the Health Care Industry appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Use Twitter on a Mac? There’s an Enhanced App Posted: 28 Apr 2013 02:00 PM PDT Twitter has millions of users, but for people running Mac computers, the social network has had some limitations. Twitter recently announced  enhancements for Mac users that should make the social network more engaging for this important group, too. As we’ve been reporting, Twitter remains one of the top online ways to reach potential customers and stay in contact with current ones. The update for Mac users is now available in the Mac App Store for free. Along with several visual and composition enhancements, Twitter announced Thursday that its Mac App will allow a user to manage multiple accounts, view multiple timelines and use some new keyboard shortcuts. Managing multiple accounts is a vital feature for Twitter users, especially business owners who can manage their personal, business and perhaps a special promotional account from a single app. A new Tweet box will feature a camera icon that allows a Mac user to select a photo to share through Twitter. Mac users can still continue to drag-and-drop their photos into the Tweet compose area. Twitter now supports Mac’s retina display, a feature the social network says will enhance the experience for Mac users  by creating “more vivid Tweets.” Twitter Tech Lead, Ben Sandofsky, also reports that Twitter for Mac will support 14 additional languages. Along with English, Twitter for Mac will now support Dutch, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Portuguese, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Traditional Chinese and Turkish. The post Use Twitter on a Mac? There’s an Enhanced App appeared first on Small Business Trends.

Case Study: How to Use Amazon’s Strategy for Your Business Posted: 28 Apr 2013 12:00 PM PDT How fitting that the globe's largest online store is named after the enormous South American river. With over $48 billion in revenues throughout 2012 alone, Amazon is a dynamic powerhouse that every brand should admire. Now, you'd have to be nuttier than a fruitcake to think that Amazon achieved this mammoth success with ease. It required blood, sweat and tears – or at least two of the three – for Amazon to become the center of online retail that it is today. Use the “Amazon Strategy” for Your Business Fortunately, Amazon's strategy to attain 250,000,000 monthly visitors isn’t exactly a secret. They're known for "going all in" and aggressively defending their turf while expanding it. Brands hoping for similar Amazon-sized success should study the way the ecommerce site stays ahead of the curve, expands their territory, optimizes content and gives power to the consumer. Amazon Creates the Trend Before e-readers and tablets were mainstream, Amazon took a leap of faith and invested itself in this market. The risk clearly succeeded, as tablets are recognized as one of the fastest-growing new technologies. Instead of simply focusing on selling tablets and e-readers, Amazon developed the Kindle, which placed their own stamp in the growing marketplace. Amazon also created a niche for itself by promoting new, unknown authors. Did you know that Amazon's top 100 selling Kindle books were mostly self-published authors? E-readers continue to consume a wider range of content – and Amazon delivers. By staying ahead of the curve like they did with the Kindle, Amazon ensures its relevance and staying power as today's new technologies become the standard. Amazon Goes to Hollywood Part of staying ahead of the curve means that Amazon will also travel into new territory. While an online retail site seems completely unrelated to Hollywood, news has broken that Amazon is investing in at least 30 original movies or television programs. Instead of simply streaming video content, Amazon is experimenting in creating its own content. Amazon is using data from their sales and consumer base to predict what type of content will be a hit. Likewise, brands should continue to take calculated risks. Just as Amazon is investing in creating video content because they understand how it fits their platform, brands should consider their potential avenues as well. Optimization Prime Just like any online presence, Amazon focuses on content optimization to ensure that all of their listings appear nicely in SERPs (search engine result pages). They've refined their search system to only bring up the content that you're looking for. Furthermore, Amazon's content is powerful because it doesn't just appear on SERPs, it's actually sent to you via email and relevant advertising throughout the Internet. Because Amazon tries to recommend products to consumers, they've included a "Fix this Recommendation" button in case one of their suggestions is off base. By doing this, Amazon continues to harness personal preferences to fine-tune their marketing efforts. Is your site optimized to use and gather relevant data? Power to the Public For the most part, Amazon doesn't really sell that much. Most of their content and items come from "sellers." Thus, the strength in Amazon's brand is that it is based on user-generated content that can quickly adapt to user needs. While not every brand can rely on user-generated content like Amazon, every business can afford to give more power to the consumer. For instance, consider adding product review options or testimonials. The post Case Study: How to Use Amazon's Strategy for Your Business appeared first on Small Business Trends.

British Incentives for Small Business Loans: Take a Page From the US Posted: 28 Apr 2013 09:30 AM PDT The Bank of England and U.K. Treasury announced this week they are offering lending institutions incentives for small business loans. But if the U.S. experience is an example, incentives won’t do the trick. U.K. Incentives for Small Business Loans British small businesses say they are starved for credit  Britain continues its struggle to recover from the financial crisis and just entered its third recession in the last five years. According to a Reuters report, the next phase of the “Funding for Lending Scheme” (FLS) would give banks incentives for granting loans to small businesses. The original FLS was introduced back in August of 2012.  The intention was to offer banks incentives to increase loans to consumers and businesses. But it didn’t work out that way.  The benefits were seen by banks and homebuyers, not small businesses / SMEs. Under the latest iteration, for every additional one pound that banks lend to small businesses in 2013, banks will be able to draw on 10 pounds of  discounted FLS funding (it’s a 1:1 ratio for other types of lending in the FLS).  In 2014 that formula drops to five pounds of discounted funding for every one additional pound loaned to small businesses. The U.K. Finance Minister George Osborne said in a statement, ”This innovative extension will now do even more for small and medium-sized businesses ….” Not everyone agrees.  In an article in the Guardian, economics correspondent Phillip Inman says it won’t much matter as long as the Royal Bank of Scotland is under restrictions to reduce its lending. He writes: “When the Royal Bank of Scotland is under pressure to conserve its cash and shrink its lending, what, you might ask, is the point of officials inside the Bank of England extending and upgrading the funding for lending scheme (FLS) to encourage the small business loan market? The Edinburgh-based bank can already lay claim to more than 40% of small and medium-sized business lending. With Lloyds, the other state-owned bank, it dominates the scene and, according to many business leaders, sets the benchmark for the industry. Loan criteria, charges and penalties are all set by RBS, they say. RBS wants to make money and can only do so by lending, but it is under instruction from the Treasury and a welter of new banking rules to be risk averse. A risk averse strategy turns away pleas from risky SMEs in favour of safer borrowers – which in this case are big business and high loan-to-value homeowners. He calls for more action. He quotes John Longworth, head of the British Chambers of Commerce, as calling for backing of an embryonic Bank of Business in order to bring more options to the small business loan market.  Longworth, in his New Year’s message at the beginning of 2013, noted: “Britain's business finance system is dysfunctional and restrains growth and there is an urgent need for a patient business lender to give innovative, new and growing businesses, as well as those businesses in recovery, access to the levels of finance they need to grow and evolve.” Lessons From the U.S. Experience For many of us here in the United States, to think of one bank being responsible for 40% of the nation’s small business loans is mind-boggling.  True, the banking industry has been consolidating here in the United States for decades. Yet we still see a different bank on every corner. We’re lucky to have so many choices. Even so, U.S. banks appear to be making fewer small business loans, based on FDIC data between 1995 and 2012.  As Professor Scott Shane points out, one reason is that big business loans are more profitable than small business loans. Loans to small businesses are riskier, making small business loan portfolios less profitable.  Small business loans are harder to underwrite due to a dearth of public credit histories and solid financial statements by small businesses.  Assets to secure such loans are slim. And small business failure rates don’t help lenders sleep better at night. Some small business owners simply don’t bother applying for business loans. Or they take one look at the paperwork and assume (rightly or wrongly) they will be turned down. So they run up their credit cards or tap into their home equity loans instead, and don’t get enough funding that way. But why wouldn’t government incentives help, you ask? Here in the United States, we’ve had a recent experience with government incentives to increase small business lending — and it wasn’t pretty. Just this month, an Inspector General report disclosed that many banks receiving money from a special government Small Business Loan Fund used that money to repay bailout debt, instead of increasing small business lending. According to the report, there was no penalty if they didn’t lend. There was no regulatory oversight to determine if recipient-banks’ plans to increase small-business loans were even achievable. Some of the banks just weren’t in a position to increase their small business lending much. If the U.S. experience is any indication, the Guardian correspondent and the British Chambers chief have a point.  To increase small business lending calls for a larger and different vision.  Incentives alone won’t do it, because they don’t fix the fundamental underlying issues with small business lending. Innovative New Approaches Needed What’s needed are new approaches that directly address the challenges of lending to small businesses.  Small businesses everywhere need more innovative funding programs that still balance responsible underwriting. Extended loan repayment terms for small businesses, more focus on microloans (and redefining microloans as being up to $200,000, because after all, $10,000 or even $50,000 doesn’t go far today), loosening of crowdfunding restrictions, more programs backed by successful businesses and entrepreneurs (such as Samuel Adams “Brewing the American Dream” program and Amazon’s Capital program for Amazon merchants) that combine mentoring oversight with funding, and expansion of programs like Accion microloans  – here in the United States these and other innovative approaches need to be encouraged. Another help would be more educational programs aimed at small businesses to help them understand business credit scoring.  Many U.S. small business owners are in the dark about how to build a credit history for their businesses (versus themselves personally). Change the paradigm, and you can open up small business access to operating and expansion funding.  Keep it the same and the state of small business lending will be more of the same, too. The post British Incentives for Small Business Loans: Take a Page From the US appeared first on Small Business Trends.

“United Breaks Guitars” is a Fun and Fantastic Read Posted: 28 Apr 2013 06:10 AM PDT You won't believe how I got a copy of this book.  Staci, the Operations Manager here at Small Business Trends, sent me a link to the promotional video on the book site.  Then I watched the video.  She and I instant messaged about it for a few minutes exchanging "ha ha ha's" and "LOLs."   That's when I knew that I had to get a copy of the book to review it. But I didn't know Dave Carroll and I didn't have a lot of faith in reaching him via the website.  So I found Dave Carroll's Twitter ID (@DaveCarroll) and told him who I was and what I wanted in less than 140 characters.  Within a week, I had a review copy at my door (along with a sweet inspirational calendar).  I'd say it was a win-win all the way around.  And now, I'm going to tell you all about United Breaks Guitars: The Power of One Voice in the Age of Social Media. The Backstage Story in an Afternoon I read United Breaks Guitars – on a Sunday.  Yup.  That's all it took.  It was a perfect weekend read because it told the tale of a video I had heard of but knew little about.  On July 6, 2009, Dave Carroll uploaded the original United Breaks Guitars video to YouTube.  Nearly 13 million views later (as of today), he continues to represent the impact that one person can have using social media and a message that resonates. United Breaks Guitars: The Power of One Voice in the Age of Social Media is his first-person tale of his experience with United Airlines' handling of his Taylor guitar … and the ensuing circus that was his journey through their massive customer service system. How United Breaks Guitars Kept Me Glued to My Chair I can assure you it had nothing to do with any kind of cutting edge marketing or customer service strategies that were revealed in the book.  That's because there weren't any.  It wasn't that kind of book. It was the authenticity and the sheer humble curiosity of the story that kept me sitting in my favorite reading chair. Of course, I had my computer close by so that I could revisit all three United Breaks Guitars videos – just so I can have the experience and take a second look at some of the details Carroll reveals throughout the book. Here is a quick tour of what you may not have known behind the United Break Guitars phenomenon and the small business lessons you can take away from the book. Male Musicians Pick Up Guitars Like They Pick Up Women I'll leave it up to you to decide whether this is a healthy relationship to be having with an inanimate object.  But the chapter on how a musician chooses a guitar is an absolute hoot.  You'll never look at someone carrying a guitar through an airport the same way. As I read this chapter, I immediately thought about the myriad special requests our customers make.  While every business can't fulfill on the special needs for every customer situation, if you're in the service business, this is something you need to be prepared for.   In the United Breaks Guitars book, I learned that most airlines make musicians sign waivers that remove all responsibility for instruments from the airline.  In other words, if you have to check your instruments (or other fragile piece of luggage) you do so at your own risk. You'll Need More Than One to Get the Job Done Did you know that there were actually three United Breaks Guitars songs and videos? Dave had a plan and he fulfilled on it.  Once he had come to terms that United was not going to take any responsibility for the damage done to his guitar (despite the fact that he had not signed a waiver), he decided to create three videos of varying styles telling the story.  He had a goal to reach a million views between the three videos. I got a powerful lesson from this.  Carroll had made a mental shift and redirected his energy to doing what he does best; writing songs as an emotional and creative outlet.  He set three primary goals with this: To take a frustrating experience and make it positive. To create something with his friends. To change the way one of the world's largest companies deals with it's customers. He could control the first two goals, but he threw the third one in there as a stretch goal.  He knew he couldn't exactly control the outcome, but his efforts on the first two could certainly make a dent. You Can Strategize the Impact of a Song Here is another little tidbit I got from United Breaks Guitars that I didn't know.   You can program or create a song to get the desired response.  I didn't realize that.  I thought songwriters were inspired and just wrote what came to them.  I thought it was magic, and maybe sometimes it is.  But for Dave Carroll's project – it was all by design. As a small business owner or expert in your field, you have amazing powers at your disposal that you can use to influence how people respond to you and your product or service.  Dave knew from experience that certain beats and types of songs influenced how people reacted.  He knew how important the refrain was.  He knew it had to have a certain beat and a certain style.  All in all, I was blown away by the strategic planning brilliance he used to write the song. Ask Your Friends to Help One of Dave's goals was to work with his friends and enroll them into his project.  A phrase that he keeps repeating in this section is: "I love how [insert industry or expertise here] professionals don't need a lot of details before saying yes to a gig." The lesson for small businesses in this chapter of United Breaks Guitars is clear – don't insulate yourself.  You are not on your own.  There is a community of partners in the wings ready, willing and able to help you achieve your goal.  All you have to do is ask. Storytelling is Powerful Stuff We aren't all songwriters, but we all have stories that can ultimately help other people and make a real difference in the world.  Don't wait for a frustration or life changing experience to tell your story. Stop to think about how the stories you have and the stories you tell can ultimately help other people and make a difference in the world.  You can start by reading United Breaks Guitars for inspiration. The post “United Breaks Guitars” is a Fun and Fantastic Read appeared first on Small Business Trends.

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