A lot of people do not realize that entrepreneurs play a big role in our society. When you put the total number of entrepreneurs together, they count as the biggest financial contributors to our nation's wealth. If only politicians would give grants to finance small business start-ups, the economy's growth could be hastened. Knowing the obvious financial rewards and the important role to society of business owners, many individuals aspire to be entrepreneurs. The fact remains, however, that several business start-ups fail and never take-off from the ground because of one thing: the lack of adequate and sufficient knowledge on how to start a profitable business. In this article, I will attempt to give practical strategies on how to run a successful business start-up.
First: find opportunities in your own backyard. Look at the demand side by observing your neighborhood. It is good to assess the close-to-home demand for starters. Aside from familiarity with the area, familiarity with the customer will be an enormous advantage.
Your neighborhood is not strictly your home address. It can be any area that you may be familiar with. It can be the university vicinity. After all, a student spends more time in school vis-à-vis his home. Familiarity with the demand in the area will reveal these business opportunities.
To cite an example: You are into baking cakes. Why not check if there is an opportunity to supply your local diners with your baked products? Find out if the neighborhood needs another supplier of baked goods. If there is no such demand in your familiar area, look for another area where your supply has its demand.
Statements like these indicate a desire for something that is not yet available in the area. This approach is based on one's familiarity with the demand. Secondly, choose an opportunity that brings out the best in you. Do not choose an opportunity purely because of its income potential. Income is a natural consequence of the entrepreneur's passion as expressed in the enterprise set-up. Nevertheless, before choosing the opportunity, spend sometime defining your personal vision, mission, and values. This is a key foundation of great entrepreneurs. They know what they want for themselves, (personal vision,) they know what they live for-this is a "personal mission," they know what they live by-these are their "personal values." These three items constitute the foundation of passion.
Equally important is doing a personal assessment. What are you good at? What are you not good at? In other words, you must know thyself. Great entrepreneurs know themselves very well.
Only when these are satisfactorily answered can you decide when opportunities are to be seized. It is noteworthy, however, that when opportunity-seeking is made, it is not pre-screened by personal wants and capabilities. Do not screen out opportunities just because you do not have the capability to do it. Seek and identify the opportunities that are present/available in your area. Thereafter, screen them against your personal vision, mission, and values. These screened opportunities are those that you can be passionate about. You will be passionate about it because it will serve as a vehicle for you to achieve your personal vision, mission and values.
After having decided which opportunity to pursue, seize it! Seize it very quickly since the windows of opportunity are open, but can close just as fast. Keep in mind that you are not the only person who is looking for opportunities to seize. Remember that there are others who have eyes, ears, and other senses to identify opportunities. Entrepreneurs seize with swiftness of the wind.
Lastly, use your personal assessment to guide you in determining how this opportunity can be seized quickly. If you have the capabilities to do it by yourself, then do not wait any further. Implement it at once. Do not be BIG right away. Start small, relative to your resources and capabilities. When your business model works, there will be plenty of people willing to lend money to you. Implement at once!
People who wait for some body else to successfully operate the business before proceeding on their own are not entrepreneurs, they are investors and are not necessarily entrepreneurs.
Real entrepreneurs do not wait for somebody else to start moving. Real entrepreneurs are pioneering-they are "entrepioneers."
