By Felix C. Veroya
There are many reasons why people wanting to go to entrepreneurship are having trouble making the first step. Most of the reasons are as follows: lack of capital, lack of experience, biases to failure, poor timing and not having a firm thought on what to pursue. If you are one of the individuals that have the same dilemma, I would recommend you consider applying these tips.
- Figure out a gap you want to address. There are a lot of problems and opportunities that we are experiencing as individuals or as communities, and these are great starting points for a business idea. Whenever I am asked by young entrepreneurs how I arrived at my business ideas, I tell them that these are results of actual pain points that I have experienced. Validating the gap, you have experienced with other individuals and communities through observation, immersion, and other empathy-building tools will solidify your business idea. Validating that you have a gap and understanding it from the lens of who experiences it gives a great advantage moving forward in your entrepreneurial journey.
- Establish goals and start making things happen. The first step is always the hardest one. I can attest to this since even doing a couple of businesses before; I always find it hard to start a new one. Establishing goals on what to achieve in a per phase manner or what is called milestones will help view the goals at a more manageable level. We cannot see results if we will not start doing things about our business idea. Avoid being trapped in the idea that you must perfect your product or service offer before launching it. Cliché as it may sound, continuous improvement is significantly better than delayed perfection.
- Learning to be comfortable with uncomfortable situations. Since being an entrepreneur is a new feeling, you will find it uncomfortable. Being familiar with this feeling will take time, and there will be a lot of uncomfortable situations after you have started your journey. Being in uncomfortable situations like deciding on how to market your product or service, setting price points, establishing partnerships, improving your offer and many more will lead you to become good at doing entrepreneurial things.
- Instill the concept of risk to address the fear of failure. One of the biggest factors that affect the decision to start your entrepreneurial journey is your fear of failing. Risk is the concept that there can be either positive or negative results when doing things. If you do not take the risk of starting your business idea, you will not see whether it will fail or succeed. With risks being assessed and calculated, the potential failure can be mitigated and minimized.
- Exchange ideas with fellow entrepreneurs. In this time where information and lessons learned can be shared digitally, learning can be accelerated. Exchanging stories of success and failures and best practices will accelerate the process of you building your business idea from zero to one.
I hope these tips can help you as you try to make things happen for the next big thing in the market which is the business idea you are thinking of while reading this article.
Let’s continue to be #significantlybetter entrepreneurs, together!
Do you want to talk? Get in touch with me thru fcveroya@asklexph.com.