1 Comment
Screwing up from time to time is part of the entrepreneurial process--but not all mistakes are created equal.
By Ilya Pozin July 11, 2013 Entrepreneurship, at its best, is synonymous with learning. Don’t let the overnight success stories fool you. The more common story looks like this: test a product, fail, retest, and improve. Mistakes are a crucial part of this process. Of course, not all mistakes are productive. Throughout my years in the start-up community, I’ve witnessed entrepreneurs make some of the same counterproductive mistakes again and again. And hey, I’ve made my share of them too. Here are nine of the most common–and easiest to avoid: 1. Trusting your gut, rather than getting validation for your idea. Your business idea may seem like a profitable game-changer, but without validation you may be setting yourself up for failure. Before you invest any time or money into your idea, spend time testing it. Consult with experts from the start-up community and get your product idea in front of potential customers so that you can learn–and adapt–based on their feedback. 2. Not getting your business to market fast enough. Far too many business ideas fail due to a slow launch, which needs to be both stealthy and strategic to be successful. Don’t spend ages building out your idea and features. Instead, build out your most valuable product, release it, and see how people react to it. In the end, it’s important not to overbuild, because features alone don’t make start-ups successful. 3. Not knowing when to pivot. Through your early validation efforts, you’re likely to gain feedback that you didn’t anticipate. Rather than throwing in the towel or ignoring what you’ve learned altogether, this should inspire you to change your business model to prevent failure. Many successful business ventures have come through calculating a new route. If you are wonder how to start advertising your business using Google AdWords, the below infographic could show you how. This information can help you to make right decisions while arranging the first steps in your advertising campaign. It shows the first issues you will face and provide decisions.
Two recent articles I found were very interesting and call out the fallacy that "the Super Rich (1%) are the job creators". Bryce Covert writes that "Entrepreneur and self-described one percenter Nick Hanauer warned Congress that rich people like him aren’t the engines of the economy. In a testimony before the Senate Banking Committee, he explained why, in fact, middle-class workers are the economy’s real job creators: In the same way that it’s a fact that the sun, not earth is the center of the solar system, it’s also a fact that the middle class, not rich business people like me are the center of America’s economy. […] As an entrepreneur and investor, I have started or helped start, dozens of businesses and initially hired lots of people. But if no one could have afforded to buy what we had to sell, my businesses would all would have failed and all those jobs would have evaporated. He described what he calls a “virtuous cycle” in which middle class consumers have money to buy goods, which increases demand and therefore hiring. The rich, on the other hand, don’t fuel the economy with their consumption in the same way. “I earn 1,000 times the median wage, but I do not buy 1,000 times as much stuff,” he noted." (read more) On the other hand, inspite of record corporate profits and sky high CEO compensations (which only recently are seeing a downswing), as per a New America Foundation report, minimum wage has changed little in the last 50 years. Come on, 50 years and the majority are still making what they did a half century ago? Prices for everything are changing as they are keeping pace with the changing times, then how come we dont have a "Living Wage"? Shouldn't the minimum wage keep pace with the changing times? From "The New America Foundation".
The tricky task of balancing work and personal life is an art form for most small-business owners. Feeling pulled in every direction? Learn some ways to achieve balance in your life. Yes, business owners, small or big should be concerned with data breaches. In today's digital world, where almost all the business is being conducted with the help of computers, loss of data can bring your business to a standstill. It can also lead to loss of intellectual capital or competitive advantage over others.
Below is a great infographic that will help you protect your business and your future against data breaches & privacy issues. Successful entrepreneurs may be a rarity, but most successful entrepreneurs do share a few common characteristics with each other. If you’re worried that you don’t have all of these on the list yourself, that’s OK, many, if not all can be learned as you grow as a business person. So you want to be a successful entrepreneur? Review the Successful Entrepreneurs infographic below and be on your way to your creating your own fortune. Small businesses play an essential part in powering our economy, but only if they can achieve success. Below are a list of common mistakes made by Small Business owners – do any of them look familiar to you? Review the below infographic below to learn more on how to prevent the most common mistakes for small businesses that lead to failure. Help your business achieve the success that it deserves. Finding the cash to launch your business or keep it running can be a daunting task. Whether you are reaching into your pocketbook (or someone else’s), borrowing money from a bank or seeking a cash-heavy investor, every entrepreneur knows that without cash, success is out of reach. Learn more about the various ways that small businesses get money to help them grow from the infographic below , also who is most likely to get funding, and how much venture capitalists and angel investors contribute financially. |
Writer & EditorHi, my name is Sunil Srivastava and I am the writer, editor and compiler of this blog. I am a serial Entrepreneur, Project Manager & Business Coach with a passion for Technology, Marketing, Hospitality, Business Development & Coaching, This is my effort to help as many people as I can by sharing my knowledge & expertise that I have obtained in my extensive career spanning 2 decades and 3 continents. Let the journey begin ...... Archives
November 2013
Categories
All
|