The old proverb says, “The right time to start your business was 20 years ago. The second best time is now!”
If you have thought about starting your business but are still deciding the right time to start, this blog is for you.
It's natural to be indecisive about your plan to start your business and you must have postponed waiting for the right time. Each time you think about your business, you move one step closer to starting it. But let us first answer the question of ‘the right time.’
There is never a “right time” to start a business.
Shocked? While it is true that there is no such thing as ‘the right time’, there are a few factors that one should consider before jumping into the ocean of entrepreneurship. This is a 3 part series where we will cover what it takes to be an entrepreneur. In this part, we will cover the mental makeup to understand whether you can be an entrepreneur. Here are a few factors to analyze before starting your business.
1. Your motivation to start a business
It's human to need the motivation to perform certain activities, and everyone has their own source of it. While it is true, to earn a lot of money is one of the main motivations for people to start their business, if it is the only one then you may want to rethink your decision to start your business.
Running a business is not as easy as you may think, it is a long and arduous journey with countless highs and lows and if money was the only motivation for you, it ought to vanish as your business faces a downturn, and the cash starts to diminish in your company’s account. In such times it is your vision that will drive you and the team out of it. If you are a person who is more vision-driven than money-driven and has a higher purpose of solving the problems of mankind, you have a high probability of succeeding in your endeavor.
2. Your ability to deal with failures!
“I have not failed 10,000 times—I’ve successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work.” — Thomas Edison
Starting a business, and taking risks go hand-in-hand. With the chances of running a successful business so thin, it is pragmatic to think about failures even before getting our hands dirty. Having said that, failures are inevitable for any business, it all depends on how you deal with them. Failing fast, one of the principles of lean start-up indicates fail-learn-improve and continue this cycle. The first idea is often not the best one, it is the learning from the market and the former ideas that make a product/service a success. One should be able to treat failure as an opportunity to learn and improve the product/service.
You can make yourself a questionnaire/checkpoints or a process to identify a failure. Some of them are given as follows:
> customer not ready to pay the set price
> no product-market fit
> team not performing as expected
> poor financials of the company
The failures experienced by a company should also not always be treated as individual failures. The failure of an idea or its execution might have less to do with the people but needs thorough evaluation for the root cause of the failure.
Don’t be afraid of failures, be ready for them!
3. Your social skills
Having good social skills is one of the most important aspects to be considered before starting your business. Any business at its core is about interaction with people. As a business owner, you would not only have to deal with other businesses but understand your customer. Not having good social skills can limit the opportunities for your business and can prove to be detrimental.
As a founder, you need to conduct a seamless orchestra. You would need to keep the team tightly knit, manage the vendors and the stakeholders, and highlight the vision with potential investors. You would also need to communicate well with your friends and family. And last but the most important, proper communication with your co-founders is a must to run any business smoothly. If you have got your social skills right, it will be easier for you to hit the bull's eye!
Now go back and make a checklist for yourselves based on these points. And if you are checking most of the things then you are good to go with your business without worrying about the “right time” and focusing on stuff that matters.
If you are looking forward to meeting like-minded folks, you are at the right place. Beginest is a cult of entrepreneurs that has one of the founding principles to help new businesses and budding entrepreneurs. We are not only a coworking space in Bangalore but also a community of startups and entrepreneurs. We have built a network of over 200 flourishing startups that have benefited from the provision of our incubation, startup service capabilities, mentor hours, access to funding, and other resources. We have coworking spaces in Indiranagar and Residency Road.
You can contact us to join the cult. See you!
In the coming blog, we will discuss the things to consider to run a successful business, so stay tuned!