Hey everybody!
As a reminder, the purpose of “Startup Snacks” is to provide the startup community with ONE actionable item per week to move your startup forward. Some of it will be original content, some not. No pride here – and frankly, why recreate the wheel if somebody has already put together some great content or tools that will benefit the startup community. If it can help you in your journey I will share it!
If you missed any of the previous “Startup Snacks” – you can find them here!
Did you miss us last week?
Hopefully you did. We were out last week working our collective magic at StartupCincy Week 2022 – the annual convening of everything startup in Cincinnati. It was a great week with our partners, startups, bigcos, midcos, etc..
As a startup, how did you leverage the event? We are sure you gathered many a business card and made numerous connections. The key is the follow-up; make it quick and make it attention grabbing. And get organized.
Get Organized
We love HubSpot and we think it is a great way to organize and track your connections. It is simple, relatively low-cost (up to a certain point), and an effective way to segment the different people you talk to. Whether it is tracking your VC connections or sales funnel connections you should have some sort of process for documenting where your leads are going. Here is a great article from HubSpot on the “The Art of the Sales Follow-Up: 7 Ways to Keep the Conversation Going”.Or you don’t even have to get that complicated or spend money on a sales tracking platform. Here is a simple spreadsheet template that gives some structure to the process. Click here to access.
And Follow Up!
Bottom line, make sure that you are following up on the connections/leads that you are making – whether it is a live event, virtual event, or somewhere in between. This statistic from IRC Sale Solutions is rather telling: “On average, only 2% of sales are made during the first point of contact. That means if you don’t follow up, even with a simple follow-up email, you’re missing out on potentially 98% of your sales. That’s no small amount.”
Upcoming Events, Opportunities, and Deadlines
October 25 – Scaleup Webinar Series from Contentoo, RocketX, BEE Digital and Bloomreach. info/registration here.
October 24-26 – AWS Technical Founder Sprint: Best practices to take your startup from zero to one in the cloud. Info/registration here.
October 26 – “Silicon Heartland – Ask a VC Anything” – Rev1 Ventures Columbus – info/registration here.
October 27 – Beers & Biz – B2B Networking – Xavier Center for Innovation – info/registration here.
October 31 – PepsiCo’s R&D team will discuss three funding opportunities around packaging and food science. Find more information and register here.
November 1 – Cincinnati IT Symposium hosted by the CIO Roundtable – info/registration here.
November 3 – Bayer’s R&D teams will be providing more information regarding their opportunities in agriculture. Find more information and register here.
November 8 – The Ohio Tech Happy Hour ~ Cincinnati – information/registration here.
November 11 – DEADLINE – Lightship Accelerator – info/application here.
November 15 – UC Venture Lab Pre-Accelerator Graduation Day – Cohort 20 – info/registration here.
November 30 (multiple dates starting 11/30) – Tech Elevator Employer Showcases – This is your opportunity to showcase your company to bootcamp student. Info/registration here.
Our mission at the Alloy Growth Lab is to help startups with the following:
- Navigating the investment/funding landscape;
- Connecting them to fellow entrepreneurs, potential customers, and regional talent;
- Developing and managing a strong growth strategy;
- Gaining traction with the right product and market.
Need a hand?
Reach out to us at catalysts@alloydev.org!
