“I cannot work anymore under someone”, let’s start something of our own, let’s start our own business. – the most common thing to hear around nowadays in most of the cubicles. But is it so easy to get into the entrepreneurial world? If we see into the statistics Nine of ten startups fail, and a few succeed. So you might think what is the perfect mixture for success.
Many people come up with great and unique entrepreneur idea but couldn’t last long. And the main reason is lack of proper planning. This is the stage where startups should be concentrating on.
The journey from coming up with an entrepreneur idea to making it into reality is a long and nasty journey with lots of ups and downs. We need to work day in day out making that idea into a reality. It needs a lot of field work to be done, to know whether it’s feasible or do we need to pivot on it. It needs a solid business plan. It’s like a seed of a plant. We need to water it, nurture it to make it bloom.
While describing your entrepreneur idea, you should answer the following questions:
- What is your product/service?
- What does your product/service do?
- How is it different or better than other products/services?
- Who will buy the product/service?
- Why will they buy the product/service?
- How will the product/service be promoted and sold/offered?
- Who are your competitors?
These are some of the few questions which we should find answers of. Let’s have a go through some important points that are to be taken into consideration while starting a business.
- What Is The Problem You Are Going To Solve?
If you look into any successful business or startup, you will see that they have been successful in eliminating a problem from their customer’s life thus enhancing their life. That is the basic criteria that are to be taken care of. Many startups get infatuated with their ideas and start looking into the solution that it provides instead of focusing on what specific problem they are going to eliminate.
- Find Your Market:
It’s very important to put the product/service in front of the right set of people. Once you are clear about the specific problem that you are going to eliminate, you should start finding your market. This is the step where you come to know where your idea will fit into.
Most of the times startups fail in explaining to people the importance of and need for the product. If the product/service is not getting accepted, then instead of complaining you should start to make it more compelling and acceptable, as different people have got different habits and needs to be fulfilled, yet are facing the same problem.
- Collective Feedback:
Sometimes we get stuck up with our own ideas and miss out some important key points which are important for the bigger picture. In such cases, it’s important to get valuable feedback from people in the related field. This will help us in avoiding the unseen loopholes that might come on our way and start focusing on the right track.
- Create A Financial Model And Plan The First Phase:
Once you have studied the market, the next important thing to do is to check whether your idea if financially viable for the market. Out of the many ways, you can implement the “bottom-up” and “bottom-down” model.
The bottom-up model will give you more insight on how your business will function. And the top-down model will help you in knowing the projections. It examines the size of your market and what goals you need to achieve before earning a profit.
- Figure Out The Source Of Capital:
Its most often said that don’t run after money, instead run after the cause. And this is very much true. But still, to begin with, you will be needing some source of capital to start off your business. And in the beginning, it’s very difficult to convince others about your plan.
- Building The Minimum Viable Product(MVP):
The minimum viable product is the version of your product which allows you to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about your customers with the least amount of effort. The main motive is to create a product that will contain all the core features. It will give us the feedback which will help us to make it better for them.
Some may not go for pivoting for the fear of showing weakness. But it’s not wise to wait for a crisis to start. The sooner you recognize the need to make a change, the less it costs, and the greater the return.
There is no fixed set of rules for a successful business. What I have mentioned here is a set of steps which I believe should be taken note of before starting a business. But it varies from business to business and people to people. So what I can suggest best is to know your product/service well and simply adapt your idea. If one approach doesn’t work then try for a new one, and keep on trying unless you succeed.
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