1. Stay focused
Entrepreneurs should always define their company’s purpose within the context of its customers. Mission, vision, operations, messaging — everything should be built around the customer. Often in business — especially since digital technologies introduced new agility to industries — we hear the word “pivot”. Reacting to changing markets is certainly tempting when you operate in a competitive space but leaping before you are ready is not prudent. Keeping your focus often means saying “no” more often than you say “yes”. In the era of digital transformation, more and more businesses do not begin life in a factory, mall, or high street; they are born in the cloud and surrounded by opportunities to build out their capacities. But always remember the fundamentals. Any pivoting should align with customer needs, with the value proposition of the change put front and centre. None of this best practice stops you from prototyping and experimenting, but such testing should occur in such a way as to not drain resources from your core areas. If your experiments bear fruit, then they can deliver value in future operations, but your feasibility studies should not be thought of as core operations.
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It’s hard to build a startup. Around 90% fail, usually in the first five years. Even venture-backed startups never earn a return 75% of the time. This presents a dilemma: Do you risk your time and money building a startup from scratch or acquire one with a proven track record?
Failory interviewed founders of over 80 failed startups and found the most common reasons for failing were product-market fit (34%), marketing (22%) and teams (18%). Why spend a fortune and years of your life overcoming these challenges when you could acquire a startup that’s already conquered them? That said, acquiring or building depends on whether you’re a builder or scaler. You might build if that’s what you love and where your expertise lies. However, if you’re a scaler, you should acquire a startup that dovetails with your skill-set and lets you sync and scale with ease.
better outcomes. Understanding this ‘dark side’ of intrapreneurship can also help us to better prepare intrapreneurs for the journey ahead and allow them to get into the right mindset.
Recent research I conducted with intrapreneurs from large corporate organisations showed that there is a dark side to intrapreneurship — moments where mental health can be on the line. The good news is that, once identified, these impacts can be mitigated by addressing three tensions at the heart of being an intrapreneur when constructing your intrapreneurship programme. These are autonomy vs control, emotional investment vs the desire for meaningful work and intrapreneurs vs the ‘corporate immune system’.
Many people use guest authorship as a platform to build their reputation, network with other people, or increase visibility for their businesses. But did you know that guest authorship can also make you a better entrepreneur all around? Here’s how.
2. Prepare for financial challenges
Most of the 600+ small businesses we interviewed in the start-up survey said that cash flow was by far their biggest challenge. Deal with cash flow blows by saving for a month’s worth of expenses or by getting creative with how you lower your overheads. You could offer clients a discount if they pay a deposit or the full amount upfront, or even an incentive – e.g. pay 10% less if you deliver your product or service a week earlier. Whatever you do, be extremely careful of debt – this is one of the biggest killers of small business success.
Whichever business entity you choose, you will want to set up a business bank account, which can help your new enterprise succeed. Here are four ways that a business checking account can help prepare your business for future growth.
Is Covid to blame for business closures or is it helping new startups? The answer is both!27/9/2020
Since 1979, the World Economic Forum has been taking the temperature of long-term economic growth and productivity in its Global Competitiveness Report.
The 2019 edition covers 141 economies, accounting for 99% of the world’s GDP – and finds that, a decade on from the global financial crisis, most economies are still stuck in a cycle of low productivity growth. But those economies that bring everyone along together, investing in reskilling the workforce and boosting infrastructure, will be best able to withstand a global slowdown. As the Forum’s Founder and Executive Chairman Klaus Schwab says: “Those countries that integrate into their economic policies an emphasis on infrastructure, skills, research and development, and support those left behind, are more successful compared to those which focus only on traditional factors of growth.” ![]() The world economy and maybe our species are increasingly at risk. Migrating fish are taking livelihoods with them and fires are burning across the planet, but new discoveries indicate that we can make meaningful changes if we act now. Since the middle of the last century the oceans have absorbed almost 90% of the excess head trapped by greenhouse gas emissions. To beat the heat fish are moving to cooler water and taking livelihoods with them. Read the full story at The New York Times. |
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