Are you the one who always thinks about solving a problem? Great! You are on the right page.

What is entrepreneurship?

In commercial terms, it is an activity of starting a business and having financial risks in the hope of making profits. However, in anthropological terms, it’s a medium of easing people’s lives through innovation.

How to become an entrepreneur

Starting a company or a business isn’t a hard nut to crack if your vision is clear. For instance, you are unable to have a group discussion with your friends about studies or other activities because your parents don’t allow you to use a mobile. That problem can give you a kick for developing a platform where you and your friends can talk to each other, share pictures, and remain connected with each other even without having a mobile. That’s how Facebook was invented. 

Here is the crux – To become an entrepreneur, all you need is an idea and a vision to nourish it. 

Now, as you would be motivated enough to begin, let’s delve into the step-by-step process of entrepreneurship:

Idea  generation

An idea is a seed to flourish any business, as we discussed above. You can’t run a business successfully if you don’t find the need to have it. It’s not like that an idea is only required to start something fresh; you can also do innovation in the established ecosystem if you find a gap. For example, your father has a textile business, and you are interested in running it further, but you have observed that there are loopholes in its supply chain management because of a middle man. Here, what you need to do is find a solution that will be your idea towards procreation. 

An idea can be your hobby (art, writing),  a product discovery based on consumer needs and wants, a social movement (climate change, peace, NGO) or a market report generating company based on the available scattered data.

Identify opportunities from ideas

An opportunity is a product (dietary foods) or service (yoga, dance) with a market that is ready to pay. An idea is successful only if there is an opportunity. Thus, here are the  questions through which you can test the feasibility of your discovery:

• Does it solve the problem?
• Does it satisfy the needs of people?
• Does it add value to the buyer?
• Will your customers be willing to pay for it?

Conduct well-planned market research by asking these questions to acquaintances, professionals, and closed circle on whom you trust or who can be your clients or customers in the future. You can also conduct surveys on random samples ( people whom you don’t know, but they can be your prospective customers).

Here is the crux – even if your idea is powerful, it may not be successful if the consumer doesn’t need or want it. On the contrary, sometimes you may have to create the need. For instance, who knew that bloggers passionate about taking unique shots would use drones, or drone photography would become a trend in weddings?

Evaluation

Along with identifying the opportunities in your idea, it’s crucial to determine the risks as well. Well, the best way to evaluate your business idea and growth plan is the SWOT analysis. Write down your strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities. Let’s comprehend it with the help of an example of IKEA. Why did Ikea plan to open its store in India when already there are so many Indian furniture brands in the market? Here are how they analyzed the Indian market:

Strengths: It is the first foreign brand in India to open its furniture store.

The customers can assemble their products independently, which reduces the carpenter cost.

It uses renewable materials in manufacturing products and maintains good relations with its suppliers.

Weaknesses: Providing good quality at minimal cost

Opportunities: Cost-conscious customers

Threats: Whenever a new government comes, there can be a change in taxes and regulations for a foreign company.

With the advent of the internet, people are ordering online.

Hence, Ikea opened an online store. In the physical store, Ikea kept the cost affordable to high so that it doesn’t tag as a luxurious brand. Along with that, Ikea has restaurants and cafes in its store, just like malls, which is another source of income for it.

Prepare a business plan

Develop a detailed proposal mentioning your objectives, vision, mission statement, resources to raise funds (loans, investors, family), short-term goals, long-term goals, and road map for execution.

Start the business

Choose a location and get your company incorporated as Private Limited. You can register it at your home address as well. If you don’t want to run for every single task, then take assistance from companies, which can help you in launching your startup. One of them is Cleartax. It offers numerous services (legal, taxation, GST registration, compliance, documentation) in one package. It can advise you on how to get tax and other exemptions under the Startup India Initiative Scheme.

• Think about your website name and register a domain (.com or .org).
• Select the logo.
• Be ready to wear different hats as you may have to perform different roles until you have a deficiency of resources such as administration, accounts, marketing, etc.

Accept the results

A business is nothing without risk, so never afraid about the results. If you think of risk first, you will never be able to begin. Whether your startup becomes successful or not, keep your spirit high thinking this way – it’s better to do it than to regret not doing it.

Bottom line

Be motivated and comfortable while going through rough phases of the entrepreneurship journey.  Your determination and focus is the key to success. Happy Startup Journey!

Process of Entrepreneurship

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