The right way to start a business

A couple of week ago, I received a call from my friend Alex, who started his automobile business two year back. Alex asked me to help him in streamlining his two years old business. In our brief conversation I realized that Alex has made the first time entrepreneur’s common mistake that implementing the idea based on his thinking without validating in market. I had visited his business and did preliminary analysis to find out the reason for trouble. I found that he is into automobile repairing segment only but in that area people prefer one stop solution which provide vehicle maintenance, spare parts, insurance, finance etc.

First-time entrepreneurs face common challenge to find the right way to start a business. In real life, a good start is a half win.

“The best learners are the best earners.” To become successful entrepreneur, start learning.

A business is defined as an entity engaged in commercial, industrial, or professional activities be it for profit or not for profit to fulfill a charitable mission or further a social cause.

The right way to start a business depends upon following two pillars

1.Target Market -What type of market you want to sell your product & service to. For example international or local, urban or rural, etc. Based on that you can design your business model to sell your product to the target market.

2. Target customers- Whom you are going to target like some want to target youth with high income, some want to target middle age middle income, etc. This will help you to develop your pricing and marketing strategy.

Business Plan

Based on the above, develop your business plan which will cover the operation strategy like how you are going to arrange investment, what will be the team structure, how long you needed to become profitable, how you face the competition, what will be the sales/profit figure, etc.

The investment plan should cover the requirement of capital, source of capital, and period for the capital requirement.

9 mantras to become successful in business

· Start small and aim for big

· Start without loan

· A research-based approach to saving your time and money

· Find the customer first then develop product

· Try to build the team

· Innovate to growth

· Customer-first

· First, earn then invest

· Do not copy, be original

“No one can stop you from shinning if you are standing in your own light.” Most of time entrepreneurs try to copy others model without analyzing their strength and weakness. I suggest you to build your own business model and respond to market proactively.