5 'Not-to-do' Things While Starting A Business

You tell your friend, colleague or a boss that you want to start a business, and soon enough, you will be shot with hundreds of bullets called 'free advises' - 'hey, do this, do that'. The point is people, when they take a decision of doing something or pursuing something, run behind the 'How' of doing that. All they want to know (and google about) is 'what to do to be ... '. No one really cares much, at least in the first phase, about what 'not to do', to be a successful entrepreneur. I personally believe that it is important to know about both the sides of a coin before you can actually decide whether you want a head or a tail. So here are my personal 5 favorite 'not-to-do' things while starting a business, which I learnt after doing a lot of mistakes in my two years of entrepreneurial journey so far.

5 'Not-to-do' Things While Starting A Business:

1.   Don't count numbers, count people. You know the first thing people do when they think about starting a new business? They write numbers - numbers that they believe are true. They try to find the cost, the revenue and the profit month-by-month, or sometimes even on a daily basis. But they forget the most important factor which contribute to these numbers – the people. Budding entrepreneurs should not worry about how to bring in the first penny of profit, but rather – ‘how to bring the first customer’ should be the question to be answered.

2.   Don't make business models, make happiness models. The second common thing among all the start-ups is, once they dream about a particular number they want to achieve, they starting building business models about how to reach that figure in the minimum possible time. This isn’t really a bad thing to do. But what I have learnt from my experience is, a business plan shouldn’t revolve around making money but rather making people happy. After all, if people are happy, so are your pockets.

3.   Don't waste your time on idea; utilize it on the execution. Hey. Do you really think ‘Facebook’ was a brilliant idea, and the first one in its domain? Companies like MySpace and Orkut already existed when Facebook was born. Social media wasn’t the idea of the century, until the way Facebook executed it, made it one. Always remember - ideas can pop up every now and then. Some might seem to be unique, some might actually be unique. What really matters is – how do you execute it.

4.   Don't compete with your competitors; they aren't important, your customers are. Another mistake! You sell a product X and a company two blocks away sells the same too. Now what you worry about is how do I compete with the other company? DON’T!! Your competitors aren’t important; your customers are. What most people do is try to analyse and understand their competitors’ strategy or business plan and then build something which is good enough to compete with them. Don’t change your focus. Your focus are your customers, not your competitors. Be the Arjuna of Mahabharata.

5.   Don't, just don't give up. Although kept as a last point, this is the most important one. Starting a business is not easy. At some point or the other – your business models are going to fail, customers are going to complain, you are going to miss an opportunity, and lot many more unexpected things. I sometimes wonder the spelling of entrepreneur contains 3Rs just to let you know how much ‘Risk’ you have taken. But hey – it contains 4Es as well, just to tell you that if you have ‘Endurance’, one day (and soon), you are going to be successful. All you need to do is – Don’t (just never) give up.

To learn more about the such things, you might want to watch this video.

Happy Entrepreneur-ING!!