Entrepreneurs are the backbone of the economy. It can be exciting as well as liberating to be an Entrepreneur, however, entrepreneurship isn’t easy. You might have seen founders celebrating the funding rounds of their startup, and then again raising funds after registering losses.
Although it is fascinating to receive funding, there is a tough job that has to be done every day for your startup. Several founders approach us for funding, overlooking the other aspects of Entrepreneurship.
You should understand that Entrepreneurship is much more than just funding. Your primary job is to solve the problem of the masses through innovation and effective execution of the solution. You can dream big and you can achieve big being an Entrepreneur.
However, to solve the problems of society, the Entrepreneurs have to face their own problems in the due course of Entrepreneurship. It’s thrilling to face and overcome the challenges in your entrepreneurial journey, however, sometimes it can be extremely frustrating and it may cost you a lot more than just money.
During the initial days of my career as an Entrepreneur, nobody wanted to work for me as my business was small and my office was located at an off-side semi-commercial location. During the interview, most of the candidates saw the entire office, left to right, and then never joined. Many times, the candidates didn’t even enter the office and returned from the door.
And that wasn’t the only challenge. Getting the business was extremely difficult. Sales is not easy when your structure is small and you have limited resources for marketing. Every day is a challenge while you are building your company in the initial days and trust me this challenge is worth taking, if you consider the efforts-to-rewards ratio of the Entrepreneurship.
Business comes from references, and references come from trust, but while you are building your company in the early days, nobody is willing to trust you. People often decide to trust you based on the assets you possess. They might see your office, car, smartphone and other expensive stuff. To be honest, money seems to be the criteria for their trust.
You can’t change them, but you can definitely make them trust you. Yes, there are many ways, and I will share the key to success with you in this post.
Entrepreneurs can’t cry in open!
Your staff might leave you if they know that your business is not going well. They will start looking for a job immediately, and that’s normal. Everybody wants to work for a company that can offer a stable career and salary on time.
If your customers get to know that you are not doing well in business, then they might shift their demand to your competitors. They don’t want to face any difficulty in the supply of their inputs as it will hamper their business.
You will need someone to talk and discuss about the happenings in your business. But, you can’t discuss business with your parents every time, they might push you to towards a stable career option like a corporate job or may be the family business of construction, trading or a shop in main market.
You can’t discuss with your spouse, if you don’t have a strong marriage, you will compound the problem. Even if it’s a happy married life, it might get disturbed because of bringing office problems to home.
Problems! Problems! Problems!
There are problems everywhere for the early stage Entrepreneurs. Sometimes, it’s the staff, or your friends who are doing good in their job and try to make you feel low when they flaunt their luxury car and foreign tours, or the relatives who always say that you haven’t taken the right decision. The problems never leaves you in the Entrepreneurship.
The lack of resources will always haunt you, sometimes it is low marketing budget, sometimes it may be low salaried staff, or may be the product and service delivery issues, and many times a dissatisfied customer.
Then what is the solution?
The solution to all your problems is community. Yes, I know you might be thinking the following questions:
- How can the community help in hiring a good team? Can the community pay the salaries of my staff?
- Can the community give me more leads? Can the community convert into more sales?
- Will the community listen to all my problems? Will the community give me solutions?
- Can the community give me funding?
SL Accelerator is a freemium accelerator. It is committed to providing the following to its members:
- Funding
- Branding
- Sales
Do I have to pay the membership fee now?
No, not now! We understand the importance of money for the Founders while you have the low budget, that’s why we created the Freemium model of membership. You can join us as a Bronze Member for free and experience the benefits before paying anything for the membership fee. We don’t ask for your credit card number or bank account, it is completely free without any commitments to become a paid member.
You may convert your membership status to Gold from the Bronze at any point of time. There is no compulsion to join as a Gold member, you decide to opt for Gold membership only when you are ready to take the benefit of premium services.
StartupLanes is a structured network that enables entrepreneurs to solve problems, collaborate, innovate, research, invent, scaleup, and grow their business. We offer you a free bronze membership through which you can find solutions for your business problems, generate leads through references, get integration, collaboration, and fundraising opportunities, receive assistance in research, innovation, invention, and much more.
We are a Startup Accelerator! Our focus is upon increasing your revenue, helping you scale territories, get funded, and become a unicorn. If you are satisfied with the services of the bronze membership, you can upgrade to the gold membership and get unlimited access to all of these services.
8000 Founders Can’t Be Wrong!
Since the day we started in 2016, the community is getting bigger and better every day. I still remember the day when 20 startup founders randomly picked, joined the first meetup in Noida. The outcome was great, almost everyone got more sales and different benefits because of the community.
We asked everyone in the meeting to refer at least 2 customers to each member in next two weeks, and that worked. This boosted my confidence to scape up the community all across the World.
Now, we are a happening community of 8000 Founders located in 56 Cities, across 15 Countries. We have our Regional Directors in 56 cities to help you grow your business. You made us grow fast, we were ranked by Growjo, USA as the fastest growing internet company ranked number 1 in the World.
Networking is not about just connecting people!
We ensure that you connect with people and you have to ensure that they start marketing your products and services. You should focus on getting knowledge, support, leads, and references from your community. You will never be lonely, there will always be people around you in the community who can inspire you and help you in your growth. You should also do the same while you are in the StartupLanes community because givers always gain.
Business comes from people, the community gives you people. It’s simple! But, there is definitely more to it. Apart from an amazing community, we offer you several other benefits which we have categorized into two categories:
- Immediate Benefits
- Extended Benefits
Let me elaborate these benefits for you:
A) Immediate Benefits
1) Trust: Your brand will get additional trust value by association with the brand of StartupLanes. You can mention that you are a “Gold Member” at your social media. We can issue a certificate of your gold membership as well, by charging a nominal fee of Rs. 1000+GST.
2) Business Boosters: We offer free boosters for your startup that will save you thousands of dollars. We also provide fully utilizable credits for branded products and services. You get $6500 Amazon AWS Credits (upgradable to $10,000 and $25,000 by upgrading the membership)and 55 other benefits through StartupLanes credit card with a free credit limit. Additionally, you may get benefits like MakeMyTrip, Paytm, Instamojo, Zoho, ClearTax, ProfitBooks, Hubspot, Digital Ocean, Easy Leads, Sign Easy, Make My Trip, Fundoo Data, Treebo, Glyink, Curefit, Zoliday, Code Chef, Code Judget, Klub, Keka, etc.
3) Branding Activities: StartupLanes has a very strong and popular social media presence. We can record an interview of your Founder and publish it at SL YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and all the WhatsApp Groups to help you reach millions of people. Watch this sample interview of Rajat Singhania, we will do a similar one for you. The recording, editing, hosting and uploading is free for the gold members for 1 video.
4) Referral Commission: Gold Members receive a 5% referral commission for the businesses they refer under SL Lead+ model, subject to a minimum order size of Rs. 50,000. Each Gold Member can cross-sell any product or service enabled through the Global Network of StartupLanes. With this, you won’t have to forego any lead as your startup needs more revenue and every lead adds to your growth. You will also get a referral commission for your efforts for offering additional products and services to your existing clients. We at StartupLanes have a completely human-managed system for this.
5) Angel Funding: StartupLanes has its own networks of Angel Investors– SL Angels (For India-based investors) and NRI Angels (for investors based abroad). Gold Members can raise funds from any of these networks on priority basis, the date of Demo Day shall be given to the Gold Members before others.
6) Community Access: StartupLanes have City & National level WhatsApp groups and communities for the Entrepreneurs. Gold members get access to any one WhatsApp group. Gold members can also initiate domain-specific discussions with other members in various domains like tax, marketing, branding, sales, lead generation, recruitment, finance, B2G sales, tenders, and many more.
7) Leadership Role: It is mandatory to become a Gold Member for taking up any role at StartupLanes like Regional Director, Chapter Director, Associate Director, Mentor, Funding Director, Investment Director, Marketing Director, and Community Director. Taking up leadership roles can help Gold Members in generating more business from the community as well as getting direct commercial benefits by promoting products and services of StartupLanes. We have different task cells like Government Cell, Corporate Cell, Legal Cell, PR Cell, Advisory Board, etc. that Gold Members can join and lead.
8) Crowdsourcing Solutions: StartupLanes provides you with an opportunity to discuss your problems in our events and social groups to enable you to crowdsource solutions through the community. You can seek help from the community for free or by paying for specific tasks. You will need community support in day-to-day activities as it is extremely difficult for a startup to hire experts in every domain. However, in case you still don’t find the right solution, we will put up your problem on our social media handles to reach a wider audience.
9) Events: StartupLanes organizes regular events in all the cities of operation. Our Gold Members get exclusive and priority access to the Funding Events. The Bronze Members can only join our events a maximum of 3 times anywhere in the world. However, our Gold Members get unlimited access for free or at a discounted price in case a fee is applicable.
10) Discounts: Gold Members get attractive discounts on almost all the products and services offered by StartupLanes. Exclusive ‘Gold Member Deals’ are offered to the Gold Members from time to time which results in a lot of savings for the members. We have tie-ups with various sellers that allow you to receive the lowest price for a product or service. Sellers often offer discounts to the StartupLanes community because of the large number of members.
B) Extended Benefits:
1) Motivation: Entrepreneurs are self-driven, there is generally nobody to motivate or report to. This may at times lead to a lack of motivation as there is nobody to cheer you up. This problem is solved through the StartupLanes community called ‘StartupLanes Entrepreneurs’. The community will monitor your progress and celebrate your achievements. The community will identify ways to solve your problems and lead your startup to growth.
2) Integration: The introduction of APIs, SaaS applications, and mobile devices has created a massive integration wave. The resulting shift in the way we connect is forcing an IT mega change, unlike anything we’ve seen before. As the development model moves from writing lengthy codes to composing APIs together, a new generation of middle ties application architecture is being born. Startups need to integrate their products/services with others to rapidly distribute their offerings and grow their revenues. Our community provides various opportunities for integration.
3) Mentorship: As an entrepreneur, it’s exciting to stand alone and create something of your own. However, in reality, while you may have a great idea, most times you might not understand what to do with your venture to develop it into a sustainable business. Mentors provide the necessary information and knowledge that you need for your startup. We partner with industry leaders to mentor our community members. It is difficult for individuals to find suitable mentors, but the community can do it easily.
4) Corporate Connect: Startup founders need to connect with large companies for getting business and raising funds. Our community communicates with top-level executives of big organizations constantly. We invite corporate CxOs to provide an opportunity to our members to connect as per their requirements and preferences. This is a win-win agreement for both parties as big companies also need to learn or collaborate with startups for innovation and new product development/ testing.
5) Learning: Our free and paid training sessions ensure that each member keeps on learning new skills. We organize training sessions on growth hacking, marketing, basic technology like website development, and advanced topics like AI, deep learning, IoT, etc. This keeps the entrepreneurs updated with the latest industry trends. The knowledge Exchange sessions enhance the knowledge of each member. Each Gold Member can organize a free training session for the community to generate sales leads as this benefits both the learners and the experts.
6) Global Network: Every member of StartupLanes is a part of the StartupLanes global family. Each member can network, associate, and take support from members all across the world. Our network is growing at a rapid pace ensuring that different kinds of entrepreneurs, CxOs, mentors, ecosystem enablers, professionals, investors, and innovators are available to network with each other and work towards helping each other reach their business goals.
7) MEAAS: We offer Managed Escrow as a Service to all the buyers of products and services, ensuring they get the best price and satisfaction. Sellers can’t cheat the buyers as the advance money is sent to StartupLanes and kept safe in the escrow. We don’t release the money unless the buyer is satisfied with the product and/or service of the seller. We have real humans to manage the entire process which ensures that the business of the members runs smoothly and everybody gets the best value for money.
Enough of Gyaan?
I’m sure that’s enough. I know that you want to become a Gold Member now. However, you should become a Bronze member and join for free before you opt to become a Gold Member. This is a long-term relationship that should be mutual. We don’t accept everyone as our Gold member, there is a selection criteria. That’s the reason we don’t have a button connected to a payment gateway to pay and become a Gold Member.
We offer annual membership, however there are several gold members who haven’t been asked to renew since we started in January 2016. We are renewing them for free.Yes, this is because our relationship is much more than money. Although money is needed to keep up with our expenses, it cannot keep us away. We exist because of you, and our only objective is to ensure that your business always grow.
What’s the Annual Gold Membership fee?
The fee is less than INR 35 per day. Yes, obviously it has to be paid on annual basis, that is INR 12,500+GST.
Feeling excited? Do you wish to apply for Gold Membership?
Then click this link and fill up a simple application form: Yes, I want to become a Gold Member.