Capitalize on Your Strength
When you wish to embark a your own business, it is best to capitalize on your own strength and experience. Try not to explore into uncharted territories without any prior studies as the price to pay is usually very high. You will find yourself in best form when you do the things you are familiar and like. If you don't think if you are a qualify to be a gastronomist, you'd better not be in food business just because you think the money is lucrative.
Be Focused, Be Professional
Companies are usually identified by their respective products or services. When you think of Honda, you think of cars. When you think of HP, you think of computers and IT services. Start your business focused in a certain area so that your customers can identify your company to the services or products they want. Don't be too diversified in your services just because you want more revenue. It not only makes you lose your focus but also customers would not have assurance that you are putting enough attention in the particular field.
When you are focused in your area, you would inevitably become an expert in that area. That is called professionalism. For example, if you set up a business that focuses in repairing computers, you would be the best person for the job and no one can proclaim he is better than you. As such, customers would have faith in you and would respect your expertise in the field.
Look at the Demand Perspective, not just the Supply Perspective
I feel many people who yearn to start their own business tend to make a common mistake in analyzing the risks. For example, a friend of mine wanted to bring in some children's boutique from China and set up shop here. He has no prior experience in this line. He claims to know the direct manufacturer of these clothes and their exclusive customer is in Japan. The supplier has offered to provide at factory price and wants him to open a Singapore market. Clothes designs in Japan usually appeal to Asian market and it seems like a good deal. He decided to fly over to Shanghai to talk further with the supplier. Now, looking at this aspect, there are still many things to study and plan before you should decide to proceed further. The most common negligence people make is they tend to indulge in the supply perspective and never thinks of the demand perspective. In today's real world, it is always easy to buy things but the most difficult to sell things. Try googling for any item you think of buying. Chances is that you will usually find the things you want from many websites. The world is so connected that information is so easily available. If you can find a good price with this manufacturer, why can't another person find this supplier and bring in the same types of clothes to compete with you? Once there was an attendee asking me in a motivation class which I was conducting. She devised some recipe on cooking beef patties which tasted uniquely good. Her friends all agreed with her. She was sure it tasted better than MacDonald's and vowed her business will outbid any MacDonald's outlet. I can't agree more that any burger would taste better than MacDonald's. But I cannot agree that taste alone can outbid a competitor. MacDonald's spends millions of dollars in advertising campaigns in upkeeping its brand name. Branding is a very powerful tool in the business world and people are very much connected with brands. Unless she has a similar budget to that, she should just focus on a different target audience who may appreciate the taste of her burgers.
I had my fair share of mistakes when I first ventured out. I had the skills to do great computer programs and could create smart card programs which only big companies could do during then. Equipped with that alone, I decided to form partnerships with my friends and started a company. We started to realize how hard is to convince customers to use our cards even if we offered whole suite of customisations for them. During then, most of them were connected with more well-known industry suppliers. We paid heavily for our lessons.
So before deciding to bite the bullet, do put more emphasis in studying how to create a market for your product and how to protect and differentiate yourself from competitors. You have to understand how the industry works in the first place before making the plunge.
Identifying a Market Gap
In the world we are living in today, everything seems to be complete. Whatever humans can supply, we have it. Computers, cars, planes, telephones, etc. The world will continue to operate even without the existence of you. So, it appears that there is no room for you to create any business for the world. That is what most people think. If you are the odd one out, and choose to think otherwise, you have the making of an entrepreneur. Identify a market gap is not an easy task. It takes experience and vision to create a demand from a gap in the market.
