{"id":10111,"date":"2017-08-12T15:02:01","date_gmt":"2017-08-12T09:32:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ishwark6.sg-host.com\/?p=10111"},"modified":"2017-08-12T15:02:01","modified_gmt":"2017-08-12T09:32:01","slug":"success-stories-business-moves-paid-off-can-start","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/?p=10111","title":{"rendered":"Success Stories: Business Moves that Paid Off and Where You Can Start"},"content":{"rendered":"

You\u2019ll have heard an awful lot of success stories in your time: from the brilliant mind of a 22-year-old that sold his kick-starter creation \u2013 Oculus Rift \u2013 to Mark Zuckerberg for $2 billion, to the formidable force of two college dropouts, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, who created Apple. But, are there any smaller businesses you can learn<\/a> from, and if so, where can you start? Well, take these three examples below\u2026<\/p>\n

REI: Don\u2019t follow the crowd <\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

We\u2019re told not to follow the crowd as children, and it is advice that can come in handy when making astute business decisions too. Recreational Equipment Inc (REI) sells outdoor clothing and equipment in America (a country where \u2018Black Friday\u2019 sales accounted for $3.34 billion spent on a single day in 2016), but, incredibly, REI chose not to offer a single discount to customers.<\/p>\n

Hijacking the day, they made headlines by encouraging their customers to #OptOutside<\/a> instead \u2013 they shut down their stores and paid their employees for time off on a day that would otherwise have been their biggest sale day of the year. This was a smart move: it earned then more than a million endorsements through social media, generated excellent PR coverage and goodwill among the public and employees, and web traffic spiked on Thanksgiving.<\/p>\n

Pull it off<\/em>: if you\u2019re opting out of a major sales day or event, communicate why<\/em>. Get your customers on board with this small act of rebellion, create a hashtag or a place to talk about it online, and double check that it ties in with your company values \u2013 it worked for REI because their brand promotes getting outdoors to enjoy nature rather than spending your time inside, scrolling through online sales. Consider whether it makes sense for you to the do the same.<\/p>\n

Graze: Venture into unknown territory<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Setting up a business is a leap into the great unknown at the best of times, but how about moving it to brand new territory at the same time? That\u2019s a business move that Graze made, expanding to America after initial success in the UK. The risk paid off, with Graze taking advantage of the huge market, enhanced profits and a brand new customer base (seeing more than 100,000 new customers in the first three months alone).<\/p>\n

Pull it off<\/em>: Do a great deal of research. You\u2019ll need to be committed to planning, operations and strategy, and you should probably talk to a company who can help you with trading in America<\/a> to make sure you\u2019re going about it in the right way. The American market is a huge pull for businesses from all over the world, but even the biggest businesses can fail when they land state-side, so you\u2019ll need gusto and guts.<\/p>\n

Spanx: \u00a0Figure it out along the way<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

You\u2019ll have been told time and time again to stick to what you know. And while that can make doing business feel more comfortable, it doesn\u2019t always pay off as well as pursuing something you know very little about. Take Sara Blakely for example \u2013 she admitted that she knew nothing about tights (pantyhose) or running a business, but that didn\u2019t deter her from building one of the most successful shapewear brands in the world and becoming the world\u2019s youngest self-made female billionaire. She believed that she had identified a gap in the market because she <\/em>didn\u2019t like the products available at the time and believed she could offer something better \u2013 and that was enough.<\/p>\n

Pull it off<\/em>: This kind of story tends to be anomalous, but it doesn\u2019t mean it couldn\u2019t happen to you. If you have a real frustration with a product or service we\u2019re generally accustomed to using but believe you can make it so much better, pursue it \u2013 even if you don\u2019t know a great deal about creating the product yourself or running a business.<\/p>\n

Those are just a handful of examples of business moves that paid off, and a few tips on where you can start if you fancy following in their footsteps.<\/p>\n

Do share your thoughts in our comment section below.<\/p>\n

Subscribe with us to get your dose of interesting news, research & opinions in the startup segment. Fill the form below:<\/p>\n

[email-subscribers namefield=”YES” desc=”” group=”Public”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You\u2019ll have heard an awful lot of success stories in your time: from the brilliant mind of a 22-year-old that sold his kick-starter creation \u2013 Oculus Rift \u2013 to Mark Zuckerberg for $2 billion, to the formidable force of two college dropouts, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs, who created Apple.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":10112,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[423,21],"tags":[6276,6265,6278,6273,6270,2142,6271,6275,6272,6269,6268,1361,6279,6267,6277,2956,6266,6264,6274],"class_list":["post-10111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-startup-blogs","category-start-up","tag-american-market","tag-business-moves","tag-female-billionaire","tag-graze","tag-hijacking","tag-oculus-rift","tag-pr-coverage","tag-pull-it-off","tag-pull-it-off-rei","tag-recreational-equipment-inc-rei","tag-rei","tag-research","tag-sara-blakely","tag-smaller-businesses","tag-spanx","tag-steve-jobs","tag-steve-wozniak","tag-success-stories","tag-unknown-territory"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/The-One-Man-Bands-Guide-to-Creating-a-Website.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10111"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10113,"href":"https:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10111\/revisions\/10113"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10112"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/startup-buzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}