Three tips to get your start-up on track

Being a successful entrepreneur is not easy. There are a lot of parts to the puzzle, from the drive to make it work, to the idea that sets you apart, to the ability to understand the market and then the skills to deliver on the dream from an operational perspective. Naturally, the most successful entrepreneur is all world famous – the founders of businesses that have gone on to dominate the world are all household names, while the people who run mega-corporations, decades after they were founded, are merely names on the financial pages, not answers to trivial pursuit questions. But how do you go about making it all happen? Here are a few hacks to help you on your way.

Presentation is everything
Inventing or patenting something is not easy and not everybody has the skills or ability to go that route. A more realistic option is to import a product or to act as an agent for something in a territory where it is not available. To this end identifying the product is key, as is doing the market research to make sure that there is a demand for it. With that done you need to make sure that your product is presented in such a way that it attractive to buyers. For instance, if you are going to wholesale a child’s product, speak to a company that specializes in toy packaging design. In other words, it is not just about the toy that you import, but about the way, it is presented and how you add value to the product locally that will help determine its success.

Don’t make assumptions

It is very easy to assume that because you like it that a product will be popular. This is not the way to do market research. You need to get out there and determine the need. Look at international trends and what has worked in other areas and think about the sustainability of what it is that you are hoping to sell. Back in the 1980’s when the Rubik’s Cube craze first broke out it would have been safe to assume that it was a craze that was going to sweep the world. So, if you saw that the cube was all the rage in America and England and it hadn’t yet arrived where you were, it was going to be a good idea to import and see it. But from a sustainability perspective, it was also clear that it was a craze and that it was going to pass. It was never going to be a product that you could bank on bringing in the cash for the decades to come.

Commit completely

If you want to be a successful entrepreneur, you must know that it is about going all in. Nobody makes it big in their spare time. To be properly successful and to give your venture every chance of succeeding you can hold nothing back. It is dangerous and scary because giving it everything that you have is absolutely no guarantee for success – but having said that, failing to go all is almost certainly a recipe for failure. So be brave and make it happen!