I have always wanted to blog about my entrepreneurship experience to share with everyone and to remind myself of the mistakes I did and also of the things I have learned from my mentors.
It is apt that since this blog is about entrepreneurship and it is my virgin post, I shall address the very first issue which will occur in this entrepreneurship path.
While showering in the bathroom or easing yourself in the public toilet, you asked yourself of the meaning of life and reflect on why life is happening in this manner. Why can’t things be done more easily? Why can’t we solve this problem this way? Why not this? Why not that? Why is my bowel is not moving after squatting there for 10 minutes and reflecting about life?
In that eureka moment, blood rushed to your head and it felt like you have discovered the solution to solve the world’s problems like poverty, greedy capitalism, diseases…
The next few questions which pops out will usually be
- will it work?
- is there a market for it?
- is anyone currently doing it?
- who are my customers?
- how do I market it?
- how do I earn money?
- can I do this alone or do I need a team?
- should I raise funds?
- how do I raise funds?
- what entity should I register?
- should I quit my day job to focus on it?
The list goes on and on and on depending on how imaginative and meticulous you are.
The first most important thing will be do perform your due diligence and research into the business idea you have. The research can be done through googling and asking your friends.
Please don’t be afraid of people stealing your idea. Chances are, your idea is not something new to the market. Research shows that most businesses created and survived are not entirely new to the market. In fact, products and services that are new to the market are rare.
I know some will be saying “No, no, my idea is revolutionary and it will change the world because it is so unheard of and big that if I tell you, you will steal it”.
Think Facebook and Google. Before them it was MySpace, Friendster, Alta Vista, MSN, Ask, Excite, Yahoo. Now where are they?
The main idea of researching and talking to your friends about your business idea is to know your idea better and to tweak it constantly so when you launch your minimum viable product (MVP), it is more or less ready and does not require more iteration before usage picks up.
You need to sell your idea to your friends, get the most harsh feedback and solve that feedback. Because feedback improves your business model and learning to sell to your friends helps you know how to position your product or service in the most optimal way.
Most people I know do not take negative feedback positively and are often offended because they take it as a personal attack on their intellect. Trust me, most entrepreneurs are not those kind of intelligent scholars who are holding office positions.
We should all take it as an honest opinion on how your product or service can be improved without you thinking and losing sleep over how else you can improve it.
You will be surprised how third/external parties are able to view things differently from you. At the end of the day, they are most probably the people who will use your product, so why not give your users something they want first?
