In today’s 21st century there is a chaos everywhere in order to stand out in a crowd. There are so many people who dream big and want to be entrepreneurs. But a lot of doubts and degree of uncertainty hinders there move towards being an entrepreneur. Here are some suggestions and tips that a budding entrepreneur must keep in mind.

 

The first and foremost thing a budding entrepreneur must keep in mind is that he/she must choose a business that they care about and that plays to their strengths. Choosing a business that one cares about gives a sense of satisfaction and conviction. Although that is very important to start a business, yet it may not necessarily help one succeed in a long run. Along with choosing a business that one cares about, one must also choose a business that plays to their strength. Otherwise an entrepreneur might fall down on knees if the area of business is not his/her forte.

 

In order to have a successful business, keep the idea simple enough to proceed further. History has witnessed that the most successful business tycoons had business plans as simple as possible. Simpler the idea is more easily the investors will understand it. In 1966, Rollin W. King sat with his lawyer, Herb Kelleher, in San Antonio’s St. Anthony Club and drew a triangle on a cocktail napkin. Gradually the idea drawn on napkin has turned out to be a role model business for all low-cost Airlines in the world.

 

Before you start your business, regardless of how great your idea is, make sure you know your business model. Do as much research as you can into the business area you are going into, in order to establish that what you think is a great idea really does constitute an entrepreneurial opportunity. But at the same time, don’t just assume that good ideas make money. Know exactly what you will charge, what you will be selling and the mechanics of how you will make money. Too many entrepreneurs spend months or even years on projects without being able to answer the simple question: “How will I make money?”

 

One thing to be kept in mind at that planning stage is to think from the target audience or consumers point of view. One must always remember that although you are the entrepreneur yet it is your target group for whom you are initiating the business. Think from their point of view. What should be the USP (Unique Selling Proposition) of your product or services so that people pick it up out of the other cluttered businesses of the same type? 

 

The most frequent mistake most of the budding entrepreneurs commit is, over confidence on certainty of the new business plans. The only certainty of any business plan is that it is going to turn out wrong, in the sense that it will not turn out exactly as planned. This usually manifests itself in sales or production which exceeds time and budget targets.  

 

These things are potentially dangerous, because if the financing of the new venture has been closely based on the business plan timing, then clearly any deviation from this timing will land the entrepreneur in cash difficulties in a very short span of time. It is very important at the beginning of an enterprise to be as frugal as one possibly can.

 

One thing that can surely help a budding entrepreneur to get close to the degree of certainty of his/her business plan is to learn from the experience of those entrepreneurs who have gone before you. It is said that “Learn all you can from the mistakes of others.  You won't have time to make them all yourself.” Making mistake is in human nature, but one must learn from mistakes else it counts to blunder which is definitely not acceptable in human nature.

 

There are so many people who want to be an entrepreneur but are skeptical as to whether a Management course can teach them entrepreneurship or not. This opens up a whole topic of whether entrepreneurship can be taught? The answer is, of course, the principles of entrepreneurship can be taught. If they could not, that would make entrepreneurship the one and only human activity impossible to teach, which is an absurdity. In fact, entrepreneurship education can help people understand how to go about validating an idea to determine whether it is a viable commercial opportunity, how to go about planning and launching a new company with all that this entails, and then how to run it, including the pitfalls and danger areas and how to avoid them.

 

But it can do much more than this. It can positively influence an individual's perception of the risks entailed in becoming an entrepreneur, so he realizes that the risks perceived can be managed in such a way as to radically reduce them. This on its own is enough to make many people consider becoming an entrepreneur, where they would have been afraid to do so before. 

 

So, yes, it does make sense for budding entrepreneurs to get some training if they possibly can. In my view, the most useful things they can learn are how to research a new business idea to verify if it does in fact constitute an opportunity; the things to watch out for when launching a new company (team formation, financing needs, etc); and finally, the basic essentials of how to run a business.

 

One must also remember that an idea that is not executed is like a letter that is unopened and unread. So, even after having planned very well about a new business on must also make sure that it is executed well.  

 

In times long ago, entrepreneurs could happily carry on doing what they were doing in the way they were used to for years, without having to worry about a possible loss of business. These days, however, things are moving so quickly that it is a real challenge for entrepreneurs to maintain a culture of innovation, and those who do not accept the change become easy and sitting targets for their competitors.