Entrepreneur at 18!

I want to be an Entrepreneur! Sounds cool, doesn’t it? Better said than done they say. So how does one plan to become an entrepreneur? Rather how can one be an entrepreneur? There are many definitions people give for this term. On one extreme entrepreneur is a person of very high aptitude who pioneers change, possessing characteristics found in very small fraction of population. On the other extreme of definitions, anyone who wants to work for himself/herself is considered to be an entrepreneur.

I think it is very individualistic. To some people their normal routine is not enough, no matter what age they are or what place they live in. There was one such boy who lived in the city of Hyderabad, also known as the city of The Nawabs in India. It was summer and vacation was on. Usually, its a time to relax, go on a holiday or chill out with friends for most people in college. But well, this guy was a little different. He was looking for something more productive and challenging to do. He wanted to earn, but no one was gonna give him a job at 18. If you are wondering why he didn’t want to work for an MNC as a sales executive? (that’s what all the call center employees are called there), he wasn’t interested. He wanted to start a business, but as per his idea then, starting a business required money(investment) which he didn’t have neither did he know what business he wanted to do. Tough times they were. His mind never rested. Then one day, while he was walking on an empty street of the area he lived in, he saw many cars parked, covered with dust. He said to himself, “why do people keep cars if they don’t know how to maintain them?”

This one question was the solution to his restless mind! He got an idea for a business without any investment. It was not only an idea but also the breaking of a lifelong mindset that a business requires investment to start.

There are three major steps for a person to become a successful entrepreneur.( This is my personal experience and not to do with anyone’s theory)

1. Occuring of an idea (doesn’t have to be anything unique).

2. Research on everything related to it.

3. Following up without giving up.

Ideas don’t just come when u sit and think, they really don’t. Why? Because you are not looking around. You need to be aware of whats going on to get ideas. It can happen anytime, anywhere, probably even when you are in the rest room! So yeah, I was constantly on a look out, for an idea that could help me not be restless and do something worth while.

Now after getting the idea, I was confused like any other young boy without any experience would be. Where do I get started? How do I know its not something someone is doing already? What do I do to get to these people and convince them that i will help them keep their cars clean and ready to go everyday? How do I even get people to know about my idea?

Questions swarmed like bees towards me, stinging and irritating. I had to be calm and relaxed in order for me to get started. Then I read up a few books on entrepreneurship and how to get started with a business written by great entrepreneurs themselves. They didn’t help me much on the technical aspects but definitely motivated me to go ahead and take the plunge.

Whatever you want to do u need to have a plan. So I made a plan. It can be divided into a few categories:

~ Getting started

~ A SWOT analysis

~ Investment( negligible)

~ Marketing strategy( building the brand)

~ Management (man power, budget, work schedule etc.)

Getting started was the biggest achievement of all. What ever you want to do getting started is a point where you are the most confused and lost. First i procrastinated,  then I just sat and day dreamed about what I would do with all the money I would earn from the business, then finally I realized I needed to work on it. This took me to the next step of doing a SWOT analysis.

A SWOT analysis always helps before taking up a new challenge. Its helps you know what resources you have, and what you don’t. What are the opportunities u can look out for and if there are any competitors or external factors threatening your idea. It was really enlightening as I realized I had more strengths than weaknesses, like negligible investment, unique nature of the business, lots of potential clients, and ability to expand in the long term.

Now how did I spread the word? There are some common marketing strategies I thought of which would be both rewarding and cost effective at the same time. First was meeting the local news paper supplier and making sure our brochures went to every house in my locality with every newspaper. It was effective as my plan was to start with the area I lived in. Then I thought of other ways which were even more rewarding and cost effective. I was lucky to be using internet a lot during those days as well. So I just put up status on my Orkut and Facebook profile, sent people messages, and also put up a logo of my company as a profile picture. This made my friends curious and slowly the word spread. Unfortunately I was not too much into online publishing or video making then and Twitter didn’t exist either, or it would be a mind blowing start..:). better known now as Internet marketing or social media marketing, many more things can be done on the internet today to make your business grow and gain more customers. There are tools to manage your company’s brand online.

I then started getting calls and went to peoples houses to explain the concept of my business as I had planned and they were very impressed, first by the business plan and second by the fact that all this was being explained to them by an 18 year old, very professionally. I remember wearing a tie and formals for the first time in my life and feeling like a gentleman. So, it took a bit of convincing but I did it and then i took a friends help in managing man power. I needed a few people to do the job and had to train them on how to do it. Always remember first impression is the best impression. It can make or break the company. So I made sure everything went as expected by the customers.

Impressing my first few customers is all I had to do to let my business expand. They did the rest of the marketing for me. It just spread by word of mouth. By the end of ten months, whatever investment I had I got 50% return and things started flowing smooth.

Since there was not much challenge anymore, I started becoming restless again. I wanted something more. So then I started thinking about expansion on a large scale.

Well I will end it there. All I wanted to say via this blog is that, entrepreneur is one who has a restless mind to do something more than usual. There are different kinds of entrepreneurship. You can be a business or a social entrepreneur. Most people start off but stop due to the difficulties they face or fierce competition. Trust me guys your idea need not be unique but the way you manage to present it or market it needs to be unique. I will talk about building a brand in another post, for its a vast area in itself.

No one thought of using internet as a medium for marketing their business four years ago. Today, every individual is trying to learn more about social media marketing and web 2.0 and 3.0 . Its one of the most important mediums for businesses to present their brand. As someone rightly said, “You don’t need to do different things, just do things differently.”

Thats entrepreneurship to me.

Cheers!