Answers I wish I knew 5 years back

Some years back, I had some unanswered questions about starting a business and establishing it. At that time I didn’t have anyone to answer my questions. Here, I try to answer some of the common questions that arose to me and certainly would be arising in almost every starter’s mind.

1. What is branding?

Ans: Brand is not your logo, not you poster instead the impression you have left on your audience or your customers. You can’t control what people think about your brand rather you can control how you present your brand to them, how you present you service, your product to them. All in all brand is how people or you customers feel about your product and service.

2. How can I monetize my interest into a Business?

Ans: Most of the individuals, I see these days start something that matches their passion. And this is something that exactly works. As for me, I love photography and that was something I enjoyed doing and I started building authority around it. I started teaching photography, writing blogs, started to clear queries people had about photography, taking private classes to which I started getting paid. Its been almost 7 years but those days just seems like yesterday and today i run a social media marketing company that employs 15 plus people and most of my business revolves around photography and its derivatives . So, we should start to make plans that incorporate our passion and makes us work over something we love.

3. Is establishing multiple brands more of a fun or struggle?

Ans:  If you are loving your work and doing it for your dreams, it would rather be fun than struggle. We have to keep one thing in mind; no matter what we do we are going to struggle and only if you have a minor goal, struggle might not be your thing. However, we should realize one thing struggle is obvious all that we can do is make struggle fun by enjoying every bit of our work.

4. What are the major obstacles that we can face when starting a business?

Ans: I would like to share my personal experience , before my bachelors when I used to click pictures, post it, work on photography, no one ever said anything. But after finishing my bachelors, I was told to join bank or some corporate office, find some kind of job and not take photography as my career. And now years later, everything of my business is about photography and its derivatives. I understand, Nepal is not yet so developed that you can find a widespread career in photography. But things change if you know what exactly your obstacles are because one thing or the other is always there. But if you choose to take control o f your life your way, it won’t end up being a blame game and after even if you fail at some point, you will take responsibility of it and will again get equally dedicated and determined to reach that thing. 

5. Is finance a hindrance?

Ans: If it was 10 years ago that you asked me this I would have said yes, because at that time, we had nothing to promote and build brand and we needed investment to make our brand reach to people. Now, we have social media- the greatest promoter of anything and everything. The biggest platform in the world, facebook, youtube, instagram, Linkedin, Medium are all free. So at his point, I don’t think investment has to be much of a problem, you don’t need investment to build a brand but to scale it and grow it.

6. What’s the most reliable/relevant place for finance?

Ans: The best thing would be if our family supports our business or our startups. Your family, your relatives, your friends, their families, anyone in your own circle would be the best investor and you can very freely rely on them. Now case might be that you don’t have any, you find investors, bank loans etc. but that turns out to be hectic at most of the times. But the best thing you can do if you have none is make money by yourself, earn something by doing anything; any job, doesn’t matter even if you don’t like that, after all it’s for our dream. You commit to something for a certain period of time, you struggle, you make money out of it and once you can fund yourself you quit and give full time to your career.

7. What should be the first thing someone should take in mind before starting something?

Ans: I would tell you this in point.

         The first thing is to love what you are going to do. If you don’t love what you are doing you are going to waste time and money and energy. Invest time into your skills, build your expertise and that’s the biggest and most important thing you have to include in your plan. Times do come when you might fail but that should be your motivation and not lead you to depression or frustration.

         The Second thing is you have to be open minded. This will help you and your idea to evolve as the time passes. You will gradually learn to change the strategy and even might change the whole business model like i changed from a teaching institute to a social media marketing company.

         After you are done with making your brand, make sure you have thoughts of showcasing or promoting it on different and every possible social media platform. You should realize the magic of social media.

8. How do you get google people to work for you ?

Ans: In this world where everybody wants to be their boss, it is quite a thing to make anyone else work for you.  Google was founder by Larry Page and Sergey Brin but hundreds of mastermind still work under it yet as a leader. So its about figuring out a vision and making a vision relatable to your team. People who work for you has to feel secure with their career and also should be able to relate their dreams with your dreams. As a leader its your responsibility to dream a common dreams. To find a path that will accommodate your teams as well. You have to find the sheep and the Shepard in a team and then give that Shepard an authority. Listen my podcast on sheep and sheparp

One other way is to find a superstar of your team and may be you could start a new project making him/her co-founder and initiating the project under his/her responsibility.

9. How important is a cofounder?

Ans: A Co-founder is important. Having someone beside you from the starting is strength. Rather finding someone who would not match with your strength but could fill a gap where you lack could be an amazing way to get the perfect co-founder. Because where you feel weak there should be him/her completing the blank. Having said this, getting a supportive cofounder is a work to do, because one wrong person will make a big difference between you and your brand. There are many amazing ideas that has failed because of poor collaboration between founders and there are many weak ideas that has evolved in a master piece because of collaboration between them.

10. So, after everything should we expect success by some time?

Ans: Setting expectation is not a wrong thing. If you don’t set expectation you are not going to work to achieve your goal. But we should be working for our passion primarily , we shouldn’t work for money. Money should rather be a by- product of doing something you love. Money will come but get excited to solve or do something you love.

As for time limit, I don’t think we have any such thing. It all depends on your condition, your country, your community, your investment of time and you. Things might not work well always or in a sudden time. That doesn’t mean you have to go into depression or lead yourself into frustration.

Altogether there is no hard and fast rule, about time limit. Your growth is directly proportional to your investment of time. The more time you invest the faster you will reach. If it takes 8 hours a day for next 5 years to achieve a goal, may be working 16 hours a day can make its 2 and half years just like a basic math.