It’s
2015 and the so called Start-up culture is taking roots in as many places as
almost around the world, everyone seems to want, to catch up on the
Entrepreneur bandwagon. Surely success stories like Facebook, Whatsapp,
Flipkart, Alibaba are the new age Blockbusters and the entrepreneurs behind
them are the super stars that everyone wants to be like, but the new age
entrepreneurs are not just superstars they want to contribute to world, bring
about new paradigms, develop new technologies and build at disruptive scale.
But there is a lot that goes into building a business, then just setting up
shop or having a domain. It takes a lot of courage, effort, determination and
patience to see an enterprise fructify. Ask any Entrepreneur and they will testify
that most difficult aspect is not of starting up, but that of sustaining.
This
is why 8 out 10 Start-ups fail every year! Having said that I’d like to
clarify that I am no business tycoon to spell out a success formula to
cultivate and grow a Start-up business, however having had a firsthand
experience at starting my own venture I’d like to share what it may take to
really cultivate and grow one’s business. As cool as it may sound, being the
boss does bring power, but with great powers, come great responsibilities, and
exercising this responsibility with acumen will eventually make or break a
business. So where do we being; is with what business to start with? I guess
not. We start off with something more intangible, no I am not talking about
brand value, but something that will probably give your brand; value. And that something
is Faith.
Faith:
You have to have faith in yourself and most importantly in what you’re doing.
If you believe, and let me be clear, when I say believe it is a yes of your
inner voice devoid of any dishonesty to any particular feeling, person or
thing. You have to be rooted to what you stand for and it is that faith will
help you take that jump to conquer the battle, whilst the war is still at
large. Having said that it does not mean that faith turns to stubbornness or
lacks discernment, faith is seeing with eyes of your conscience and knowing the
difference. So you’ve got to first believe in yourself or else how would anyone
else (read: partners, employees, customers) believe in you or your product.
Idea:
In most cases of new Start-ups, the entrepreneur usually is extending his/her
passion for a particular science/art or having a firsthand experience of a
product of service and knowing that this can be done better, however a problem
arises when you already have enough of a competition or face saturation in that
market. The key to approaching this situation is, to streamline the idea to
fill up a void of an existing product or service that has been there and remained
unchanged or unnoticed and it is this filling up of the void that unlocks
value. So how does one start? Off course by sowing the seed, and that seed is
known as
Capital.
Capital: You buy a domain, you
set up a website, you may even start from home, but then you need
to reach out to potential a customer, which means you have to market yourself, so you have to go out and meet people or you may want to place an advertisement. Soon you will realise that from the time you started up, the one thing that remains constant is that you have to spend money and not just that, the expenses reoccur, whether you sell or not. Therefore you can’t really start a business without capital, my reference to capital is in the context of having adequate capital: not that you need a Million dollars to
start a venture, but you need enough to see you through any sudden and
unforeseen circumstances and the reason is because when you start-up, you are
setting foot in unknown territory and hence there’s lots of learning to be done
and in this process you are bound to make mistakes. Today capital is supposedly
easily available in the market, but it is really hard come by and when it does
it come, it comes with its own terms and conditions superscripted with that
tiny, almost unseen asterisk mark. Hence before you set out to Start-up, make
sure you have adequate capital.
Mentor:
Have you ever thought of climbing atop Mount Everest? It’s a terrain, that
everyone dreams of conquering but only a handful get to doing it, and even the
handful who achieve climbing atop, are usually accompanied by a
Sherpa
(mountaineering guide), because they know the terrain, they know how to deal
with an avalanche or a snow storm, they know the right routes, but most
importantly their there to guide the climbers and once on top, they let you bask
in the glory of conquering. You many not feel the necessity of having a mentor
for various reasons, but having someone who has more experience than you always
helps as they know the terrain be it good times or bad. Hence it is
important to have a mentor, someone much more experienced, he/she may not
necessarily be of the same field, but is there to guide you.
People:
Products or Services are at the core of a business, but a real business is successful
because of the people behind. Your product or service is for consumption and
the end users are people again. The human factor is a very essential one, and it
is very important for the people working with you to understand the people your
catering your business too. Think about it, before you try something first, you
always tend to ask someone you know, about the product or service, only
then do you go forward with the decision process. Therefore it is
imperative that you to get the right people to be a part of your venture, and
when that happens, you will see results that often go beyond your expectation.
The points mentioned above are part of my learning’s,
off course there are other things
required to systematically run a business, but those are obvious ones
like a business plan, company set-up, et al, but I have tried to shed light on
more intuitive matter. Success is meant for those who really believe in it, and
it won’t come walking to you, you've got to work hard and smart to make it work, and
in the case of an entrepreneur, the fruitfulness of his/her venture is definitive
when it is contributing to its people, to society and to the world at large
making it better place to live in.
