Undeterred by the mountain of data against starting a Business you have decided to go forward anyway.
The hard work and struggle involved leave you unfazed.
Instead you are terribly excited by the thought of the limitless possibilities.
Your heart races ahead contemplating the admiration of your friends and peers. For a single wild moment you can actually see your self on the cover of Fortune "The Youngest Billionaire Ever" screams the headline.
And then your left brain tugs you back to reality. And you ask a simple question.
WHAT BUSINESS SHOULD I START?
You should be pretty sure of what business you want to get into.
If you don't, you are not ready to start a business yet.
In a previous blog I wrote about the three reasons that you would start a business. What category of business person are you? What business you should start depends on why you want to start a business.
YOU WANT TO BE IN BUSINESS BECAUSE YOU HAVE SOMETHING UNIQUE TO OFFER FOR WHICH THERE IS A LARGE MARKET
This is probably the easiest kind of decision to make. Just put your unique product or service on the market and watch the market lap it up. That might seem a little simplistic, but apart from details like HR, Finance, Production and so on, that's really all there is to it.
A business associate of mine has a small but healthy company that makes the hardware like this;
and software for radar applications. Their products are used in radars that gather meteorology data. Is that niche or what? Do you know anyone else who does that? Chances are you don't.
Apparently his customers don't know any one like that either, because he's not able to produce enough products to meet the demand.
Think of the different kinds of knowledge that this guy has;
Software
Electronics
Mechanical engineering
Heat flow
Wave theory
All of that in one place is certainly rare confluence of circumstances. Combine that with strong demand and little or no competition and you've got a winning business.
Sure he's really smart but I'm sure he also put in a lot of work to develop that kind of expertise.
If you don't already have a such a unique product or service, I strongly encourage you to get one. This is the best kind of business there is.
Until someone comes up with a better, cheaper product to replace yours. By then of course you would be comfortably retired in the Bahamas.
The flip side of this type of business of course the product is as niche as the market. Do you make radars? (correct answer: no). Know anyone that needs RF splitters for meteorological radars? Unlikely.
Moral of the story: The business model is strong but can not grow indefinitely.
This might sound weird but up until a couple hundred years ago, every body was an independent businessperson. Huge enterprises employing hundreds or thousands of people did not exist. Every farmer sowed his own crop and harvested it himself. Sold it and lived with the profit or loss.
If you balk at the thought of a 9 to 5, 5 days a week job, that maybe because for thousands of years people lived free of that kind of schedule. In other words, you are human.
But more importantly, if you have, like me, burnt your bridges, you no longer have the option of going back to a job. That thought might give you just that tiny extra bit of grit which is needed to succeed in business. You will succeed because you HAVE to. You don't have a choice.
So if you are this type of business person and you ask me;
What business should I start?
My answer is: THE EASIEST BUSINESS FOR YOU
When I started Ushtara, it was not able to even support me for the first few years.
Things got particularly bad around the end of 2005. I hadn't paid the rent for my house. Nor my cell phone bill. I desperately needed a second source of income.
Not having the option of going back to a job, I racked my brain for a service that I could deliver without any investment. Without any effort even.
Years ago, I used to be a corporate trainer GECIS. I taught new hires how to do their job. I knew that this service has a ready, if fluctuating market. Using nothing but a free gmail address and my cell phone (with just a few days to run before they cut it off), I called up various software companies that I knew were hiring and offered my services as a corporate trainer.
I landed a training contract on the 8th day and the crisis was staved.
Determined to prove that you can run a business with nothing but a free email address and a cellphone, I successfully ran the training firm with no overhead whatsoever, for 3 years, until Ushtara started making money.
This is my advice: Offer whatever you can do RIGHT NOW. With whatever you have. With whatever you know.
If you look at the Fortune 500 list of the biggest companies in the world, you will see an inordinate representation of Finance, Petroleum, Retail and Automotive companies.
Broadly speaking two kinds of companies are indefinitely scalable;
a) Companies that offer the one thing that every body needs (Think Petroleum, Electricity, Operating systems for PCs, Cell phone services, Search Engines, Social Networks)
b) Companies that offer anything that you could possibly want (Think Walmart, Aldi, Carrefour)
Now you could aim at being the next Google or Facebook or Shell. But the odds of success are almost non-existent. Look at this list of search engines:
http://www.thesearchenginelist.com/
How many of these do you use? (Hint: one)
You might as well try to be the next Jesus (Statistics show that there has been on average 1 person every 376 years for the last 5000, whom more than a million people believe to be a messenger from God or related to God (s))
Take a look at this company;
http://www.semco.com.br/en/
Now tell me what does Semco do?
Everything or more specifically ANYTHING
The same goes for the Virgin group
(Incidentally, both of these groups have very dynamic leaders (1 and 8 on this list ), but more on that later)
Business is, in itself a specialization, independent of the underlying product or service. Once you have learnt BUSINESS, you can run any business.
Herein lies your best chances of success. Wild, Flamboyant, I wish I were you kind of success.
Till next time
Sunil
Continue to the next chapter
The hard work and struggle involved leave you unfazed.
Instead you are terribly excited by the thought of the limitless possibilities.
Your heart races ahead contemplating the admiration of your friends and peers. For a single wild moment you can actually see your self on the cover of Fortune "The Youngest Billionaire Ever" screams the headline.
And then your left brain tugs you back to reality. And you ask a simple question.
WHAT BUSINESS SHOULD I START?
You should be pretty sure of what business you want to get into.
If you don't, you are not ready to start a business yet.
In a previous blog I wrote about the three reasons that you would start a business. What category of business person are you? What business you should start depends on why you want to start a business.
YOU WANT TO BE IN BUSINESS BECAUSE YOU HAVE SOMETHING UNIQUE TO OFFER FOR WHICH THERE IS A LARGE MARKET
This is probably the easiest kind of decision to make. Just put your unique product or service on the market and watch the market lap it up. That might seem a little simplistic, but apart from details like HR, Finance, Production and so on, that's really all there is to it.
A business associate of mine has a small but healthy company that makes the hardware like this;
and software for radar applications. Their products are used in radars that gather meteorology data. Is that niche or what? Do you know anyone else who does that? Chances are you don't.
Apparently his customers don't know any one like that either, because he's not able to produce enough products to meet the demand.
Think of the different kinds of knowledge that this guy has;
Software
Electronics
Mechanical engineering
Heat flow
Wave theory
All of that in one place is certainly rare confluence of circumstances. Combine that with strong demand and little or no competition and you've got a winning business.
Sure he's really smart but I'm sure he also put in a lot of work to develop that kind of expertise.
If you don't already have a such a unique product or service, I strongly encourage you to get one. This is the best kind of business there is.
Until someone comes up with a better, cheaper product to replace yours. By then of course you would be comfortably retired in the Bahamas.
The flip side of this type of business of course the product is as niche as the market. Do you make radars? (correct answer: no). Know anyone that needs RF splitters for meteorological radars? Unlikely.
Moral of the story: The business model is strong but can not grow indefinitely.
YOU WANT TO BE IN BUSINESS BECAUSE YOU SUCK AT JOBS
This might sound weird but up until a couple hundred years ago, every body was an independent businessperson. Huge enterprises employing hundreds or thousands of people did not exist. Every farmer sowed his own crop and harvested it himself. Sold it and lived with the profit or loss.
If you balk at the thought of a 9 to 5, 5 days a week job, that maybe because for thousands of years people lived free of that kind of schedule. In other words, you are human.
But more importantly, if you have, like me, burnt your bridges, you no longer have the option of going back to a job. That thought might give you just that tiny extra bit of grit which is needed to succeed in business. You will succeed because you HAVE to. You don't have a choice.
So if you are this type of business person and you ask me;
What business should I start?
My answer is: THE EASIEST BUSINESS FOR YOU
When I started Ushtara, it was not able to even support me for the first few years.
Things got particularly bad around the end of 2005. I hadn't paid the rent for my house. Nor my cell phone bill. I desperately needed a second source of income.
Not having the option of going back to a job, I racked my brain for a service that I could deliver without any investment. Without any effort even.
Years ago, I used to be a corporate trainer GECIS. I taught new hires how to do their job. I knew that this service has a ready, if fluctuating market. Using nothing but a free gmail address and my cell phone (with just a few days to run before they cut it off), I called up various software companies that I knew were hiring and offered my services as a corporate trainer.
I landed a training contract on the 8th day and the crisis was staved.
Determined to prove that you can run a business with nothing but a free email address and a cellphone, I successfully ran the training firm with no overhead whatsoever, for 3 years, until Ushtara started making money.
This is my advice: Offer whatever you can do RIGHT NOW. With whatever you have. With whatever you know.
YOU WANT TO BE IN BUSINESS BECAUSE WANT THE FREEDOM AND GLORY
If you look at the Fortune 500 list of the biggest companies in the world, you will see an inordinate representation of Finance, Petroleum, Retail and Automotive companies.
Broadly speaking two kinds of companies are indefinitely scalable;
a) Companies that offer the one thing that every body needs (Think Petroleum, Electricity, Operating systems for PCs, Cell phone services, Search Engines, Social Networks)
b) Companies that offer anything that you could possibly want (Think Walmart, Aldi, Carrefour)
Now you could aim at being the next Google or Facebook or Shell. But the odds of success are almost non-existent. Look at this list of search engines:
http://www.thesearchenginelist.com/
How many of these do you use? (Hint: one)
You might as well try to be the next Jesus (Statistics show that there has been on average 1 person every 376 years for the last 5000, whom more than a million people believe to be a messenger from God or related to God (s))
Take a look at this company;
http://www.semco.com.br/en/
Now tell me what does Semco do?
Everything or more specifically ANYTHING
The same goes for the Virgin group
(Incidentally, both of these groups have very dynamic leaders (1 and 8 on this list ), but more on that later)
Business is, in itself a specialization, independent of the underlying product or service. Once you have learnt BUSINESS, you can run any business.
Herein lies your best chances of success. Wild, Flamboyant, I wish I were you kind of success.
Till next time
Sunil
Continue to the next chapter
This post first appeared on Phoolosopher: So You Want To Start A Business, please read the originial post: here
