Planning To Become An Entrepreneur??
In the previous article “ENTREPRENEURSHIP – BE YOUR OWN BOSS” we learnt about entrepreneurship and qualities of entrepreneur. Further in this article we will read about does and don’t that for a beginner who plan for start-up.
1. Starting before you plan > Plan before you start
It is not enough to have innovative idea and the knowledge to build it. With an enterprise comes various factors like- expertise, investment , marketing , market analysis, your competitors etc. even if you build a market ready product and do not have knowledge of its commercialization you will surely face difficulties.
So never be in hurry to jump in and start working before you have not worked well on your idea.
2. Market analysis & create market need
Consider a scenarios where you have a best product but yet it is not being sold or people are not buying it. What can be the possible reasons? Generally people tend to buy things they need or are trending. If your service is expensive but yet the need of market people are going to buy it.
Some services or products are not need base for example – Cadbury is a food brand which is not need base but yet it has a great demand because it has successfully created market need and today is well established brand .
You either have to be smart enough to choose a need base product or service or plan on how to create need for your existing service or product.
3. Have a backup plan
Why only 5% people choose start-up while others continue to work is the because of risk factor. We saw the qualities of entrepreneur one of which was “Risk Taker”. Doing something out of box will include difficult tasks, you might fail you might take more than an attempt to complete. So you should have a backup plan in case you fail to complete your actual plan. Remember an entrepreneur is a Peron who not just take risk but a calculated risk.
Having backup plan shows you are a calculated risk taker.
4. IPR (Intellectual Property Right)
This is the most important thing you should remember when you have an innovative business plan. There are a lot competitors out there in the market who might be selling same service or product same as yours. If you have service that has an enhancement to theirs you need to ensure that you should have exclusive rights over your creation.
No one can steal your idea and build their brand.
IPR is a very crucial when you plan business. Will soon be posting a detailed article on IPR.
5. Do not ignore paper work /documentation
Now this is true to think that why to waste time on paper work when we are two step ahead digitally. But documentation plays important role in picturing the story of your business. What is your idea, origin, motto/agenda etc.is?
Some documents have internal purpose and some are for exclusive .BCM (Business canvas model) is a one page document that help to give a brief picture to the working employees about the enterprise. Hence it is for internal purpose.
Business Permits and Licenses are something that you need to have to showcase authenticity of your business.
6. Have faith in your idea & courage to accept criticism
If you have done enough study and are confident about your business idea do not get demotivated with criticizing statements. Not everyone will like your service or product. Some may appreciate some may find some flaws but its ok.
Try to maintain a healthy competition.
Also be open to criticism as it is where you can find opportunities. Customers who complaint certainly expect something more from your service. They show their need and you have to accept it, understand it improve it and update it.
7. Wisely choose the team
Choose well equipped and efficient team over comfortable team .Newbies tend to work with people they are comfortable with ignoring the need of expertise. Team members or the co-founders are the pillars of your foundation.
8. Personal Investment
Some people choose to personally invest rather than finding investors and for some primary task is to find suitable investors.
Now both the choices have their pros and cons.
If your keep personally investing and the start-up fails you will face loss. So it is must that you should have an iterative way for deployment.
For example: deploy the first phase, get returns and invest again depending upon the results. Don’t just keep investing even after failure.
Try Try but don’t cry
– Try with one strategy, change the strategy after failure and try again don’t just keep repeating the same mistake again and again.
9. Seek for expert advice
We sometimes are over confident of our idea and planning that we might miss out some small but very important tasks. It is always better choice to have an expert advice or a mentor guidance. This will minimize the risk of failure and avoid mistakes.
Experts are the one who has more knowledge of market and opportunities around.
There are tons of funding opportunities and schemes available. To choose the most suitable for your business plan is tedious task. Mentos / experts will minimize the time by helping you to choose what is best for you.
10. Address as a whole not as individual
Who are you the founder, cofounder, employee or worker? Doesn’t matter what role you play in the organization. Doesn’t matter easy or complex job you have. Always address the organization as your own.
Our Organization sounds more familiar then my organization. Even if you are the only founder do not say “I work with a motto” prefer “We work with a motto”.
Customer readily builds a familiar bond with your brand.
