Digital Transformation Archives

Every Remote Company Needs a Metaverse

As a remote company, it can be hard to connect in a meaningful manner. People can join virtual meetings and interact with one another, but this communication is not always seamless. So, how could a remote company become more interactive with its employees? With Simply Flows Metaverse Tangra, their main goal is to deliver features to your remote company that the virtual world can not. In this article, you will learn more about the features of Tangra, including their virtual assistants. Remote companies would enjoy their experience more through this business metaverse’s unique offerings.

Reading time: 4 mins | Published on: 5/10/2022

Can’t do it Over Zoom

Different functions can be done over various web applications and through virtual meetings. However, the lack of engaging communication can harm remote companies. Tangra goes beyond just connecting people. It does it in an immersive and inclusive way. That makes it an exciting virtual world to explore.

Now You See Me

In virtual meetings, you can see one another depending on camera functionality. Sure, it is nice to see your coworkers, but it may not always happen. This can make the remote experience dull and uneventful, leading to a loss of focus. In Tangra, you have exciting and customizable avatars that can engage with others. Once you permit your computer to have access to your microphone, you can chat with coworkers in this world. In fact, this would increase engagement because everyone would be present in their unique ways. Tangra takes away the issue of lack of personalization in a remote company and instead makes it a fun virtual working environment.

Daily Meetings

To go off what we just talked about, daily meetings can be held in Tangra to help with concentration and engagement for employees. Bringing people into the virtual world, especially people from all over the world, where they can hear and see each other without issue, is good motivation to start the day. Having these meetings can also be impacted by the office environment. Instead of feeling isolated from everyone at work, you all can gather in the board room. There you can discuss plans for the day or utilize Simply Flows other exciting feature for Tangra, which is…

A Place for Presentations or Decorations

All around Tangra, there are black screens. When you interact with these screens, you can upload anything you like, as long as you have permission. Now you may be thinking this can be done on other virtual platforms. However, your remote company gets to post and leave these images up for as long as they desire. If there is an area where you just want some fun decorations, you can put up different artwork or something that expresses yourself. You can upload a photo or video presenting whatever material you want in places like the board room or other small meeting areas. Need to show a picture? Upload it to one of those screens and explain why it is essential to your coworkers. Having presentation space, as well as the ability to express yourself, makes engagement rates soar.

Virtual Assistants

Tangra already has a lot of benefits, but one of its most significant accomplishments is their virtual assistants. Virtual assistants are placed all around the office to help you with different needs. At the front desk, an “office manager” is there to greet you and to help you navigate the space. It can automatically schedule a meeting with a team member via the cool integration with Calendly. Another assistant is in an office pertaining to crypto and day trading. You can get all the news you need on these topics with ease. Rather than struggling with tasks, Simply Flows made virtual assistants to make your life and work as stress-free as possible.

Excitement for the Future

There are so many amazing benefits to the Tangra metaverse. It makes digital engagement easier for a remote company and brings together people from around the world. The hype behind this technology can bring excitement to coworkers. In an article on Insider about eXp Realty, these employees have only worked in a metaverse environment. It was made for their company and has held high levels of engagement because it is interactive, easy to use, and has a fun aspect to it as well. Working entirely in that virtual world has actually brought co-workers closer together. They are excited to visit each other while on a vacation or a trip to their peer’s location.

Tangra’s metaverse is unique. You can customize the avatars and the space to your company’s liking. Presentations and interactions can be personalized and meaningful. Being a part of Tangra’s business metaverse is the first step to creating an engaging metaverse for your remote company.

Web2 vs Web3: The Major Differences

The World Wide Web (WWW) is something that we are all familiar with in this day and age. People use the Internet every day to look up information, play games, go shopping, and more. However, did you know that this technology is not old? The first development of the WWW began in 1989 by Time Berners-Lee. A little over 30 years later, the WWW has surpassed expectations. Within these 30 years, the WWW has become a vast space for tons of information, gaming, and other entertainment, all thanks to the evolution of Web2 (also Web 2.0) technology. As we continue to advance in the coming years, the WWW will offer even more. Web3 (also Web 3.0) technology is slowly developing and moving to the forefront. Soon enough, it will become the leading technology we use when online. To prepare for this change, let’s see what the significant differences in Web2 vs Web3 technology are and what you can expect in the coming years.

Reading time: 7 mins | Published on: 3/28/2022

Web2 Evolution

In 2004, Web2 became a large and growing name. The world was moving away from Web1, which only promoted content viewing. Web2 completely changed this by now promoting a more user-generated WWW. Users were encouraged to post their own content. We’ve been posting all sorts of things such as pictures, videos, comments, ratings, and so on. Web2 enabled people to create billions of blog posts (much like I am doing right now). Plus, having different accounts for different websites grew in that period. Web2 brought a social aspect of the technology by empowering us to post whatever we desire. Today, we use Web2 technology nearly every day. Also, we have completely changed the way we receive information.

Here comes Web3

As we know, evolution is inevitable. As we moved away from Web 1.0 to 2.0, we are now moving towards Web3. This new internet technology is the future, and we are slowly beginning to develop and adopt it. So, what exactly is Web3? Web3 is built upon blockchains. It utilizes artificial intelligence, virtual, augmented, and mixed reality, and more. It was conceived around the notion of decentralization and crypto tokens. Now, you may be asking, what does all this mean? Basically, Web3 is the evolution of the WWW with a much more clear purpose. On the surface, it creates a space for real-world human communication online. On a deeper level, it advocates a decentralized, thus transparent, data store, eliminating the need of many a middlemen. There are many proponents of paying people for their user data, unlike in Web2. You may have heard of ‘play-to-earn’ or ‘use-to-earn’ concepts. What is that? Glad you asked! If you give information for something that matches what a person is looking for, you get compensated. This new, open way of using the Internet opens everyone to endless possibilities. Now people can interact with others online in metaverses and also earn money as they do.

Curious about what metaverse projects are currently available?
Check out the metaverse catalog created by Simply Flows.

Web2 vs Web3

If you couldn’t already tell, the World Wide Web will never stop evolving. As we become more technologically advanced, we begin the transition to Web3. Let’s explore the key differences between the two.

1. Interaction vs Decentralizaion

In Web2, the application focuses on users and their interactions on the Internet. It wants them to create and share their own unique content. With Web3, the Internet is decentralized. Rather than empowering everyone, it focuses more on single users and getting them what they want in a timely and efficient manner. Their target is to make each individual user happy through their efficient AI network. In this matchup for Web2 vs Web3, Web3 gives more effort towards one person, whereas Web2 wants the greater good for the community.

2. Technologies

Web2 is all about dynamic content, responsive layout, with a huge focus on UI/UX. Web technologies like AJAX, HTML5, CSS3, and surprisingly JavaScript rule. Features like tagging, ratings, community forums are basically the norm. Web applications are designed as API-first, in order to connect with other applications. That was a huge improvement from the mostly static website pages in Web1. Web3, based on the advancements in AI and NLP, promises much better search, analysis, and interpretation of information. Additionally, to deliver the immersive experience, the metaverse, for example, will rely on virtual and augmented reality, 3D modeling, and gesture computing. All in all, Web3 is a massive improvement over Web2, bringing in new depth, dimensions, and opportunities to users, developers, and the business.

3. Data Ownership

You do not own what you post in Web2. In fact, everything that you post is owned by the platform. People do not get any compensation for the work that they publish. In comes Web3 to save the day. Users have ownership over what they post due to data decentralization. That is called ‘shared data ownership.’ This means that your data belong to you, no matter what platform you’ve shared it on. The decentralized data is more secure due to the underlying blockchain technology. Additionally, you can make money for providing information or otherwise contributing to the community. With Web3, data is utilized more fairly and can benefit its owners.

4. Graphics

From 2D to 3D, in the Web2 vs Web3 discussion, it is interesting to see how graphics can change. We are used to the 2D space with video or pictures, but they don’t pop out at you. Even as a kid, I was used to playing games and seeing pictures that relied solely on 2D technology. Web3 changes everything we know about the experience. Now, not only can graphics be 3D, but also interactive. If you’ve ever heard of the metaverse or used some gaming platforms before, you can see how these changes come to life. With different avatars, buildings, and other remarkable landscapes, you can see just how well these 3D graphics come to life in Web3.

5. Social vs. Semantics

With Web2 technology came lots of social media platforms, blogs, vlogs, podcasts, and so on. These allowed for communication and social interaction between people via content-creating techniques. People usually find content through keywords that the network asks you to apply. Now with Web3, this semantic web completely changes the game. Instead of using keywords to find these social media and Internet postings, searches are based more on your writing content. This will help filter results more efficiently and precisely towards what you are trying to target. Web3 is much more efficient than Web2’s search algorithms.

As you can see, Web2 vs Web3 uncovers some of the differences between these two WWW evolutions. Web3 brings tons of new technologies to the table – VR, AR, blockchain, crypto tokens, and more. These new developments are paving the way for Web3 and helping it get fully functional. Of course, we won’t adopt Web3 overnight. But we will be much faster than with Web2. Because we’ve been there and we’ve learned a ton. Therefore, we are more ready than before for a big technology leap. Allowing people to interact as though they are actually together has made tons of people excited about this technology. We already see new metaverse projects started daily. Certainly, there are still quite a few things to be improved. But there are many people from small and big companies working on solving the issues. Once we realize the full potential and the endless opportunities of Web3, well, Web2 will be a thing of the past. It will take a few more years until we get there. But the direction is clear.

New Jobs Process Automation has Created

One technology segment has been rapidly growing in the last few years: the Robotic Process Automation (RPA). Automated processes improve productivity, eliminate human errors, and reduce costs. Automation also has the ability to complete tasks significantly quicker than a regular employee would. Some people fear that robots are taking away jobs from people. And robots are taking jobs that used to be people based; however, automation and robots have the ability to create jobs as well. Here are a few new jobs that process automation has created.

RPA Developer

An RPA developer is a crossover between a software developer, a business analyst, and a project manager. They work with the business operations to analyze current processes and suggest automations for parts or the whole process. The end goal is to transform existing, primarily manual and time-consuming processes into RPA systems. Contrary to their software developers counterparts, RPA developers do not write much code. Instead, they use third-party solutions to build ‘bots’ or ‘robots’, which carry out the manual operations. In addition, RPA developers are responsible for deployment of those ‘bots’, for testing the system, for troubleshooting and fixing issues, and for documenting the new systems. In a nutshell, RPA developers introduce technology that drives up operational efficiencies.

Chatbot Developer

Nowadays companies need to communicate with their customers 24/7, they want their customers to know they care. To help with communication, many businesses add chatbots to their websites. Behind these chatbots are software developers, specializing in implementing chatbot technology. Chatbot developers design and implement voice or text chatbots to be used on websites as a form of a contact center for the customer. Such developers need to have experience in software development, functional design, dialog flow design, and machine learning algorithms. They create chatbot systems that simulate human conversations. Furthermore, they test, debug, and maintain chatbots throughout their lifecycle.

RPA Consultant

RPA consultants bring a combined knowledge of business and technology. They are usually hired by the company to evaluate the current state of operations and to suggest improvements. After initial evaluation, they prepare a strategy for employing automation platforms and tools to achieve higher productivity and efficiency. Implementing RPA may not be straightforward or cheap, therefore RPA consultants rank the business processes by their ROI. Then the organization decides which processes to automate first depending on various factors like budget, time, resources, urgency, and the beforementioned ROI.

RPA consultants need to work across departments and teams to come up with the most suitable solutions. Most all of these specialists engage with clients to identify processes for automation, specify the goals, and then suggest a strategy for achieving those goals. While others take on the implementation and the quality assurance of the solution as well. All consultants must have excellent communication skills, along with advanced analytical and problem-solving skills. Additionally, RPA developers need to have industry-specific knowledge and experience with various platforms.

Process Improvement Analyst

Analysts act as the liaison between the business and the technical team. Their main responsibilities are to understand the business problem and translate that into technical requirements. After this, the tech team is ready to start solving the problem. Analysts need to have a deeper understanding of the business but also knowledge of the underlying technology. Process improvement analysts focus on company’s operations. They analyze business processes and find the ones that need to be improved. The end goal is to streamline processes, eliminate redundancies, and reduce costs.

Ultimately, change can be scary. The idea of automation and systems taking over jobs that were previously done by humans is daunting. But with change also comes opportunity. Process automation creates new jobs to help advance technology even further. RPA tools and systems have the ability to bring us into a new age and we’d better embrace that.

Learn more about how Simply Flows can help you bring automation to your business.

6 Unexpected Cost-Cutting Strategies for Small Businesses

Being a small business owner isn’t always easy. The business will always have up and down periods. Sometimes customers line up, and the company may not be able to keep up with the demand, but other times it may be very quiet. During these low times, you may not have enough income to keep your company as supported as you may like. At such times, cut back on your spending rather than take out more loans. You need to be thrifty to keep your venture afloat. These are six unexpected cost-cutting strategies small businesses will benefit from.

1. Automate

Why do tedious tasks yourself when you can have a machine do them for pennies? Automation is the future of business. It can be very annoying to do repetitive, mundane tasks manually. Plus, someone could make an error which could cost your company even more money. To prevent this, you should invest in automation. Small businesses need to focus on the bigger picture items to grow and be successful. By implementing automation into your company, tasks like sending out reminders, getting notifications, sorting through invoices, etc., could be done in seconds. Employing automation is much cheaper than having employees do this work. Many companies, like Simply Flows, offer a free trial version of their product and then reasonable plans to choose from. Using automation will help your small business not have to worry about tedious tasks and save you money in the process.

2. Hire Freelancers

Instead of hiring full-time employees or expensive consultants, hire freelancers for your standalone or independent projects. The reason why freelancers will save you money is because they have no overhead fees. All you have to pay them is their designated fee for the work they perform. No health insurance, retirement, or time-off expenses to worry about. Instead, only pay them for the work they have completed. Obviously, a contract should be drawn between your company and the freelancer defining your expectations, but this is a significant cost-cutting strategy, given that labor costs are usually the biggest expenses for a business. Using freelancers is a great way to help your organization save money.

3. Right-Size

Having ample office space for a small number of people and the occasional meeting with a customer is not efficient. It is not smart to pay rent, utilities, insurance, etc. if you do not properly utilize the amount of space you have. Downsizing could be your unexpected cost-cutting strategy. Plus, you can arrange people in this smaller office to sit where it would promote the most efficient results. For example, if someone is constantly going to the filing cabinet to get excess paper or other products, it would be beneficial to place them by the filing cabinet rather than the printer. This strategic placement in a right-sized office would save money and promote productivity.

Also, consider running a fully virtual company, i.e., not having an office at all. Then, you would not have to pay for rent, furniture, or property insurance. Even before the pandemic, many companies were starting as virtual. That way, they could hire people from anywhere without being restrained to a physical location. People, on the other hand, would have the benefit of working from their homes, shared spaces, or the beach, if they wanted to, without being forced into crazy commutes and unpleasant cubicles. Both right-sizing and going virtual are viable options to save you money.

4. Cutting Operating Expenses

Operating expenses can go through the roof if not appropriately managed. Bills can begin to pile up, and small businesses may have no way to pay them if they do not have the income. It is essential to do whatever possible to cut back on these expenses. For example, electricity costs a lot in the industry. If you forget to turn off machines or lights, this could result in higher fees for your organization. Possible ways to cut these operating costs would be investing in solar energy or more cost-efficient lighting.

Additionally, consider reviewing and renegotiating the professional services you pay for. A small business may work with a few agencies for their bookkeeping, accounting, marketing, hiring, etc., and each may be willing to lower their fees if you renegotiate them. If this did not work, you could transfer to another agency with lower fares.

5. Do Your Own Advertising

Another unexpected cost-cutting strategy is that small businesses can do their own advertising. Rather than hiring someone that charges a lot to create digital advertisement materials, you can do this yourself. There are various free applications to get the job done. For example, companies can use Canva to create all sorts of materials for posts and ads – images, infographics, banners, postcards, etc. If a small business does not know where to place its ads, it can utilize programmatic advertising. Programmatic advertising is the placement of ads on websites and social media through AI. This is much cheaper than hiring someone to do this process for you. To cut costs, small businesses could make their own ads and do the ad placement themselves or through programmatic advertising.

6. Buy a Smart Thermostat

Would you be able to do work in a place that was overly hot or cold? I doubt it. Being in a comfortable setting contributes significantly to employee productivity and job satisfaction. Investing in a smart thermostat will surely pay back. These thermostats learn the company’s climate preferences and automatically adjust to create a comfortable temperature. Over time, this investment would cut back on heating and cooling costs. People would no longer have to constantly adjust (or argue over) the temperature settings in the office. Plus, a comfortable workplace contributes to workers being more relaxed and productive.

Small businesses need to cut costs to remain afloat, especially during low points for their organization. Saving money will help with the financials. Furthermore, these strategies can lead to more efficient and productive workplace. Also, being efficient means more time and attention towards customers and your products. Strategizing and determining the best ways to save money is vital to small businesses. These unexpected cost-cutting strategies will help your organization not only thrive but be more successful than the competitors.

Learn how to automate your small business and cut costs by checking out Simply Flows product.

Free Digital Marketing Apps for Small Businesses

Every business owner is looking for marketing tools that allow them to accurately market and promote their products or services, with hopes of gaining new customers. Marketing tools can serve many different functions across a business and can come in several forms. Here are the best free digital marketing apps we have identified. They are all great for small business owners to have under their belt.

From image creation, file sharing, posts scheduling, to sending email campaigns, you are covered by the apps we’ve selected for you.

Sendinblue

Email marketing is one of the best ways to keep your customers updated, infromerd, and nurtured. With applications like Sendinblue, companies can build custom email campaigns for their customers. You can send up to 300 emails a day with their free plan. Email marketing can entice customers to spend more money with a business because of possible promotions sent. Also, you can share product and company information with your customers and give them an insight into the business. Sendinblue offers tools for creating visually appealing and engaging emails. Additionally, it allows scheduling of your email marketing campaigns.

Hootsuite

Small business’ biggest marketing tool is social media. It is free and there are many different platforms that range in target audience and focus. Hootsuite is a tool that helps you manage and schedule posts to various social media platforms. With Hootsuite you can plan ahead and prepare your post content in advance. You can also collaborate with your team members through this tool. In addition, Hootsuite can be used to curate the content you’ll use on your social media. Tools like Hootsuite benefit small businesses because posting consistent and quality content is important for building a brand. Social media is a great way to connect with your current and potential customers. Also, it gives your business visibility and trustworthiness.

Canva

Whether posting graphics on your social media, sending emails, or updating your website, graphics and visuals are used. Canva is a great tool for creating content such as images, flyers, presentations, etc. You can access many features that Canva offers for free or opt for the paid version for additional features and opportunities. Tools such as Canva are important because quality imagery is something that could get you recognized and is a great way to get customers’ attention. With Canva, small businesses can create an unlimited amount of unique branded content specific to their business and further build their brand’s recognition.

Dropbox

With small business owners managing all aspects of the business, having an organizational and communication platform is key. You can easily store and share documents in Dropbox. Additionally, you can collaborate on projects. This enables owners to run their business smoothly and keep recent and older documents easily accessible and securely stored. You can communicate with your teammates through Dropbox and even create calendars. The best part is that Dropbox is free, so small businesses can get a high quality organizational tool at no cost.

There are many ways that small businesses can manage the marketing mix most effective for them. But using tools will help smooth marketing operations and make knowledge and tasks easily accessible and transferable. Having the above free digital marketing apps in your tool belt is great as each has its specific purpose. Lastly, try out different marketing tools, especially if free, and see which are the most beneficial to you. The end goal is by utilizing these tools to get new customers and new sales, ultimately growing your business.

Learn how Simply Flows product helps small business owners.

Best Time-Saving Tips for Success in Business

Throughout the workday, there are various tedious tasks a person has to do that consume a large amount of their time. A lot of other, high-value, tasks don’t get completed because there isn’t enough time in the day. Not to mention that people feel burnt-out from doing such mundane work. It is essential to find ways to save time because time is the only non renewable resource. Here are the best time-saving tips for success in business. They will help your organization be more productive and, ultimately, more successful.

Time is the only non renewable resource and we have very little of it. Therefore, wasting it on low-value work is unacceptable.

Time-Saving Benefits

Time savings can help increase productivity within a company. You open yourself up to getting more work done throughout the day by eliminating minuscule tasks. This, in turn, can lead to higher productivity and professional satisfaction in the workplace. People like to see that what they are doing is making a difference. Getting rid of low-value tasks means more time dedicated to growing the business, taking better care of the customers, and investing in employees’ professional development. This, in turn, would lead to higher customer loyalty and job satisfaction. Last but not least, saving time would contribute to increasing the organization’s value, revenues, and opportunities.

Time-Saving Tips

So, how does one increase time savings? There are various ways that a company can cut down on its inefficiencies. To start, a person has to stay organized. If someone’s files are all over, there is no way to get their work done efficiently. They would just be searching for what they need, which would take up a large portion of their day. It is essential to focus your attention to ensure you are doing high-quality work without making mistakes. Getting a job done before deadlines is crucial, so keeping an eye on the time and hitting those deadlines can increase time savings. To add, one other way to help save time is to avoid multitasking. Although it can be tempting to try and get everything done at once, it could be a distraction. Using these tips, one can become better at implementing time-saving techniques into their routine.

Automation: The Biggest Helper

The best way to increase time savings is through automation. Automation can eliminate tedious tasks, so that you do not have to waste time doing them yourself. You could create workflows for repetitive data entry and other manual data processing tasks. Then, you can focus your attention on your customers, for example, while the software does the tedious work. Something else, investing in automation to do your payroll is a huge time-saver. You get back that person whose only job is to work on the payroll tasks all day long. Business would grow, revenues would increase, and customers would be happier once you employ automation – the most significant time-saving helper a company can get.

Using the above time-saving tips for success, you can help your company cut back on inefficiencies and make more money. Automation is the biggest helper when it comes to saving time in a business. Automated workflows can eliminate tedious tasks and give you time back to grow your company and make it even more successful.

Simply Flows can save you an immense amount of time, check out our product.

6 Free Tools to Get Solopreneurs Started

Solopreneurs are responsible for all aspects of the business. They don’t have the resources or staffing like larger and more established businesses have. They are super careful with their spending, since they often bootstrap their business (i.e. use their own savings) or rely on loans from friends and family. However, there are many free tools that business owners can use that can help them in all aspects of running their business. We have collected a list of top free tools for solopreneurs to use in their day-to-day communications and business operations.

Wix

Every business needs a website. They need a touchpoint for customers to see so they can learn about the business, see their products, and potentially make a purchase or sign up. Wix is one of the best and easy to use website builders on the market. You can make a free account on Wix and build a website that has full feature capabilities. Furthermore, Wix allows you to create websites that are mobile-friendly. This way customers can access your website conveniently.

Glip

Glip is a video conferencing application. it is free but, unlike others, meetings can run as long as 24 hours. The number of people limitation being much higher than on Zoom, Google meet, etc. With Glip you can be on a conferencing call with up to 100 people. The time limit for their meetings is up to 24 hours. With Glip you can still screen share and send messages to the participants or privately. In addition, you can create tasks and agendas for the meetings.

Wave

With Wave, business owners can have better control of their finances. Wave allows you to receive and send an unlimited amount of invoices and you can make an unlimited amount of transactions. Furthermore, it has an e-commerce feature so you can sell your items on your website. Not only is Wave good for payment transactions but it can also be used for human resources and payroll. However, their payroll feature is a part of their paid-subscription services.

Google Drive

Using Google Drive can help owners with keeping all their documents organized. Certain files or folders can be shared with team members, vendors, customers, and community members for collaboration and review. It has ample free storage and you are able to access files when you are offline. Additionally, Google Drive can be linked to other applications so you can share work across applications.

HubSpot

Hubspot is an easy to use customer relationship management (CRM) tool. They offer free tools for sales, marketing, operations, and customer support. In addition, you can have an unlimited amount of users. Also, you can add a live chat and chat bot to your website to help communicate with customers and assist them in online needs. Hubspot can also track website activity and give you feedback on your customers.

SurveyMonkey

If you’re ever wondering how your current customers are feeling or what they want to see in the future, a survey is the best way to ask. SurveyMonkey is a survey application that allows you to make multiple free surveys. You can send and share these surveys with anyone. Surveys are a perfect way to connect with a customer and receive feedback.

Solopreneurs are focused on growing their business. Initially money may be scarce, so startup owners should spend it wisely. At this stage of the business, free applications are their best friends. There are many free tools available that owners can use to help them grow their online presence and their customer base.

Find out more information on how Simply Flows can help you as a solopreneur.

How Non-Technical Startups can Utilize Technology with no Budget

Starting your own company can be one of the most exciting moments of your life. It is an amazing feeling when you find something you are passionate about and push to make it become a reality. However, startups require a lot of money to get off the ground. It can be difficult to get investors to believe in your idea right away and even if they do, getting funding takes quite a bit of time. Initially, you will have to bootstrap your idea. This can become very costly if you do not budget correctly. Therefore, you should always try to save money whenever possible. Non-technical startups can still utilize technology even without any budget, as long as they avoid money suckers.

Biggest Spending Mistakes

Many small businesses are run by first-time owners. To succeed, they need to be extremely cost-conscious. Some of the biggest mistakes a startup can make are:

Hiring staff you don’t need (yet).
Spending money on unnecessary products.
Overspending to the point where you take on debt.
- You need to have backup savings in case any problems arise.

It is essential to be cognizant regarding your spending. Even more so at the beginning, when revenues are not yet consistently coming. But even down the road, avoiding these major spending mistakes is vital for your success.

How to Avoid Overspending

Rather than hiring too many people, it would be more beneficial to focus on 2-5 vital employees who will help develop your idea. It is crucial to find knowledgeable, experienced, self-driven, and flexible people whose values align with your own. Additionally, there is no point in hiring full-time employees when part-time ones are all you need.

When it comes to buying products, you should only get what is necessary. It is also important to create a budget and stick to it. Keeping your organization lean and spending only the minimum is vital when just starting. Also, always set aside some savings. Chances are something will go wrong (late, unexpected) and you will need that money. Having an emergency fund is always a good idea. Avoiding overspending early on will help your startup run longer and successfully.

No Money, No Problem

It takes a decent amount of time for startups to become recognized. Spending money can help with the promotion of your products but can burn a hole in your pocket. These are three of the best ways to succeed as a non-technical startup without spending a large sum of money.

1. Self-Teaching

Small business owners do not have to go through intense and expensive training programs to obtain new skills. In fact, there are many online resources that they can use to learn the many necessary skills of a startup owner. There are tons of online resources for digital marketing, accounting and finance, hiring, and other skills for running the business in the form of blog posts, podcasts, white papers, etc. This will not only expand a person’s knowledge, but it will save them money as well. Rather than using costly consultants to help them, non-technical startup owners can teach themselves how to do something that will benefit their company. Later on that knowledge and experience will pay back because it will help them hire the right people for their organization.

2. Getting Help from Mentors

Seek out experienced professionals among your network. Mentors can be a massive help to the development of your company and product. You can ask them for help, advice, guidance, and new ways to position yourself strategically in the market. They could also tell you where your startup could improve, whether in the advertising strategy or the product itself. For example, if you need help with your marketing strategy, reaching out to a marketing professional would be beneficial. There are many programs offering free mentorship. Most times you’ll be able to get the help your startup needs without spending any money at all.

3. Using Free Tools

Hiring a team of professionals would be very costly. Plus, you may not be able to fully utilize them at the beginning. You would be overpaying for services that you could get online for free. People have created a lot of tools to help others with their work. Many of these tools offer a free tier, which is more than sufficient for the needs of a startup. Once your company and its needs grow, you can upgrade to a higher (paid) tier. Plus, there are so many low-code and no-code applications, especially designed for non-technical startups. You could easily create a prototype of your product without worrying about coding it yourself. There must be an easy no-code app which would do it for you. This is a massive benefit for non-technical startups and a great way for them to save a lot of money.

As you can see, there are many ways for you to be successful as a non-technical startup. Knowing how to be proactive and avoiding major spending traps will help your business. You will be more competitive if you put in the work and use the most cost-efficient procedures and technology. A product that would be beneficial to startups would be Simply Flows because it can automate your busywork. Rather than hiring someone to do the job, you could utilize this product to do it for you. Click here to find out more on how Simply Flows can help your small business thrive.

5 Ways Automation Tools Help Improve Customer Relations

Businesses adopt task and process automation at a fast pace. As the technology evolves, it spreads across more and more verticals, roles, and use cases. Automation makes processes faster, smoother, and reliable. In addition, it increases productivity, improves quality of products and services and reduces lead times. The business is automation’s prime beneficiary. However, given the cost savings and productivity gains it brings, customers are positively impacted, too. Did you know that process automation tools can help improve customer relations?

1. Customer Personalization

Communication with customers manually is hard to manage and scale. In fact, it becomes nearly impossible with customers across the globe, trying to get in touch with the company from different time zones. This is where customer experience automation comes in. This can range from personalizing the website when users log in, addressing customers by name or offering personalized recommendations. Personalization makes customers feel appreciated and recognized, increasing their brand loyalty.

2. Quality and Consistency

Automation can remove human errors and make processes run smoothly. When customers interact with a business they want quality and consistency of service. If a customer has made a purchase, they want to track their order from shipment to delivery. Customers can receive real time updates via text messages or emails. Ultimately, the automation tools improve the product or service. And that means a better customer experience.

3. Ease of Use and Customer Support

Improving customer support has become one of process automation’s major trends lately. Some tools have become commonplace – chatbots, for example. Chatbots automatically respond to customer’s questions. They ‘know’ the user well and offer customizations and help based on location, preferences, and other context. Guided tutorials of software products is another real-world application.

4. Improves Relationship

When customers feel appreciated by a business, they are more loyal and tend to return to purchase again. Automation can provide customers with attention and support 24/7. It personalizes the way each customer is addressed and improves the customer’s interaction with a business. Personalization and availability subsequently makes customers feel recognized and appreciated by the business.

5. Scalability

No matter how hard a business tries, there will be a point when customer care specialists cannot manually handle the load of customer questions or issues. There are different reasons for this. For example, customer support may be temporarily understaffed. In other cases the timezone differences reduce coverage. Other times holidays and vacations get in the way. Whatever the case, the business will have troubles responding to customers’ needs. This is where automation offers unparalleled help. Once you have automated a process, it can scale up indefinitely. The best candidate for automation is the first tier of support. That is where customers ask basic questions or need resources like user guides. Automating this first line of support takes a huge chunk off the plate of already overwhelmed support team. Also, it shortens the overall wait time, allowing more people to get help.

Automation has the ability to tailor experiences based on their customer needs. Also, it allows for personalization, consistency and ease of use. And last but not least, many more customers can be taken care of via automation. Therefore, automation tools can improve customer relations between the business and their clients.

Learn how Simply Flows can help improve your customer relations.

Work Smarter, Not Harder: 6 Ways to Simplify your Life

You’ve probably heard the saying “work smarter, not harder” more than once in your life. Not only can this saying be applied to work activities, but to everyday ones as well. There are many surprising and easy ways that you can simplify your life. If you follow these six tips, you will work smarter, not harder. Following this mindset will help you save time and money. Additionally, it will help increase your productivity and efficiency and make you more motivated to get work done in a simple manner. Working smarter, not harder, is a practical philosophy that makes both work and life easier and more enjoyable.

1. Take More Breaks

One surprising way to work smarter, not harder, is to take more breaks during the day. Whether you are working on an important project due for work or just doing chores, it is crucial to recharge. People can become exhausted by focusing on one thing for too long. This can result in poorer quality of work and problems concentrating. By taking breaks, you are allowing your brain to reset. You can refresh your mind and focus on the task at hand after a break of around 15-20 minutes.

2. Check Your Email When you Wake up

It is important to check your email first thing in the morning before you officially start the day. The reason for this is that you want to be sure you’re on the same page as everyone else on your team. If you begin your tasks without checking your email, you may miss essential information. For example, priorities may have changed due to a critical problem with a customer. Checking emails when you wake up also helps you prepare for the day before it even starts. Rather than sorting through everything at once, you can check your emails first thing in the morning and be mentally prepared to get started with the day.

3. Stop Multitasking

Focusing on many different tasks at once can slow brain functioning down. When multitasking, your brain is confused about what it is supposed to be doing at the given time. It makes it more challenging to concentrate, and you are quicker to get tired. Paying attention to one thing for a prolonged time period will yield much better results than switching between different ones. Also, by focusing on one task, you are less likely to make errors in your work. This allows a person to be more productive and work for more extended periods without getting drained.

4. Track Where you are Wasting Time

Sometimes you may get sidetracked throughout the day and do not spend much time doing actual work. It would be smart to note when you get distracted or are less productive during the day to prevent this. Taking note of this can help you determine when and why you are spending time on trivial tasks. By pointing out these issues, you can then figure out ways to fix them. For example, browsing through your social media feed is usually a huge time sucker. Identifying and remedying this issue will help you become more efficient in everything you do.

5. Properly Position People Around the Office

Another smart way to be efficient is by properly positioning people in the office. If a person uses the copier more throughout the day and is seated very far away from it, this could take up valuable work time. By moving the person closer to the copier, you would be shortening their ‘trip’. Locating people closer to the items they use during the day would make them spend less time moving around the office. Productivity would increase, and downtime would decrease, helping the company’s bottom line.

6. Automation

work smarter, not harder - automate your tasks

Automation is an excellent example of how to truly take advantage of working smarter, not harder.

Have a tedious task that you do not like doing throughout the day? Automate it.
Do you have to copy and paste large amounts of data from one place to another? Automate it.
Have to send out a check-up email every few days to your employees? Automate it.

Utilizing automation in the workplace will make your life so much easier. It will reduce errors, give you back time in your day, and increase efficiency. Automation is one of the best ways to be more productive by removing repetitive manual tasks from your life.

Adopting the motto ‘work smarter, not harder’ can genuinely change how you accomplish work at the office, home, school, the charity you volunteer at, and so on. It will give you back time in the day and make your life more efficient. Following these tips is just a start on how we can simplify our lives. Always prioritize this lifestyle and ensure that you are doing everything in your power to make your life easier while also not sacrificing your quality of work and performance.

Simply Flows can help you determine the best ways to work smarter, not harder.

Category Archives: Digital Transformation