Business resources center Lime Zest

If you follow us on our social media platforms, you might already know that January 2020 has been a huge month. Why? Because we launched a project that has been 1 year in the works: Lime Zest! What you see right now is still a minimum viable product. This is how you do Lean management and get proof of concept. However, Lime Zest is a dream come true. It opens the possibility for Lime to put together a real business resources center for start-ups, and social entrepreneurs! Something we have been wanting to do for a LONG time!

But why did we create Lime Zest? Well, the answer is simple. Because entrepreneurs need business resources and support to make their start-up a success.

1. Entrepreneurship is on the rise & knowledge is lacking

In 2019, the projection was that there would be 27 million self-employed professionals in 2020 in the US alone. What’s more, 40% of respondents thought it was “easy” to start a business. Yet, 22.5% of those businesses are bound to fail within the first year with the #1 reason for failure being the absence of real market demand. What does it mean? It means that many entrepreneurs throw themselves in this entrepreneurial journey without really knowing what they sign up for. In fact, that is something that we have seen throughout the year. Businesses are started by dreamers with great ideas and fabulous intentions. However, most of them don’t know where to start. This is why we have always been sharing free business resources where possible. For example, we recently wrote about how to get your 2020 marketing plan ready.

2. Business resources for start-ups is a real market need

Lime Agency is now 4.5 years old. Throughout the years, we have helped countless start-ups & social enterprises. We have developed branding, strategies, campaigns for so many businesses that it sends our head spinning. Still, we have also seen countless companies unable to access our professional services despite our preferential rate cards. And, what’s more, we quickly realised that our clients with the best results were the ones we could coach, see in consultation or do workshop with. The clients who were gaining access to knowledge, and not only branding.

“Lime agency has been an instrumental support in our SE journey thus far, we have worked with them previously through a raiSE consultation session and SMU IIE workshop. They were insightful and greatly helpful in helping us construct our brand passport and market positioning of our products. It has definitely allowed our team to further improve and refine our marketing and branding strategy going forward.”

– Jeremy Lee, Director, Business Development, Ugly Good

We discussed with them, we saw them struggling to make sense of things and establish solid foundations for their businesses. So, we decided to further our offering to support them and answer to the demand we kept hearing in the market. We built a platform to give them access to affordable business resources, taking them from ideation, to branding and finally, implementation.

3. We had the business resources they need readily available

We were racking our brains on how to do things properly. One day, though, while exploring the issue of digital carbon footprint, we realised that we had everything they needed in our servers (and our brains). We decided to leverage circular economy in the world of digital services to give entrepreneur access to the business resources they needed while reducing our carbon footprint. By recycling our design options, we could not only make professional branding affordable but we were able to equip start-ups with fantastic branding within minutes. Browse. Click. Done!

When you know that professional branding gives you the opportunity to increase your prices, increase conversion rates, and increase awareness… you realise what a major change and opportunity this represents. But branding is just the beginning, many more services are in the pipe on this platform from workbooks, courses, coaching sessions, masterclasses and masterminds. We are putting together a powerful and centralised business resource center for any entrepreneur who wishes to launch its business with proper support.

We are excited! And that’s what business is about! Keep your eyes peeled for our updates!

Update: Lime Zest has been rebranded to be Just-Startup.com