"What will do when you grow up?" aunties and uncles would ask me when I was a kid, And pat I'd reply - "I want to be a Business woman"
I just love the idea of starting something on my own. Different ideas that can be creatively converted into revenue generating models. Churning ideas keeps me upbeat and motivated!
So many of us are driven by the idea of starting something on our own, working for ourselves. To do something interesting other than the usual stuff.
Whether you are a student, a house wife, an aspiring entrepreneur or simply adventurous and creative and driven.
Or
You perhaps just love the idea of being an entrepreneur.
You have a set of unexplored talents that you can use to generate an alternative way to use your energies and also make some extra bucks!!
You perhaps don't fit in the 9 - 5 "office goer" category
You like challenges and creating opportunities
The list just goes on ....
Recently I encouraged my 15 -year-old cousin Khushi to start a cupcake business, and it’s so exciting to watch her get started. As I talked to her about starting her vegan cupcake business, she was beaming with excitement but had some worries:
She didn’t know how.
She didn’t know what kind of business to create.
She was worried she’d fail.
Do any of those ring a bell and sound familiar??
Those were my worries too, when I had a day job and was thinking of giving it up to build something of my own.
Worrying about not knowing what to do, how to do it, and whether you’ll fail … stops so many of us from starting in the first place.
I’ve helped a lot of my friends, family members, acquaintances and clients to launch and start numerous ventures, from home based businesses to tiffin services to a staffing company, marketing consultancy, communication workshops, yoga classes, etc.
I intend to penning down the experiences of these young entrepreneurs and the thoughts behind their business ideas in a book and can barely wait to compile it for everyone to see and read! However that thought is a little farfetched and will take some time.
In the meanwhile, I’d like to share the lessons I’ve learnt about starting a business, in hopes of encouraging more of you to get started with making (doing) something you love! :)
Here you go....
-- Look for opportunities.
Keep your eyes open for opportunities — what pain points do people have, what problems need to be solved, how can you make people’s lives better?
If you can’t wait to get started, you’re onto something.
Every time I’ve gotten my best ideas, I get excited. I tell people about it. I might even stay up at night thinking about it. I can’t sit down for long from the excitement.
-- Start small.
People try to build their new business into a massive launch, but this is a mistake or I'd rather say not required initially.
Start as small as possible, giving a minimum viable product to a few friends, and let them test it out. Then let a few more people try it... so on and so forth.
When you try to do something massive at launch, you make it less likely that you’ll actually start (in time), and you’ll take forever to launch, and you’ll build yourself up for failure, and secondly, you’re building something massive without any idea of whether it works or if people will like it.
Launch is just one moment in the lifespan of a business, and it’s not even one of the most important moments.
Not starting is the biggest mistake!!
I told Khushi that in the worst-case scenario — if the business fails — is not even bad. If she starts the vegan cupcake business and fails, at least she got to make and eat some delicious cupcakes, and share them with friends, and learn some valuable lessons along the way. She can always start something new after that.
In fact, this scenario of learning something and having fun along the way, even in “failure”, is demonstrably better than if she’d not started at all.
(Think about it!)
-- Start a blog / fanpage
The best way to market a business is by giving away free information. Show that you’re valuable, help people for free, and they’ll want more from you.
-- You need not really do SEO or social media or viral marketing.
These don’t add any value for your customers. Instead, be super valuable. Build something great, and word of mouth is all the marketing you need (including people passing on your best blog / fanpage posts).
-- Overdeliver.
They’ll love you, and you won’t need the SEO techniques. (Saves you a lot of money too!!)
-- Start lean.
I started mine and urged others to start their businesses with zero or minimum money, and just found free or cheap services to start with.
Only after I started making some revenue did I pay for anything, or hire anyone.
Make money as soon as possible by selling something valuable.
-- Advertising is not a very good business model.
When you make money from ads, what are you selling? Your audience’s attention. This isn't that great, and your audience/customers won’t really love you for it.
Instead, do everything possible to delight your audience/customers, and give them incredible value, and they’ll gladly pay for it.
-- Forget about numbers.
More specifically, forget about compulsorily hitting certain "targets".... A million pageviews, ten thousand subscribers, half a million in revenues. Those are meaningless and arbitrary.
Instead, worry about --
How muchyou’re helping your customers.
How much value are you giving them?
How can you make them smile?
Try putting some numbers on those things.
-- The joy doesn’t come later. IT IS NOW
Lot of times people kill themselves trying to reach a goal, or hit an amazing launch. They hope that achieving this goal will change their lives. Then they get there, and their lives aren’t any different. Then they move on to the next goal. And the cycle continues...
The joy doesn’t come when you hit the goal, or have an amazing launch. The joy comes right now.
"This" is the moment of greatness, of satisfaction with yourself and what you’re doing. Not later.
-- Forget perfection.
Too many people get caught up in trying to make a product, website, blog post, launch, etc. perfect. It’ll never be perfect.
Perfection is stopping you from shipping. Instead, do what you can, get it out there, get feedback, improve it, repeat.
-- Screw the business plan. (Oops excuse the language)
Planning, like perfection, is useless and stands in your way. Sure, you want to think things through, but planning is based on faulty information (we can’t know the future). Instead, experiment. Get started. Do. Then see what happens, and adjust. Flexibility is much more important than a good plan.
-- Start from home, and start with friends or a family member
You don’t need to have an office for most businesses … even a cupcake business doesn’t need a shop — at least not at first. Start with no extra money, in your spare time if you have to. Let your first customers be your friends, and ask them to be brutally honest. Then let them spread the word to their friends. That’s what my friends will call a " saasta and tikau" ( cheap and sustainable ) launch
-- Focus on important things.
Too often people get caught up in statistics, social media, lots of little tasks that don’t matter. Instead, get moving on what matters most — producing something that will add value to your customers.
-- Surround yourself with interesting people.
Having friends who are doing fascinating things is inspiring, and they will give you great advice and feedback. The people around you, and their positive and inspiring attitudes, matter.
-- Learn to be OK with not knowing.
You won’t know what will happen with the business. The world is changing. Your business will change. You will change. You don’t know anything, really, and that’s OK. Read more.
Get started, my friends!
You’ll love it.
Shazy D signing off
More soon .... Stay tuned!
