Business
8 Tips to Scale-Up Your Start-Up
| We perfectly understand the journey from “start-up to scale-up”. With that being the theme of the 2020 SA Innovation Summit, we are thrilled to be the IP partner of this huge event this year.For those starting on this journey now, we have 8 practical tips to share. Be original. Before you start moving forward with your business idea, check that someone else is not already doing it for your target market and location. Test the water. Test your business name and product/service idea with your friends, family and would-be market to see if it has traction. Build your village. Like with raising a child, you need a village for support including your co-founders or partners, mentors and other entrepreneurs. Be happy public speaking. Sharing your business idea and purpose convincingly and comfortably is crucial. Go free. There are many free tools and services to use in the early stages, for example, to register your company, open your bank account and for marketing. Get scalable systems. Invest in reliable, scalable systems from the beginning as you will need these to expand with your business. Get protected. Protecting your IP is essential. Trade marks, copyrights, designs, patents, know-how, trade secrets, domain names, image rights, data and privacy policies are all forms of IP that can be protected. Record agreements. Set up a clear, legally-sound agreement with your co-founders/partners first. Draw up confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements (NDAs). More information on these 8 tips and how to action them is available here. |
