Be Your Own Boss

IN THE LAND OF THE JUGAAD, STARTING A NEW ENTERPRISE SHOULD BE A NO-BRAINER. HERE’S ALL THAT YOU WOULD NEED TO MAKE THE CUT
You’re the individual who regularly turns to Warren Buffet for investment tips, the kind who regards Steve Jobs as the innovation guru. More often than not, you find yourself surfing through the portals of Wall Street Journal. Think you have it in you to start your own business someday? Get set to slog hard and before you get going, do a checklist of the following:

WHAT’S THE IDEA?

Before setting up your own shop, you need to have the recipe for a successful product. A great idea, the next big thing is what you should keep in mind. Is your idea better than the rest? Is it the need of the target market? More importantly, will it click?
You need to identify a given situation, thrust yourself in and make the most of it. Your idea will be the starting point of your enterprise and it’s from there that you’ll carry it forward.
Case study: Introducing the iPad in the post-recession world was thought to be suicidal. But Steve Jobs knew what he was doing and the rest, as they say, is history.

HIT THE MARKET PLACE

Staying at home and idealizing about your to-be-launched enterprise won’t do. You need to get out and get in touch with your target market. Their needs, their mentality and their feedback are the most essential part of your enterprise. Keeping them involved ensures brand loyalty as well.
Case study: Before launching DNA in 2005, its management did a round of surveys with consumers and also took their feedback. The final newspaper was made with the consumer’s feedback which helped in popularising the brand.

CAPITALISE!

No, we’re not referring to the muchneeded wad of green notes here; we’ll come to that later. Once you have an idea of your enterprise in place and the analysis of the target market, you need to scout for the opportunities you can get. Let’s say, there’s a big company ‘A’ which is ruling over the market. You find that you’re in a position to offer a better product at a lower price to the market. With a proper ad campaign and low prices, you’ll be able to grab much of the share of that company. Big companies have their drawbacks and it’s in these areas in which you need to capitalize.
Case study:Nokia, once the giant of the phone industry was ailing big time in 2010. It had an excess of staff, it was struggling to arrive at the right product and the right decisions. It’s here that its competitors capitalised.

MONEY MATTERS!

Goes without saying that without Vitamin ‘M’, your business would be a no starter. Here’s the tricky part and it is here that most entrepreneurs fumble. You don’t need to have a truckload of money with you; you just need the ability tosell your idea to someone. You can always pool money from your family and friends, you can arrange for a loan. All this requires an element of risk and as an entrepreneur; you’ll be constantly doing that: taking calculated risks.
Case study: At the age of 25, Warren Buffet contributed $100 from his side; the other contributions came from his family and friends. Nine years later, he had turned that $1,05,000 into $26 million.

GETTING THE RIGHT PEOPLE

You simply cannot run a business on your own; you need a hard-working and enterprising staff for that. Here you have an advantage up your sleeve already. You rarely hear anyone saying that they’re happy working for some big company. Such talented individuals are the ones you need to get on board while starting out. You’ll need all the help you can get from these people.
Case study: The collective efforts of Narayana Murthy, Nandan Nilekani, N.S. Raghavan, S. Gopalakrishnan, S.D. Shibulal, K. Dinesh and Ashok Arora led to the creation of Infosys which is considered one of the best managed companies in the world.

MARKETING

How you position your product, how your brand stands up to your competition will be vital when the consumer makes his choice. It’s not enough to have a great product; you need to market it right for people to get that.
Case study: Lisa was an Apple computer that wasn’t marketed right and needless to say, ended up as one of the company’s biggest failures.