At Powerlinx, we know better than anyone, how every industry is a world of its own, let alone every business is unique and has its own ways of doing things. With that said, we did spot some common denominators which can help businesses all over the spectrum. Here’s a few of our main takeaways:

Pivoting
We’ve all heard about the importance of persistence. But it doesn’t necessarily need to become a burden by persistently sticking to what is not working. As Derek Sivers once said, “Success comes from persistently improving and inventing”. So push your business’ boundaries and aim for the best, but always keeping it as flexible as possible, in case the method or approach you’re taking ends up not being the best one to reach your goals.

Keep knocking on doors
It is important not to waste an excessive amount of time knocking on locked doors. In other words, you don’t want to waste efforts trying to make your product or service useful to someone who’s simply not interested. Instead, you’ll want to focus your time and dedication to serving those few but loyal customers, who truly value what you’re doing.

Which brings me to the next point: 

Start small in a big way
As YCombinator’s Paul Graham once asked, “Do you want 1 million users to just like you, or a hundred customers that love you?”. So don’t scale, meet with those potential hundred clients and see what they need, what they expect from you and what value you can deliver to them. From there, those first 100 “evangelizers” will be the triggers for the full-scale impact of Word-of-Mouth effect.  

Stay up to date with existing customers’ needs
It may sound counterintuitive, but the way to grow a business is to focus entirely on your existing customers. So reaching out to them and simply asking “How can I help you?” may be an insightful and actionable tool that can help you achieve that Product/Market Fit and adjust your business plan accordingly to deliver the most value.

We’ve built the Powerlinx platform to help businesses with these types of complexities which can arise simply by doing business, regardless of industries, stage of the value chain your business is in, or whether its a product or service you’re offering. Business opportunities in the Powerlinx platform are designed to be acted on by other firms interested in doing business, in the fastest, most direct way possible.