Category: Blog

1. Not Knowing What Business to Start

Often, people say that they wish they could start a business but are confused about what exactly to do. Are you one of those?

Remedy: Assess your skills and the unmet needs in your community to identify a potentially profitable venture. Find a mentor in your chosen area to guide you get your startup off the ground. A mentor will give you relevant information and help you avoid many mistakes.

2. Fear of Running Out of Capital

Indeed, without adequate capital, your business stands the risk of not being able to survive, especially at the initial stages when most businesses are usually unable to make enough income to cover operating expenses.

Remedy: Use your business plan and model to secure support (loan, free zone, tax holiday, etc.) from the government or seek investment from venture capital funds. Also, you could partner with like-minded people or ask family and friends for support. You can start small in case these options don’t work. Use the resources available to start on a small scale and expand it gradually as your capital increases.

3. Fear of Not Attracting Customers

Yes, part of the startup challenges you will experience is difficulty in attracting customers, especially in a highly competitive market.

Remedy: First, ensure your product/service solves a widespread or latent need. Next, differentiate your product and develop an appealing value proposition. Additionally, devote adequate resources to make the product/service visible, and develop good relationships with your customers.

4. Fear of Failure

True, the risk of failure is very common in business due to unforeseen obstacles, but so it is with every aspect of life.

Remedy: Be optimistic, what if you succeed? Don’t let the fear of failure stop you. Research and plan well. For starters, you can minimise the possible impact of failure by starting small, so that you can learn and expand as time goes on.

I have consistently encouraged people to consider entrepreneurship, but I am always quick to add that ideas and passion are not enough to make you a successful entrepreneur.

It is critical that you undertake a holistic assessment of your readiness to exploit a given opportunity or become an entrepreneur before you proceed to start a venture.

Consider your skills, motivation, and personal background. Particularly, identify whether you are confident with basic financial concepts. You need to be at least comfortable with figures to make a good entrepreneur.

Familiarize yourself with basic accounting and economics concepts like financial statements and breakeven analysis to enable you to exude the confidence necessary to attract serious investors.

Note, I am not saying one needs a business or economics degree to start or run a business. You may argue that people learn on the job, but it is helpful to start right. Becoming a super-successful entrepreneur requires adequate preparation.

As an entrepreneur or self-employed professional, you are the face of your business, and accordingly, you need good people skills to inspire public confidence and trust in you.

Your ability to create a meaningful connection with people will influence their willingness to give you feedback to improve your business idea or recommend your service to potential customers. Also, you need good people skills to make a good first impression on potential employees and customers, and to earn the trust of investors, bankers, friends, and family to fund your business.

However, note that people skills is not all about what you can gain from people, but it is more so about building a good personal brand and touching the lives of people around you. Therefore, be courteous, humble, and empathetic, accept feedback, smile, serve others, project an air of confident optimism, and be quick to make friends.

Did you know that you could capture and develop customers for your new product even before you launch it in the market? Yes, it is possible, and you should yearn for that.

To achieve that you need to identify and engage your potential customers. Give them samples of your product and ask for their honest feedback.

Feedback is more important than secrecy because constant feedback will enable you to improve your product to meet your customers’ expectations. To a large extent, most of the people you engage for feedback will become your loyal customers, and more so, they will recommend it to others.

So, the days when you would keep a product in development a secret, with the fear that competitors would steal your idea are gone past.

Nonetheless, be careful not to give out essential details about your product.