Leading Entrepreneurs Share Their Advice For Starting Their Businesses

Perhaps the most difficult and complex task in this world is entrepreneurship.

Every business is different, every industry is unique, and every environment throws up its own set of challenges, making it incredibly difficult for those who are just starting out their businesses to know how to take things forward.

90% of startups fail and this is one of the major reasons why that happens.

The best way for those starting out is to hear from those who have made it through this path i.e. successful entrepreneurs who are at the epitome of their careers. And while it may seem overwhelming to reach out for advice, it isn’t impossible and we went the extra mile to make their advice more accessible.

We reached out to various, highly successful entrepreneurs through Linkedin, Email and YEC council to ask them the question that everyone wants answers to i.e. “What does it take to build a successful business?”

Read on to know what they say about this incredibly important business question for new entrepreneurs.

Acquire Answers To All The Right Questions First

Rishi Sharma — CEO & Founder at Mallama Skincare & Q-See, a budding Podcaster

“The Best Advice I could give anyone early on, in their entrepreneurial journey would be to focus on these three questions: Why and whom you are building this business for? What is your Business Model? What is your unique insight into the Market/Product/Service?

Once you have a clear and concise answer to these questions, it will be much easier for you to tell your story to potential customers, know what to place in ads and creative content, and figure out the correct strategic steps to make in the early days.

It is also important to mention that answers may change a couple of times until you find the right solution for you and business.”

Stay “Unreasonable”, Passionate & Committed

Bogdan Gecic — Founder and Managing Partner at Gecić Law in Belgrade, Serbia

“Stay true to yourself (integrity is the bedrock of any entrepreneur and company culture). Don’t ask how much work you’ll have to put in (it’s always going to be insanely a lot and most people, friends, and family will consider you crazy), but live for the end-result.

Aim to make a difference, a dent in the universe and don’t settle for anything less. Always be innovative and creative — those are the key things that always generate true added value. Creativity is what makes the world beautiful and with meaning. Customers love it too.

Never stop dreaming and stay ‘unreasonable’, the reasonable ones never change anything. Try, and try again, and always be happy to fail. It’s a learning experience (and you’ll have a whole load of terrible failures).

Do as much and as fast as you can; it’s always about passion. In order to create it, you have to love it (your product or service). In order to do it, you have to love it (run your business), and in order to sell it the same, you have to love it (instill your passion into others, including your customers — the most successful of whom are able to create market demand where it didn’t exist before).

Passion above all. It’s contagious :)”

Be Thick Skinned & Build Value Contents:

Udit Goenka — Founder & CEO of PitchGround dba. Little SaaS, Inc., a SaaS marketplace

“ Here are some of my best recommendation for entrepreneurs:

• Read as many personal blogs or listen to podcasts of successful entrepreneurs as possible. They all share their failures and mistakes. That’s the fastest way to learn and avoid making those in the beginning, which can give you a great head start.
• Remain hyper-focused during bad times.
• During your journey, very few people will believe and trust you. Don’t let that take you down. Keep working and moving forward.
• Every failure is a lesson, share that with others, that will help you to inspire others to follow your journey which can benefit your brand (or personal brand).
• Learn to craft stories. This is the single most important skill a founder needs to develop. Without a story, you cannot grow.
• Work on product/service only if you are passionate, not just for money. If you are passionate about what you do, most likely, you will over-deliver without asking.
• Spend 80% time on marketing & sales aka building value contents. This is where startups fail as they do try to sell rather than focusing on value.

All these learnings are from my personal experiences. I hope this can find many people useful.”

Revenue Is A Major Sign Of Your Business’s Viability

“Being a successful entrepreneur and running a business is very hard. The difficulty is often underestimated. You need to be ready to make tweaks and changes to your plans and strategy. Chances are the first few times you do “something”, whether it is a marketing initiative, platform build, or sales negotiation, etc., it won’t be amazing, but learning from these and understanding where you can improve in the future is essential. By not being open to changing and modifying your approach, chances are you’re not going to make it.

The other thing that a lot of new entrepreneurs often overlook is revenue. In most cases, until you have revenue, your startup is a passion project. Yes, in today’s market you need something with good user experience, but you also need to put something out into the market early to see the type of response you get. Revenue is a great way to validate the business.”

People Are Essential To A Business, Learn To Drive More Value From Interactions

“If I had to pick three priorities irrespective of the stage of the startup and industry you’re building in, I would categorize them in the following order:

• Social, Financial & Human Capital: Critical focus areas to move your business from stealth mode towards growth and scaling. You want to be able to attract and lead talent, be able to convey the story and vision for new investors, and garner industry and community attention towards your company’s building speed.
• High-value Networking: Plan to get to three new people every day. This could be through email, text, a phone call, or an actual visit — any of these avenues are fine. The power of the network accelerates the execution of unstaffed functions. A leader is always a custodian of the squawky chair and good leaders don’t value the work product they have hired someone else to do for them.
• Support Team — Know and build your support team starting with yourself as your own advisor; a core team that comprises of your board and equity advisors, an inner circle of industry experts, and then finally outer circle to reflect on your progress outside-in.”

Entrepreneurs Are Different From Successful Entrepreneurs

Brad Burns — A serial entrepreneur and the engine behind Wayne Contracting, Meramec Hardscapes, Vizex Branding, and P & B Plumbing

“The people that help you get from point A to point B may not be the people who can help you get from point B to point C.

Don’t listen to negativity. There will always be people who don’t believe in you or tell you to quit. Just ignore them.

You will fail. Accept it, learn from it and move on.

Entrepreneurship is about risk. You have to build your parachute after you jump out of the plane.

You have to work at least twice as hard as you think you will to make it, be ready for the grind.

If being an entrepreneur was an easy thing to accomplish everyone would do it. There is a difference between an entrepreneur and a successful entrepreneur. Know your difference.”

Be The Ultimate Growth Hacker

“When it comes to bootstrapping businesses that are started with very small investments like it was the case with me, you need a growth hack strategy to power your way through. You cannot go too far without experiencing sustained growth because passion doesn’t exactly pay the bills or keep interested in your project ongoing. Hacking growth is different for everyone, as the strategies they deploy are different, but the idea is common and you can learn it. Leveraging emerging tech like AI, Big Data, AR/VR, etc. will take you nowhere unless you know how you can utilize the technologies to power the growth of your business.”

Originally published at https://www.tekrevol.com on March 17, 2020.