Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff: A Startup Toolkit for Entrepreneurs
In order to avoid those hiccups, Energy Foundry, with the support of the Smart Grid Cluster, created a startup toolkit with turnkey business support and services that allow entrepreneurs to focus on growing their business instead of sweating the small stuff.
Administrative foundations are one thing. Getting everything ready for Day 1 of running your business—from getting business cards, to setting up email and phones, even to getting a website up and running—take time and strategy, but online tools like Vistaprint and Hostgator make it fairly easy to handle internally.
We crafted this ever-expanding kit by talking to people with first-hand experiences on the matter: entrepreneurs. One of the most vital questions we asked was, for some, also the hardest hitting: “What’s one tool or service you didn’t realize would make your life as a CEO that much easier?”
Archie Gupta, CEO of Root3 Technologies told us that he had no idea doing payrolls and administering benefits would be such a complicated process. Other back-end operations like accounting, banking, design, and digital marketing can also become overwhelming responsibilities for a small team. Brandon Pearlman, COO of Digital H20 told us that hiring legal assistance early on would have freed them from a lot of stress.
“Starting a business is hard enough as it is, and there are so many moving pieces that the legal stuff is often overlooked. There’s a lot of low-hanging fruit that you can do for minimal expense but that will actually have near-term and long-term value. It’s important to get good legal advice early on. it doesn’t mean you have to start spending thousands of dollars in nickel fees, but some small money is good money well spent.”
And then there’s everything else. What do you do when your company outgrows your office space? How do you run and manage content appropriate for a board meeting? What’s the best way to maintain communication with your investors?
The startup toolkit will help you figure it all out. Samir Mayekar of SiNode Systems sums up how he and his team have used these resources to their advantage:
“We found office space in a smart grid facility, received assistance with nondilutive funding opportunities, and secured funding for student interns to help grow our team. We’ve been able to tap into many resources to help us build value as a company.”
Check out the full toolkit and discounted service offerings here.
Have suggestions for additional support or services? Shoot us a note at info@energyfoundry.com.