Build an audience and they will come!

With any new startup business, one of the key challenges facing the founder(s) is that of getting customers. After all, you can create the most wonderful products and offer a great range of services, but at the end of the day, if you don’t have customers they remain the best kept secrets. The best way to really prepare your business to attract customers to your offerings is to start building your audience from day 1 when you officially turn your idea into reality. If you have done your research properly, you will have a pretty good idea of exactly who those potential customers are and what your audience looks like, what it wants, what appeals to it in terms of function, form and aesthetics. So the trick is to start connecting with your potential customers each day as part of your startup approach to building your business. How do you do this? It starts with having a conversation - try writing a daily blog which will interest your customers; or maybe create a vlog or a podcast where you can share your creative ideas and insights with them; or perhaps organize some networking events where you can potentially get to know them better. Taking this proactive audience-first approach means that by the time you are ready to launch your business, products and services in earnest, you will already have an engaged audience to convert into a buying customer base.