We at StartupDope often ask a lot of business ventures, new and old, one question – What has been the biggest challenge for you? We ask this because we are very interested in understanding the problems that are commonly faced by business ventures. When the business firms get back to us stating the challenges (often more than one in number) that they face everyday, interestingly, they also tell us how they could overcome some of those challenges. This motivated us to come up with this article, so that we educate our readers and aspiring or budding entrepreneurs on the common business problems that the businessmen have to deal with everyday and on how people have been able to tackle them. In this article, we list out 5 suggestions to tackle some of the common business problems.
1. Understand the Market well
You might have a brilliant idea, but what if the market isn’t ready for it? A lot of business ventures fail to rightly estimate their market size . They either underestimate or overestimate it. Having a realistic projection of your target audience is very important. If one understands his venture’s market at a very early stage, it gives him or her an idea on the right time to launch a product. Also, the market might currently be ready for product A but not for product B even though you think product A is great. As your business grows, paying attention to feedbacks, both positive and negative from the market and staying updated with the costumer’s mood is essential. The costumer’s mood might change very frequently and you need to be aware of it.
2. Invest smartly
A common hurdle for businesses, especially startups, is getting sufficiently funded. One important advice that startups need to keep in mind is to invest smartly. Although you might have been lucky to have got the initial funds easily, money is never sufficiently enough to be spent lavishly if you want to sustain and grow your business. Your customers might not pay you on time and some of them might all of a sudden leave you. Worse, you might not be able to afford to cut costs. As they say, “prevention is better than cure”. One should resist the temptation to overspend although it might seem to generate huge profits instantly.
3. Have a good business model ready to start with
Don’t rush! Having a detailed business model beforehand is sometimes underrated, while in fact, having a concrete business model ready before you begin helps you tackle various business issues at a very early stage. A lot of entrepreneurs fail to spend time and energy on developing a business model during the initial stages, only to realize later that their model was flawed. While it isn’t easy to foresee everything at an early stage, some of the problems can definitely be foreseen if you brainstorm on the right business model to begin with. Getting feedbacks from experts and potential customers during the development of business model could be very helpful.
4. Put users first
The companies that have been highly successful are the ones that put users first. Google, for example, created search engine first, got millions of users and then worried about making money from it. Amazon re-invests the money it makes in creating more fulfilment centers, so that they not only get new users, but also enhance user-experience. Creating users is harder than making money, but it’s worth it. Once you create a product that a large number of users want and keep growing the user-base, money will eventually follow.
5. Have the right motivation
When you start your business, you might have asked yourself – What is the product going to be about? Who are my target users? How do I monetize?. These are all valid questions, but it’s also important to ask – Why am I doing this? Businesses are not without risks and you shouldn’t take those risks for wrong reasons. When you are running your business and you want to succeed, you need to be highly committed. You need to work harder than you did when you were working for someone else. Therefore, starting a business just because you were bored or because you hated your boss, might not take you very far. It is important to have the right motivation. The motivation could be as straightforward as making a lot of money or reaching millions of users, of course, by taking take care of ethical issues as well.
While we have picked only 5, there could be many more important suggestions that are worth considering . An advice for budding businessmen is to keep reading about the commonly faced problems and how various successful businessmen have tackled those problems to succeed in their ventures.
