Start Small Business

When you start Online Business, I know you want to think big, I know you want to think about conquering the world and changing the whole market.

But if we think of bigger companies like Facebook, for example, Facebook started as a small social network in one university and Harvard, and then it started growing, growing to other colleges.

The thing is, even when building a huge company, you need to start really small Airbnb started with Brian chesky, and his co founders renting out their inflated bed in their San Francisco apartment.

So when you start, you really need to think small, you need to identify a local problem that you have in your community in your life.

And think of ways that you can solve it, yes, it really matters to think about bigger picture because you need to know where you’re going.

But if you only focus on the bigger picture, you won’t be able to figure out the next steps, And this is what I see a lot in first time Entrepreneurs, they’re like, I want to create the next social media, whatever, I want to create this huge booking platform to do this, this and that.

But you don’t have cash, you don’t understand how the industry works, First of all, it’s a lot easier to start with them.

Second, you will get an understanding of what’s happening in the market. And then you will understand how to scale your Business, To reach a broader audience.

 Research Your Market

The next thing that you should do is research your market , And some people get really scared when they type something on Google. And they realize that there are so many competitors, they’re like, Oh, my God, this niche is oversaturated.

I don’t have an opportunity here, The thing is, again, when we started a study abroad Business, there were like hundreds of agencies in our small town.

But we were doing it in a different way, And having a lot of competitors only gave us an understanding that the market exists.

And I want you to look at this in this way, So if you see a lot of competition, see how you’re going to be different.

And having a lot of competition means it’s easy to get into the market,  Because there is a completely different example.

Like if we think of building another mobile network, and we’re looking like, Oh, we have T Mobile, we have at&t, there isn’t a lot of competition, you know, we have Verizon, maybe I should start my own mobile network, this is a completely different market barrier to enter this market is really, really high.

And this is why there aren’t a lot of competitors there, So if your market already has a lot of companies, it just says the demand is there, you need to figure out whether your solution to an existing problem would be different.

And that will be your key advantage, By the way, if you say there are no competitors on my market, I’m starting something very unique, you need to be really careful there.

Because first of all, maybe people don’t even need your product and the problem doesn’t exist. And the problem exists only in your head, that might be a big mistake.

But the second thing, if you are inventing a new market, that’s like the best you can do, But just make sure that the demand is there.

Access Your Risk profile

The next thing I would do is assess your risk profile just like an investing, So what you will be doing in the next few months, you’re going to be investing your cash your money,

you’re going to be investing your time in something that has nine out of 10 chances of failing, but there is a 10% chance that this is going to be something that’s going to change your life, and you will become a great Entrepreneur.

So here I would really sit down and think when do I stop? How much am I willing to invest in this Business until I understand that there is a dead end and nothing is happening?

my two cents on this problem, A lot of Businesses die during the first 12 months, because they are the hardest. And this is when a lot of people give up.

But if you’re survived the first one months is going to be a lot a lot easier, So if you have a job right now, maybe you should start your own Business as a side gig if you don’t have a job.

And if you’re risking your time, if you’re risking your savings, then tell yourself, okay, I’m gonna give it like $2,000. And one year, my time, if it doesn’t work out, then I’m gonna find a job.

So give yourself an understanding when you’re planning to stop and pivot, Because otherwise, you can just keep doing things that don’t work out for you.

What kind of Business You are building.

Then once you’ve researched your competition, once you’ve understood the problem that the market has, you need to figure out what kind of Business you’re actually building.

Because there’s so many types of Businesses you can build Online these days, it could be a store, then you start a store on a platform like Etsy or Shopify or Amazon, then it could be a website where you sell your services.

And there you would use wix.com, Squarespace and other platforms where you can build a website yourself.

Or the third type of Business is when you really decide to build something new on the market, like the platform that we built with my team was coded by our own technical people. So it wasn’t like we took somebody’s website, we created everything from scratch.

But this is the riskiest thing that you can do, because it requires 10s of thousands of dollars of investment, and a lot of working hours from your CTO or your technical people.

And for that type of Business, you would also need to think about the team because if you can’t code yourself, you really need someone on the team part of your co founding team.

To help you with that I’m not really a fan of outsourcing things when you’re building a product in it. Because if you outsource the core thing that you have your product, that might lead to a lot of problems later because it could be overpriced, people would demand more money from you to fix issues.

And you won’t be able to go to another agency because everything is coded from scratch by this company that is demanding more money from you,

if you’re so deciding what kind of Online Business you’re trying to build, My advice here would be start with something that’s really, really simple, because your main goal for the next few months is to start making money.

Because you need to figure out whether people need your product, And something you can build really quickly.

It’s called an MVP, minimum viable product, something that works for an end consumer, that they can order something or they can click and buy something.

And on the back end, there would probably be you managing everything. And for a client, it would seem seamless as if a machine is doing everything.

But this is how it works, At the beginning, the founder is doing everything on the back end.

Figure out marketing Strategy

Now another thing that you should think of before launching your Business is your marketing strategy. It could be Facebook ads, it could be Instagram ads, Google ads, it could be affiliate marketing,

it could be just talking to people in the street, it could be knocking on doors and offering stuff. Maybe not the best idea in 2020.

But still, you need to research what your competitors are doing what is working for them, Maybe there are articles, maybe you just see that your communities flooded by leaflets or whatever.

And I’m not saying that you should stick to only one marketing strategy, you should try a lot of things.

But $100 here put $100 there work with creatives because one creative can work perfectly well another creative would just eat your budget.

So it’s about experimentation, And I wouldn’t really outsource marketing at the beginning because you are the one who needs to understand the customer and you are the one who needs to understand what kind of message you’re sending to your customer for them to buy your product.

Hire a Personal Assistant

 Once you launch the Business you need to hire a personal assistant, I think this should be the first hire for any Entrepreneur because This way, you can delegate a lot of different things instead of just hiring,

for example, a marketing manager This way, you will only be able to delegate marketing. Once you hire personal assistant, you can delegate shipping, you can delegate dealing with the documents,

you can delegate some financials, customer support, etc. So this should be your number one hire person who would help you with multiple tests.

And once you started, it’s all about trying different things constantly iterating trying different marketing channels. And I also want you to understand that it’s okay to fail,

because even if you fail, you’ve gone through this whole process, and you now understand how Online Business works.

you started a Business that doesn’t really have a future. And yes, I believe that an amazing Entrepreneur would come up with something that would help this Business grow still.

But if that Entrepreneur put the same amount of effort into a market that’s growing fast, the result would be dramatically different.

So if you feel that your niche is dying, that there is no demand in your product, it’s okay to pivot it’s okay to change the product.

It’s okay to look for something else because our energy is limited, Our time here is limited, and it’s really important to put it into the right place.