5 Growth Principles Small Businesses Can Steal from Startups

"A startup is a company designed to grow fast," says longtime startup guru and investor Paul Graham. Growth is the one thing that sets a startup apart from any other company in the world. But that doesn't mean startups are the only companies that can grow at a rapid pace. Related: How to grow your business with Product Hunt—even if you're not a startup Because startups are hyper-focused on growing, SMBs can learn a lot from them. Try applying these 5 startup growth principles to start seeing more rapid progress. 1. Incentivize sharing 70% of people trust brand recommendations from their friends, but only 10% trust advertising. That means the people talking about your business are 7x more impactful than any advertising your company is doing. So how do you get people to share your brand with their friends? People won't share your brand out of the goodness of their hearts. There's always a reason or incentive for them to share. You'll have to get creative to incentivize your customers, but let's see how it's done in the startup world. Robinhood is a startup that allows you to trade stock for free on their online platform. They had 500,000 people sign up to use their product before they even launched because they offered early access to the app to people who got their friends to sign up too. You're probably familiar with Dropbox, a service that stores your files online and allows for easy file sharing. They offered 0.5 GB of free storage for every friend who signed up based on a user's recommendation. It's tactics like this one that have helped Dropbox achieve a $4-billion valuation. Here's another example: Square Cash, an app that makes it easy to pay your friends, gives $5 to you and to a friend when they try the app. I recommend you think about services or goods your business is uniquely positioned to offer. The offer should be attractive enough that people will take you up on it, but not so generous that you'll be losing money in the long run. 2. Act big If your business is online, you can act bigger than you really are and attract more customers. If you act like a big deal, people will treat you like a big deal. Fake it 'til you make it? Yeah, it's a real thing. You can spend relatively small amounts of money to look just as big as (or bigger than) your competitors. Think extremely well-designed webpages, professional packaging, elegant invoices, etc. Future customers who visit your website don't know how big you are, and they won't have any reason to doubt that you are big and important. Take a look at what the websites of even the smallest startups (2—6 employees) look like: https://piapp.co http://www.inkodye.com https://seed.co One caveat: Success is a great look for small businesses; arrogant and distant are not. In your quest to look big, don't forget the importance of maintaining connections, delighting your customers, and apologizing when you screw up. 3. Progress indefinitely The world is constantly changing, and so are all of the world's successful businesses. It's easy to stick with what you know best, but small pivots in your business model can mean big growth. One company that wasn't afraid to act on new insights? Amazon. Amazon started out as an online book store, expanded to books and music, then eventually became the global e-commerce giant they are now, selling everything under the sun. Another example is Buffer, whose blog has been insanely successful at generating traffic over the last few years. But recently, they announced that they're changing the direction of the blog. Tampering with your recipe for success can be terrifying. However, if you've done your research and you're acting on sound principles, don't be afraid to try something new. It just might be the next big thing. 4. Appeal visually Nowadays, people like (pretty) pictures more than words. It's true that there is more visual content online now than ever before, but it's easy to forget that this trend is likely the result of changing consumer behavior. Because people are increasingly sensitive to visual content, you can appeal to more people (and thus grow faster) if you put an appropriate focus on compelling visuals. Brands that have visual appeal, that consistently create visually appealing content, will appeal to more paying customers. To understand the visual message that your brand is sending, find out what kinds of feelings your customers associate with your brand. You can do this with an in-person focus group or an online survey (we love Qualaroo for on-site mini-surveys). Once you understand how people outside your office perceive your brand, you'll know how to invest in additional visual content. 5. Adopt disruptive technology Gain a competitive edge by using better technology than your competitors. Like every competitive startup who uses disruptive technology to solve their problems, you can do it too. There's definitely no shortage of ever-progressing business tools to help you work smarter, faster and cheaper. So how do you find disruptive technology to turbocharge your business? Search for lesser-known startups that solve your problems on Angel List or Product Hunt. See if anyone has solutions on Quora. We've used both Product Hunt and Quora to promote Lucidpress, and you can definitely do the same with your brand. . . Recently, I was feeling very unsatisfied with traditional e-commerce shipping solutions, so I searched "shipping startups" on Angel List. In moments, I found tons of useful services like Shippo. I hope this post has inspired you to break out of the small-business mindset. Technology is your friend, and startups are great at utilizing tech to grow their businesses. Follow in their footsteps, and you're sure to discover great new ways to grow your brand. Enjoy this post? Subscribe to the Lucidpress blog to get our best delivered to your inbox every week.