1. What Is the Difference Between a Small Business and a Startup?

The main difference between a small business and a startup is that a startup sets out to achieve a scalable business model, which prioritizes gathering as much funding as possible to encourage rapid growth. A small business, on the other hand, strives to become a sustainable venture that can exist competitively within a given market.

A successful small business can exist for decades, in some cases with business owners passing the business through generations. However, a startup may seek to grow in order to maximize their target market and attract additional investors—or a larger company to purchase or acquire them—to grow the brand and maximize profit. This can often lead to a spreading of ownership, which many small businesses don’t require.

1. What Is Brainstorming?

Brainstorming is a creative process where a person or group sits down with a problem in mind and spontaneously contributes solutions to that problem. Brainstorming methods can be as simple as making lists or as detailed as making a mind map. It usually happens during the beginning stages of a project, and its goal is to end up with a large number of ideas to help define the problem and all of the possible creative solutions. You can brainstorm using a whiteboard, online software, or just a piece of paper and a pen.

1. What Is a Unique Value Proposition?

A unique value proposition (UVP), also known as a unique selling proposition (USP), is a statement that clearly expresses your product or service's distinct selling points to potential customers. A UVP statement conveys more information than a tagline or slogan. It explains the specific benefits your product offers, why your target customers should choose your product over the competition, and how your product resolves their pain points. A business typically displays its UVP on its website homepage and incorporates it into a marketing strategy.

Follow the below steps to create your own unique value proposition. When writing your UVP, remember that it always helps to put yourself in the mind of the consumer.

1. Identify your ideal customer. In other words, create a buyer persona profile of the ideal customer to whom you're marketing your product. If you have more than one type of buyer persona, you may need to create a different UVP for each persona. For example, a mattress company could sell their mattresses both to personal homes and to hotels. An individual buying one mattress to fit their personal specifications has different needs than a hotel chain buying mattresses in bulk that must appeal to all their customers—so it would be necessary to have a different UVP for each customer you're targeting.

2. List your product's benefits, value, and how it stands out. Once you've identified your ideal customers, it's time to generate the information you need to piece your UVP statement together. Start by listing out all the ways your product benefits your target customer. Next, determine the value that customers receive from those benefits. Lastly, use your unique value to identify all the ways that your product is different from the competition. Make sure all three of these topics are covered in your UVP statement.

3. Focus on clarity and specificity. The next most important part of writing a UVP is to ensure the buyer can quickly and easily understand the message. To accomplish this, use straightforward and specific language. Avoid using technical jargon, and explain your product’s unique value in language your target market will connect with.

4. Test and optimize your UVP. To run a simple test of your UVP’s first draft, assemble a group of unbiased people who are unfamiliar with your product and have them read your UVP. Collect their initial impressions, and ask how well they understand the three core elements of a UVP (the product's benefits, value, and how it differs from the competition). Using their feedback, revise and improve your UVP. In addition, you may also want to consider running an A/B test. Marketers use A/B testing to compare two versions of something (in this case, your UVP statement) to see which performs better. To perform an A/B test on your UVP, try out two versions of your UVP statement on your website homepage, and track which version generates the most sales.

5. What are the components of a Successful Business Strategy?

A business strategy is the synthesis of three components: a company's stated business objectives, target market-identification, and strategic management plans. These elements align to place the company in a competitive position to achieve its immediate and long-term business goals.

1. Business objectives: If the overall business strategy is a roadmap, then business objectives are milestones along the route to success. A company's business goals can be short-term, medium-term, or long-term. Short-term goals include formally incorporating, hiring a corporate-level team, drafting a vision statement, and selling the first batch of products or services. Medium-term goals might include launching a new technology or new products, claiming a certain percentage of market share, developing a smartphone app, or topping customer satisfaction surveys. Long-term goals might include objectives like an initial public offering (IPO), hitting a specific revenue target, purchasing a competitor, or being acquired by a large firm.
2. Target market identification: This component of corporate strategy involves identifying the type of people who will consume your service. In a well-crafted business strategy, a company will identify whether these potential customers are currently being served by another brand, how they might be peeled away from that brand, and what they would need in return for their customer loyalty. These will inform your marketing efforts down the line.