Need A Startup: Interesting Facts About Starting A Business
Starting a business is probably the most tasking thing you will ever do. It is interesting but it will ask a lot of questions about who you are and what you can achieve. It is indeed a test and a big training ground. There are certain facts about starting a business which you must know as a matter of necessity.
When you start your first business, it may likely be your last or just your first depending on how you interpret occurrences about the business when they start happening. It will more likely turn out to be a failure than a success but either way, it should be a win for you if you understand.
Related: Everything you need to know about starting a business in Nigeria
When you look at businesses from the outside, it may seem rosy but that could be deceptive. You will need to understand that at some points, those people felt like quitting but they didn’t and that is why you could hear about them today.
Forget the niceties you see, they have their ups and downs. We are telling you this not to discourage you from becoming an entrepreneur. That is really far from the rationale. This is to prepare you for what you will likely encounter when you go into a startup.
Here, we will look at interesting facts about starting a business. Some of the things we will say here will actually make you have a rethink. If you chicken out, then maybe you were never meant to be an entrepreneur.
Facts About Starting a Business
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Your business may fail the first time
While this is no news to many people, certain people have to understand that it is not always going to be rosy. You will fail at certain points even if you don’t fail immediately. The stat for business failure is damning. Out of every 10 businesses started, 9 of them fail completely in 5years. This is really something.
What you will need to arm yourself with is the ability to take any failure as a chance to improve on the next one and the next one until you are there. Think of Thomas Edison who performed 1000 failed experiments in the process of finding the electric bulb. The 1001st experiment was the electric bulb. When your business fails, examine why it failed and start a better one.
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You can’t do it alone
Currently, I am the CEO of entrepreneur Nigeria. What you may not know is that I didn’t particularly start the blog. It was started by GT Igwe Chrisent and I was drafted in before the launch. Why would he do that? he understands the facts about starting a business.
You see, he knows that he cannot do it alone and expect a high level of success. Currently, Entrepreneur Nigeria is a brand and there are so many hands working on it.
No huge business ever survived on just having the founder doing all the work. Every founder must understand the power of delegation if you intend to go far.
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You will never get a perfect business partner
One variable that is important to the survival and success of any business startup is the availability of the right partner. Did you hear me? Right partner is what you need and not a perfect partner. The right partner can be gotten and in fact, should be sought after but the idea of a perfect partner is an illusion.
With the right partner, your weaknesses will be complemented and you will have to complement his weaknesses. With the perfect partner, there are just no weaknesses and that does not exist.
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Nothing is guaranteed
Business can be quite volatile that nothing is guaranteed. Things that were fashionable yesterday may not be fashionable today. you cannot even guarantee that you will make huge profits. Ever wondered why entrepreneurs are called risk takers? It all boils down to this particular point.
The research you carry out before you start a business gives you an idea of what to expect and what not to expect. It could help bring profits but it is not given.
You will need to get certain things right and hope that the carpet is not pulled from under your feet by factors beyond your control.
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Find solutions and don’t keep complaining
Entrepreneurs are successful because they don’t just sit their ass at a place and complain. They move on to find solutions when the going gets tough. They understand that it is in their hands to try to turn the tide. One of the facts about starting a business is that there are just a few people who care whether you succeed or fail.
Therefore, go out there and get solutions and don’t keep grumbling as that will do you no good.
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The most important person in your business is not you
I thought I saw you open your mouth in shock. Don’t be. You may be the business owner or founder but you are not the most important person in the business. From a technical perspective, you depend on two or more sets of people to survive in the business.
You need the customers because, without them, there won’t be any business for you to run. You need your employees to be happy and dedicated if you will move to the next level.
Also, you will need investors if you will find money to expand your business or even start the business.
These people are more important to the survival of your business than yourself. Pay more attention to them.
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Without sales, you have nothing
When you don’t make sales in your business, then there is no business. It is likened to blood in the human system. When there is no blood in your system, you will die. The blood that flows in your business that keeps it alive is the sales and when there are no sales, the cash flow will dry up and the business goes into comatose and dies eventually.
Therefore, you must prioritize your marketing and sales team so that they will be hyper-functional.
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Place emphasis on value
No matter how formidable your marketing team is, they can only make some sales when the product is not of value. Sometimes, it is not usually about how cheap a product is. People want things that will last and how will they get that when you don’t have products of value.
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You won’t always be happy
Entrepreneurs are arguably the most depressed people in the world. When you start a business, therefore, you should not expect to be happy every time. That will never happen.
There will be moments when you will encounter great losses and everything will seem to be going back to zero but you have to man up and continue to push forward.
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You must learn to listen
One of the facts about starting a business is that listening or paying attention is a virtue. You will come across complaints from your employees, your investors and most importantly, from your customers. You will learn how to handle them and you will need to listen to whatever complaints they are laying and handle them accordingly.
Customer service is very important to your business and listening to your customers is one of the ways to handle them.
You will also need to listen to people who have walked the path before you and you will learn one or two things.
