Becoming a Successful Entrepreneur – What, How and Where
As every beginner business or accounting course will teach you, entrepreneurship is a very exciting field. Over the duration of the course you will study different forms of businesses from a sole trader to a partnership to private company and then to a public limited company. Along the way, the course will also highlight the specific advantages of each of the types of business.
Real Life Entrepreneurship
However, the real realm of entrepreneurship is very different from just what textbooks might have you believe. Logistical and legal issues with several conflicts of interests along the way and unethical competitors or stubborn suppliers that make the life of an entrepreneur a living hell.
Perhaps they may not be as dangerous for huge enterprises such as Microsoft or Apple or Samsung function who have powers well beyond any suppliers, these problems do exist and rigorously threaten to undo startups at any point. This is because startups do not begin at a scale as huge as that of Apple or Microsoft. Around 69% of startups in the U.S. start from home as side businesses.
Therefore, they do not have the resources to hire specialists like huge business ventures do. In fact, they barely have enough resources to sustain the startup over a long time. In fact, 29% of these startups run out of capital even before they can establish a firm footing in their area of operations.
How To Make It as an Entrepreneur?
Although Microsoft began in a garage, it has budgets that exceed annual GDPs of entire nations. Obviously, Gates did something that several other entrepreneurs did not. Here is how you can become a successful entrepreneur too:
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Do not Just Jump In
Any successful entrepreneur begun a startup at one time because he/she had an expertise in their field of operations. They did not just begin a venture for the sake of beginning a venture.
Look at Bill Gates, for instance. He was one of the brightest minds at Harvard and had years and years of experience behind him in software development and coding even before he completed his degree at Harvard. This was why he was so successful when he dropped out of Harvard to begin his own company with his buddy Paul Allen.
One of the fields that people tend to jump into a lot today is securities trading. However, people that do gather information and take courses such as the Gauntlet from Earn2Trade understand the field. This is because the Gauntlet teaches them the essentials of trading in the market and even in cases gets them a job in the field with proprietary trader tools. As a result, it is these people that make it far in the field and even go on to set up their own trading houses.
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Finance Management is Crucial
A huge proportion of businesses do not predict the amount of capital that they will need in the future and end up short of cash in the initial phases. This is troublesome and often results in businesses failing. It is therefore necessary that the business understand its finance needs and be prepared in advance.
Moreover, maintaining transparency and keeping a record of all costs help bring down expenses and is a function that must be undertaken with utmost care. Often this is not done because of the undifferentiated business and personal expenses.
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Business Need
Around 42% of startups fail because there is no demand for the products that they make. This is a result of poor market research. Jumping into a saturated market is no less than axing your own toes and sooner or later, the level of profits will be competed away, rendering your business unsuccessful.
What is essential is to make sure that the business has a distinct function that ideally no other business in the market is satisfying. This not only gives your business a first-mover’s advantage, but also helps it generate a distinct image in the minds of the consumer.
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Adjustment is Inevitable
No matter how planned your business is, however, you will have to alter some aspects of it. To most people that put in the effort to carefully plan out their business, this experience is very disorienting. But it does not have to be. Adjustment will be necessary even in the later phases when your business is established. Take Huawei’s adjustment in the face of a US ban as an example.