15 February 2015

Are you thinking of Starting up??? Read this...

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.