Being an entrepreneur and starting a business is a dream for many people. There are freedoms and challenges to start and grow a business to be known by many people. Moreover, helped by technological advancements, now more and more small and medium businesses can boom and get big turnover.
Are you one who plans to start your own business? If so, you need to listen to the 8 preparations below so that your business can run successfully.
Have an entrepreneur mentality
Before talking about things that are more technical, the main preparation you need to do when starting a business is to train your mental entrepreneur in yourself. What distinguishes entrepreneurs from ordinary employees? They dare to take risks and calculate their business steps carefully. They are also broad-minded and swift to handle every problem in their business.
Unlike the mentality of being an employee, you must be prepared for the most difficult challenges, namely the absence of a fixed salary or wage that you receive each month. You also have to dare to spend capital money from your own pocket to finance operational and investment costs when starting a business. As an entrepreneur, you are now responsible for ensuring that your business runs smoothly.
Entrepreneurs are actually leaders in the business field. Therefore, you need to have the basic character of a leader. Some of them are assertiveness, expert reading situations, clever adaptability, and can determine the direction of the business goals. For example, when you decide to start a store business, you can read trends that are on the market, train your employees to do the best work, and know the direction of your store’s development in the future.
The idea of starting a business
This is the most crucial first step when starting a business: determining the business idea that you want to realize. There are hundreds of types of businesses out there, ranging from in the fields of arts, services, online shops, distributors, clothing production, raw material suppliers, to tour and travel operators. Which one will you choose?
When you decide to start a business, of course you don’t want to be a mediocre businessman. You certainly want a business that is growing rapidly and is popular with many people. Therefore, when deciding on an idea, try to see the idea from the customer’s side or the buyer. How can you provide added value to the product or service? What makes buyers interested in your products and services? Is it because the price is cheaper? Or the quality is more premium?
In order not to misstep, you might consider the following:
Has your business idea been done before?
If not, try to explore why people have never done it. Is it because of the possibility of small success or because of technology that has not been supported at that time?
If yes, is there still room in the market for your product or service?
For example, you certainly know that the food business is something that never dies because people always need food. But, the number of food entrepreneurs has also been very high, so you have to determine the unique food choices that are liked by many people but not many are provided. Or, you can also make very delicious food using a mainstay recipe. In essence, customers always want something high quality and / or something new and interesting to try.
Do you have knowledge in the business that you want to develop?
As an entrepreneur, of course you need to know about the A-Z process starting from the process of taking raw materials to selling products to customers. Therefore, you must have knowledge in the field of business that you develop. Do not let you “blind direction” and rely on other people’s knowledge or even just from research on the internet.
For example, when you start a meatball stall, you also need to know where to supply beef and tapioca, how to make it, and how to make delicious soup. It doesn’t mean that you have to cook every day, but you can’t succeed if you don’t even understand a bit about your field of business.
With your current capabilities, are you able to run a business idea completely?
In the business world, nothing is certain. So, when you want to decide on a business idea that you will take, make sure that your capability is large enough to execute the idea until it’s finished. Don’t get caught up in the mentality “Later in the middle of the process there will always be help.” This is dangerous because your business can stop halfway if you can’t continue it.
For example, you want to create a restaurant with a capacity of 100 people. However, due to a lack of capital and human resources, eventually the restaurant cannot be served well and its progress is hampered. This is certainly not the right business idea. It’s better to keep targeting something realistic and focus on making the smallest scale successful first, then expanding to a larger scale.
Well, have you considered some of the above? To further strengthen the process of selecting a business idea, you must also conduct effective market research so that it can provide an accurate picture of market tastes and trends. If you have done research and are sure of your choice of business ideas, then you can continue preparation to the next stage.
