5 Online Communities Business Owners Need to Join
Being a business owner comes with its unique responsibilities, staff-related issues, financial issues, and your business’s general growth. Sometimes it can be an isolated journey. Online communities allow like-minded business owners to connect and share experiences and advice on how to succeed in business.
What are some of the advantages of online communities?
Online communities allow you to connect with other business owners and entrepreneurs who are on the same journey and ask questions to help you in your business. Through these online communities, you will hear different stories and lessons to avoid costly business mistakes.
You can also establish connections with future investors, partners and access the free tools and resources you need for your business. There are several online communities for SMEs in Africa. Here are five online communities business owners can join. Let’s dive in!
SME360 Community
The SME360 community is a reputable online community for entrepreneurs to connect and share their experiences, including their pitfalls. These experiences can help you spot pitfalls in your business and know how to manoeuvre them. The SME360 community also shares trade secrets and marketing strategies from experienced entrepreneurs.
These secrets can be applied and tweaked to solve your business problems. You also get accountability partners in business and get the opportunity to ask questions and receive direct answers from experienced entrepreneurs.
She Leads Africa
She Leads Africa is one of the largest online communities for the African millennial woman around the world. It is a platform for young African women looking to build a successful career or business. The co-founder of She Leads Africa, Afua Osei expressly describes this online community by saying: “I wanted to create a platform that would help break through some of those challenges that people were facing and provide them with access to resources, access to information, and access to opportunities, but also doing so in a way that’s relevant to young women”.
Startup Grind
Startup Grind is a global online community started by Google for startups and entrepreneurs. It is founded in California but has extended networks around the world. This online community provides a platform where you can ask startup questions and get honest feedback.
The founder of Startup Grind states that most entrepreneurs fail, but what separates the best from the rest is the ability to remain relentless in pursuing set goals.
Startup Nation
Startup Nation is another online community that describes itself as a platform that has all you need to succeed. You can access various downloadable resources like ebooks, videos as well as Newsletters. You can also interact and network with different group members that encourage and share valuable advice and business tips.
Growth Hackers
GrowthHackers is an online community for everything and anything on startup growth, including all aspects such as social media marketing, blog, sales, e-commerce, etc. You can ask questions about growth hacking and emerging and declining growth channels. If you’re looking to study growth studies of successes such as Etsy, Slack, and Spotify, GrowthHackers has them documented.
Conclusion
Online communities like the SME360 community help to encourage the growth of SMEs. It also provides a platform for entrepreneurs to connect, share secrets and be accountable to one another. It can also allow you to connect with potential investors or partners, get business insights, and receive valuable advice to help you avoid mistakes amongst many other benefits. Joining online communities might just be the key to the next stage of your business.
Do you have questions or suggestions on SMEs in Africa? Kindly drop them in the comment section below
