So, let’s assume you decide to create your own firm to assist drive innovation. What steps can you take to increase your chances of succeeding? For starters, the choice to establish a business should be backed up with thorough planning. Consider establishing a business like having a child: you have a tremendous moment of inspiration, followed by months of grueling labour, disrupted sleep, and frustration.
To get ready for this, start by doing these three steps before quitting your full-time work. To begin, do some preliminary research on your concept: Determine the size of the market, speak with potential clients, and research your competition.
After that, get a web address, create a website, and set up company e-mail accounts. In order to obtain co-founders, personnel, investors, and advisers, get your friends, coworkers, and those you trust excited about your idea. Finally, once you’ve set the groundwork through preparation, you’ll encounter numerous hurdles.
Finding the initial capital to get started is the most difficult obstacle for entrepreneurs to overcome. And product development isn’t any easier even if you employ someone to do it, expect it to take twice as long and cost twice as much as you anticipated. Not only that, but you’ll almost certainly need good partners and staff, which can be time-consuming and unpredictable.
When dealing with these issues, keep in mind that achievement usually follows a long period of failure. Even in the tech industry, where hit apps appear out of nowhere and surge to fame, this is true. People think of Rovio’s Angry Birds video game as a “instant success,” yet the firm existed for six years and went through layoffs before it became a smash.
Instead of being discouraged by the inevitable setbacks that come with establishing a business, recall LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman’s words: “Remarkable careers are unlikely to grow in a straightforward, linear sense.” To put it another way, it’ll almost certainly be a roller coaster.
If you try to approach entrepreneurship as a lone wolf, you will have a difficult time succeeding. Consider the most successful entrepreneurs, such as Apple’s Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, who began out as a team.
It’s a good idea to seek within your network of friends when it comes to raising money and locating possible staff. When the author founded Venture for America (VFA), a non-profit organization that helps brilliant students get start-up experience, he received a lot of aid from his friends.
It all began when he acquired a pass to an Economist conference from a friend who couldn’t use it anymore. There, he met Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, and Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn, two persons who would be crucial to VFA’s success. Tony spent $1 million on VFA, and Weiner became a consultant.
But finding the appropriate people isn’t the only thing that successful start-ups need to do; they also need to find the ideal place. Every region of the globe has a distinct focus, so you should find one that corresponds to yours. General Nano, based in Cincinnati, makes a carbon nanotube material that can be used to strengthen planes and make them more resistant to lightning strikes. Because of their location in Cincinnati, the company may take advantage of the city’s military connections to locate clients for its goods.
However, getting contracts isn’t the only reason to choose a location. It’s also a question of cost. Office space in New York City is unquestionably more expensive than in smaller locations such as New Orleans. It’s not always terrible to establish yourself in a “nontraditional” – and hence less expensive – city: for example, Zappos.com is based in Las Vegas, and Under Armour is based in Baltimore, and both of these companies are enormously successful.
Do you remember who Google’s seventh employee was in 1999? Most likely not. Google wasn’t cool back then. This person, on the other hand, has most likely experienced a life-changing experience and is now wealthy. Rather than creating your own business, you can consider joining a young, promising start-up.
Joining a start-up before it becomes “cool” can make you extremely wealthy. It’s feasible to get a job with real responsibility in a new start-up, and your personal contributions can be the difference between taking off and languishing at the bottom.
Furthermore, even if a firm achieves enough success to become a household name, just a few dozens or hundreds of early employees’ careers are often defined by it. It’s preferable to be a part of that select group of contributors than than joining after they’ve already “made it.”
Chobani, for example, began by purchasing a disused yogurt facility in New York in 2005. Since then, they’ve expanded to a revenue of over $1 billion and a workforce of over 1,000 people. Those who make the first decisions, on the other hand, are the ones who get all the credit.
Furthermore, you are quite likely to bounce back if you have some hardship along the route. This resilience emerges as a result of developing a habit of creating and completing tasks. Working for a startup is a better way to learn these skills than working in the professional service business, and they will help you handle the challenges of entrepreneurship.
When the tech bubble burst in 2001, for example, nearly everyone lost their job. However, a friend of the author’s whose own business had failed just launched another, which was later acquired by Zynga, allowing him to recover. So, if you’re looking for fresh ways to define your professional path, look for interesting start-ups in your neighborhood and apply for a job!
You should now have a solid sense of what you should concentrate on for your initial foray into entrepreneurship. However, you are only one person! The final blink will focus on how to persuade college grads of the need of entrepreneurship.
We’ve seen the pitfalls that high-potential students fall into early in their careers, as well as the great rewards of encouraging them to pursue entrepreneurship. However, the question remains as to how we can persuade them to get enthusiastic about entrepreneurship.
First and foremost, we must choose appropriate role models for them: builders. There are numerous approaches to this problem. Universities, media businesses, and public personalities, for example, should actively promote start-up founders as role models and ask them to speak to students about their unique and fascinating experiences.
Furthermore, every campus should offer a “entrepreneurial hour,” similar to the one held at the University of Michigan, where successful entrepreneurs talk to hundreds of students about their own stories and careers.
The next step is to engage the help of entrepreneurs as mentors. One method to accomplish this would be for colleges, business schools, and even law schools to cultivate a network of alumni entrepreneurs who are willing to mentor aspiring entrepreneurs or even take on paid apprentices. This type of program has been done before. One successful university’s endeavor to employ experienced entrepreneurs as mentors for current students is the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute.
Finally, entrepreneurship education should be improved and invested in. This type of education would be more action-oriented and practical than present business curricula. Currently, entrepreneurial education is too abstract, and it frequently stops abruptly after graduation, when it’s time to obtain a “real job.”
Instead, a successful entrepreneurship program would be action-oriented, resulting in the creation of real, working firms and contributors. If the United States wants to maintain its position as an economic superpower, it must encourage a strong entrepreneurial spirit. To jumpstart innovation and drive the economy, it must provide students with easy access to entrepreneurial mentoring or a goal-oriented entrepreneurship education.
In the United States, top students primarily pursue professions in professional service companies, such as consultancies. However, it is start-ups, not these enterprises, that are the engines of employment creation and innovation. We must create a strong entrepreneurial spirit in our finest kids in order to stimulate innovation and drive the economy.
Here’s a piece of advice from the book, Smart People Should Build Things. It’s never too soon to begin. It’s a good idea to join in on a project before it gets tremendously popular if you want to be successful in a start-up. This way, you’ll have a better chance of influencing the company’s direction with your own ideas, and you’ll be more likely to be in a leadership position.
Check out my related post: What does every angel investor wants you to know?
Interesting reads:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18085527-smart-people-should-build-things
A Better Man 