Hi everyone. Hope you all are doing good. Today I am back with one of the most important and most talked about topic which is Entrepreneurship and start-ups. All of us want to do something on our own which can be financially, emotionally, and psychologically comforting to us. All of us want to live life on our terms and conditions without a third-party intervention or any sort of questions and answers. Also, we all are clear by this time that our jobs are no longer reliable because you are completely at the mercy of your employer to either retain you or lay you off. Hence everyone thinks of having a dual income + a fall-back option to fall join during trial times or in case of a job loss. This is an interesting concept to think upon. When we can do a lot of work for our big firms and corporates then why can’t we do something for our own selves leveraging our own skill sets. Plus, most of the people are no longer interested in doing a timeclock job. Hence nowadays, everyone is looking forward for start-ups and wants to become entrepreneurs. This requires a lot of courage on our part. But unfortunately, more than 90% of the start-ups completely fail and incur heavy losses. This is a very disturbing situation for anyone who goes through it. So, let us discuss few ingredients of a successful start-up. I would be sharing my views and may be any one point can click you in a better way.

1) Identify a unique problem that needs solution: This is very important to understand that you need a pain point to address, a problem to come up with the solution and the quality of this solution will determine the success of this business. A business is a way to provide a solution of an ongoing problem and all the steps one by one in that direction is to do business. This is how you will be motivated by your business if you really wanted to address the problem and come up with a solution

2) Have a viable Business Plan: Please ensure that your business plan always holds business viability which means that the business model is such that it is always surviving, and a survival is linked to financial position and performance. It simply means how would you sustain your business as a competitive advantage. If your business is not viable then it should be discontinued

3) Work on a solution differently in a different way: It might be possible that either you are the first person or first firm who has picked up a genuine unique problem and then addressing it differently because no one else is yet a pioneer. However, it also might be possible that you are picking up a problem which hundreds and thousands of others are already addressing it and are already a pioneer and now you are stuck because others are already doing that for last many years and have already built-up trust in the market. Now question is how to compete with them? Or rather competing, how to create your independent and individual identity? This can all be done by addressing the problem differently and in a unique manner. This could be achieved by addressing in a way nobody else is doing or even close to. For example- Lakhs of people in India have a tea business where they are just making tea and earning their livelihoods. Now imagine those people whose tea is the most famous and more number of customers only reach a specific tea stall. You might want to observe what he is doing differently which is attracting more customers. 

4) Invest time and effort: Starting up business or a start-up is not an easy task, and it requires lot of efforts and investment of time and efforts both. Please invest time and effort to make your services and problem-solving skills better and better. Remember your business/ start-up is your baby and it requires exact same care which a newly born child requires.

5) Avoid huge investment in the beginning: This is a major point to be considered while starting the business. Please avoid huge investments in the beginning as this is just in the “starting off” phase. Always remember to invest only that amount of money which could be easily recoverable or if not recovered then your financial status or you daily life is not hampered. Even if you can afford to invest huge amount, my suggestion would be to refrain

6) Reinvest your own money: This is always a best practise where you learn how to first invest your money to get some profits and then reinvest this same profit back to business to grow it again. This way you would not be lending money from anyone, and you would be growing your business independently with your own profits

7) Have complete control of your own business: This is extremely important to have a complete control on your business/ it’s operations/ it’s profit/ it’s market position/ it’s promotion and marketing/ it’s marketplace everything. Remember that you do not invest in marketplace to host your business if this is possible. It would be extremely important that you can have everything inhouse to ensure no delays in your business along with cutting on third party dependency. 

8) Have a long-term vision: While you are starting up your business, always have a long-term vision. Do not choose quick benefits with short term vision rather have a long-term vision even initially if it fetches few little benefits only. This way you can focus on driving your efforts on something which is worth for your business growth.

9) Focus on efforts first and not on future success or outcome: Remember, every action has an equal and opposite reaction whether it is good or bad and it is a scientifically proven fact. Outcomes usually are not in your hands, and you cannot manipulate it. Outcomes are dependent on many external factors. But being focussed on your work is something which is completely in your hands. So have an undivided attention only on investing efforts for your business growth rather dividing your attention between efforts and outcomes.

10) Never get into business just because everyone around you is doing business: This is not a good thing that you should do or copy what others are doing. Doing a business should come from within you and despite suppressing your business idea if it is growing in your mind day by day then this means that you really are ready to do business and can-do wonders. If you know yourself well that you cannot work for anyone else and can only work on your terms and conditions, then please deep dive into business. But if you think that you can work pretty well for your boss/ your colleagues and your organization then probably you would be doing well on your job side and you should not pitch in to business. You may be equally earning in job and even way more than your own business. Only your aspirations should be high enough to crack it.

11) Understanding of responsibility for both profits and loss: Please do remember this that if you are doing business or planning to open a start-up then you are sole responsible person for everything that comes across. if your company is achieving high end success and profits then these profits are yours but if you are suffering or enduring any losses then these losses are also yours. Please make wise decisions.

12) Do not make business plans just to attract investors: It is always a good practise to reinvest your own profits rather being dependent on someone else to fund your business. Please do not expect to grow exponentially in a short time by wrong and unwise decisions. Always make practical and achievable plans which might not grow exponentially but at least become a grip holding for you on your marketplace. This is your business and not investor’s. Investor will only think about his exponential profits and not the wellbeing of neither your business nor your employees. Remember I mentioned above to have complete control of your business.

13) Business marketing strategy: Remember I mentioned above to do something different or if doing the same thing what others are doing then do the same thing in a different way. So here it comes where you need to understand that YOU are the first promoter of your business/ You are the first cheerleader of your business. You should be aware how to win this race

I hope everyone liked these few simple ingredients for small recipe. Hope you find all these ingredients within you.