The voice of an entrepreneur

Welcome to my blog. Being a first generation entrepreneur, it gives me immense pleasure in sharing my experience and thoughts about entrepreneurship and startup ecosystem in my blog posts. I will be predominantly writing about entrepreneurship and startups. I will also have posts sharing my personal entrepreneurial experiences as and when the situation arises.

The topics which that will be covered are as below.

1. Entrepreneurship Management

Starting up a business and running it through involves lot of commitment, dedication, discipline, perseverance etc. Here I will be writing about various stages involved in setting up the business, right from idea generation to scaling it up and staying focused. Some of the topics are listed below.

• Entrepreneurship – An Introduction

Entrepreneurship is a roll coaster ride. It has several highs and lows. When starting, the entrepreneur feels highly motivated and has a positive outlook, even though the road ahead is not clearly defined. When there is a low, motivation levels come down and negative energy try to creep in. At this instance, the entrepreneurial journey can either to burn out or start again refreshingly. Once the entrepreneur overcomes the failure and succeeds, the confidence and motivational level will be at the peak. Thus entrepreneur need to be stubborn, a visionary, crazy and should be able to take calculated risks. There are several myths about entrepreneurship, which are not true. A successful entrepreneur is one who can make an idea in to reality and eventually making it commercial successful.

• Idea Generation, feasibility and scalability

While execution is the key, unique ideas can take the business to great heights. Finding the right idea, refining it, identifying the commercial viability and scalability are very important for growth.

• Market research for startups

Researching about the market is very important as it will give the understanding of the market dynamics and will help to refine the business idea. Collection of data through primary and secondary resources data analysis techniques will be covered under this topic

• Legal aspects of a startup

Having the statutory compliances in order makes the entrepreneurial journey smooth. This is another area where entrepreneurs find it difficult to keep things in order. Under this I will write about the various types of business registrations, basic compliances for a business to operate, mergers and acquisitions, liquidation, Employee stock options and management buyout.

• Product Development

No idea is worth unless it is built in real time with customer attractive features and economic viability. Building the product and testing it in the market, gives a real time feedback from the prospects and help in refining the product in a better way.

• Marketing Plan

A good marketing plan solves most of the business development problems. Marketing has to be done not only in accordance with the product, but also keeping the customer competitor and industry trends in place in mind. Setting sales forecasts, targets, distribution channels are of paramount importance to achieve success in the business. Leveraging the brand equity, designing the marketing tools in the right way gives boost to the business growth.

• Operational Plan

Any idea is not successful unless it is executed properly. Business operation involves various stakeholders ranging from vendors, colleagues, customers, investors, Government agencies, etc. Revenues are the lifeline of any business. Working out the best possible revenue model will help in bringing revenues early and help in scaling.  Drafting the right business model with revenue model and executing it in the right way makes the business operation smooth.

• Organizational Plan

Building the right sized team with the right resources in accordance with the financial strength of the business is necessary to take the business successfully in the right direction. Team work makes wonders and setting up the right team with the right attitude solves half the problem. Startups may find it challenging to attract talents initially, but it can be addressed, by looking into specific profiles who are interested in working in a very challenging and enterprising work environment. Developing the right culture in the team will help in scaling great heights without much hassle. Here comes the question of culture versus competence. Under this topic, I will addressing the above said areas.

• Financial Plan

Many entrepreneurs have brilliant business ideas, but they don’t plan their finances well. This leads to business failure. Some even mix up their personal finances with the business finances leaving a complete mess in the business financial statements. Funds can be raised for the business through bootstrapping or through loans or private investors such as angels and venture capitalists. While raising funds banks, a detailed project report of the business has to be submitted. While raising funds from external investors a proper business plan projecting the prototype tested in the market team, scalability are a few factors that are to be considered.

• Being Responsible

Entrepreneur’s personal ethics and integrity easily rubs on to the business. Right from the ideation stage to product development to marketing, practicing ethics helps to connect emotionally with the customers. This not only helps the business to grow, but also to remain socially responsible.

• Common Mistakes

Mistakes are inevitable in business. Some common mistakes are being not able to set priorities, flawed market study, poor customer service and sales strategies. Even entrepreneur’s personal characteristics play a role in the success of the business. Too much pride, being unorganised can derail not only the entrepreneur, but also the business.

• Failure is beautiful, Resilience is brave

Success is never final, Failure is never fatal. Many get bogged down by failures. Many successful people had failed immensely in life at least once. Failures make one better. Entrepreneurs should understand that failure is just a part of success. When failure happens, it is of paramount importance to remain calm and composed. Analysing what went wrong and working on improving them in the next attempt makes sense. Many fail, but only a few have the resilience to start over again.

2. Startup Lessons

There is a lot of buzz in the startup ecosystem every day and we hear lot of news. But what is the learning we take from the buzz? In this section, I will analyze the news and give in a nutshell, what lessons we can learn from the happenings in the startup ecosystem.

3. From the doers

Hearing from people who have been there and done that is always inspiring. Here I speak to entrepreneurs asking them how the idea sparkled, how they developed the idea, their journey, how did they treat failures and success and related topics. I will announce the entrepreneur whom I will be interviewing well in advance, so that you can also send me your questions.

4. The Inside story

Here a cover story on a startup, about their product offerings, target customers, successful case studies will be covered.

5. Failure is beautiful, Resilience is brave

As I had mentioned earlier, failure is a part of success and entrepreneurs need to understand this. Under this column, I shall narrate stories of failures faced by successful people in their life and entrepreneurial journey and how they overcame those failures with resilience.

Please feel free to leave your comments and suggestions.