What pits should novice entrepreneurs pay most attention to avoid?
This paper shares some "pits" on the road to entrepreneurship for all friends who want to start a business, so that everyone can take fewer detours.
Have you ever encountered these pits?
1, the purpose of starting a business is not pure, blindly following the trend.
What do you do? What do you want to do in the future? Have you thought about it?
Degang Guo said cross talk and told a joke:
A man contracted a project, took a look at the drawings and built a chimney. Then he hired a bunch of people to start building chimneys. As a result, he gets up early every day. It took great effort to finally cover the chimney. When he was ready to ask the developer for money, not only did he not get a penny, but he was also beaten by others. Only after playing did I know that the drawings were read backwards. He was told to dig a well, but he built a chimney. With this IQ, if the law ignored it, it is estimated that it would have been killed long ago.
Of course, this is a joke, but from this joke, we can actually see a truth. If you are going to do something with a wrong starting point, no matter how hard you try, the final result will not be satisfactory. Because the starting point is wrong and the corresponding direction is wrong, the result is definitely not what you want. Whether for starting a business or for living and working, this view is the same.
If you want a good result, you must first learn to reverse the progress process and see if these processes are correct and whether other problems will occur. If there is no problem, then work hard and move towards your goal.
Choose the road that suits you, and think clearly about where to go, different roads and different ways to play. If you are running an IPO, don't think about making a little money to satisfy yourself; On the other hand, if you are just in a profitable business, don't mess around and kill yourself.
Knowing the finish line is the first thing you need to do at the beginning of your business.
2. If the track selection is not suitable, what products are on fire will be done.
This is a common problem of many entrepreneurs. Many people have never done business and don't know what to do. So, from short videos or other people's mouths, hearing and seeing some hot business, caution becomes eager to move. Especially when I see someone else doing something particularly hot, I can't help feeling my inner desire. I feel that this business is simply tailor-made for myself, so I am excited to open a shop or join a project myself, but the result often ends in failure.
Have you ever thought about what track to choose before starting a business?
The final outcome is related to the track, and there are only three criteria for choosing the track:
1, market size
2. Market growth rate
3. Market competition
Undoubtedly, as an entrepreneur, you need to choose a track with large enough scale, high growth rate and high profit rate. But don't ignore the "reverse thinking"-do you still have a chance when everyone feels good?
Many popular businesses that we can see with the naked eye may not be suitable for ourselves. What you see is not necessarily really hot, maybe it's just what the other party deliberately lets you see. Even if others do this project really well, it doesn't mean they can do it well.
Many entrepreneurial projects are initiated based on the needs or pain points of an industry, but the needs are not the product of a whim, let alone the simple pain points of entrepreneurs. The potential users of the project are the core requirements.
The essence of entrepreneurship is to solve the problem that a group of consumers are willing to pay.
Before investing, you might as well do a survey to see if this project is really suitable for the local consumption habits you need to develop, and whether there are target customers before making a decision. Don't look at what projects are hot, just do what projects, and the probability is to send people's heads or be cut off.
3. Entrepreneurial partners are unreliable
For many entrepreneurs, it takes a person from 0 to 1 to create something valuable. At the same time, people need to seize those fleeting opportunities. Relatively speaking, it is more difficult and stressful for a person to start a business. So many entrepreneurs will choose to start a business with others and share the pressure of starting a business.
So how do entrepreneurs choose reliable partners? The criteria for selecting partners are mainly judged from the following points:
1, trust
2, the same values and vision.
3. Complementarity of capabilities
4. Full-time
Generally speaking, partners can find them from old friends, colleagues and classmates, because trust is the lowest management cost. Before deciding on a partner, you must visit his friends and colleagues, get to know each other in many ways, and discard the false and keep the true. Enterprises are at different stages of development and need to choose different partners. The right partner can make you go further; The wrong partner will make you die faster.
However, Kuaichuangtong should also remind us that we should pay attention to these points when starting a business with partners:
1, the interest structure should be clear and definite, and everyone's share proportion should be clear.
2. The benefit distribution structure must be dynamic.
3. Clear hierarchy.
Only by solving these problems can we produce good results.
4. Underestimate the importance of cash flow.
Many new entrepreneurs think that passion and struggle are the most important things in starting a business, and everything else is secondary. This is a completely wrong idea. Remember, the most important thing in starting a business must be cash flow, which is the blood of the company and the lifeline of the enterprise. Do you think you can survive if there is no blood on you?
As an entrepreneur, if you want your company to survive and succeed, you must understand the importance of cash flow.
Many first-time entrepreneurs don't know what dynamic cash flow is and how to manage it reasonably. They take it for granted that a project must "burn money" from the beginning, but they don't know when their money will burn, and they don't know when their money will burn. As a result, they really waited until the financial crisis, only to find that the finish line could not be reached, even if victory was in sight.
As an entrepreneur, we must have a clear analysis and forecast of our cash flow and plan when and how much we should spend. If you need financing, you should know clearly when to start financing, where to finance, and even the financing channels have been found, so as to ensure the steady progress and sustainable development of your career.
5. Selling iron, selling houses, selling cars and gambling to start a business
This is also one of the pits that many entrepreneurs are easy to step on. The last point mentioned the importance of cash flow, so it is easy for many entrepreneurs to take it for granted that starting a business should be selling iron in a pot and sticking to their own business.
There is nothing wrong with this idea of "sticking to the end", but for an ordinary person and a just-started entrepreneur, it is debatable if you have to sell iron to start a business. Now is the era of mobile Internet. There are so many entrepreneurial projects in China, many of which are from asset-light strategy and can be started with little money. Therefore, if you want to sell your house and car at the beginning of your business, it is very likely that the final result will be that the garage is empty.
In the early days of starting a business, if you have spare capacity, you should first make money to survive, instead of blindly investing and always doing unprofitable things. This is an unhealthy adventure.
6. Take the price war to occupy the market
Many entrepreneurs who have just started a business are likely to walk into a dead end when they encounter bottlenecks: "Why can't my products be sold?" "Why don't you come to my store to buy things?" Forget it, let's discount or reduce the price. It's cheaper than others, so customers should come to my store or buy my things. ...
Remember, don't think like this. When there is a problem, we should seriously study the essence of the problem and then find a way to solve it, instead of blindly opening the market by reducing prices.
Taking a low-price price war is undoubtedly "grabbing others' orders and cutting your own path". If we only look at the immediate interests and get customers and orders through low prices or discounts, it is actually hurting the whole industry. It is very likely that everyone will have no food in the end, but this is the second.
More dangerously, what should I do if my peers cut prices even more after I cut them?
Others have been operating for many years and have enough capital to fight the price war, but as a novice entrepreneur, the funds and ammunition are not enough. How can they fight with each other? If someone else is injured, it may be a hundred days of injury; However, the entrepreneur was injured for the first time and may not be able to live in ICU. Therefore, we must be cautious about price wars.
8, despise intellectual property rights
From the name of the company, the importance of trademarks in intellectual property rights began to appear quietly. Many entrepreneurs think that their brand name is "xxx", which is catchy and easy to promote, but unfortunately, this trademark has been registered and belongs to others. At this time, the method adopted is nothing more than changing the name or buying the trademark.
If the problem of intellectual property rights is not solved in the early stage, it may cost a lot of money in the later stage. If you think it is important, buy it boldly, especially such unique things as domain names and trademarks.
For example, Xicha, formerly known as Imperial Tea, did not attach importance to the role of trademarks in the early stage of its business. It was not until the imperial tea became bigger that the trademark was registered. However, due to the failure of registration, Yucha had to be renamed. At this time, a large number of counterfeiters appeared, and a large number of fake imperial teas have occupied a market.
Before we liked tea, our company was called Huangcha, and later it was forced to change its name because of the trademark. I gave the name yellow tea, but I don't know why the trademark just can't be registered. When we refused for the first time, we had already opened many stores, dragging and dragging, repeating and repeating. Finally, three years later, our stores are all in Guangzhou and Shenzhen, just to ensure that this trademark is completely invisible. Finally, I had to change my name.
—— Nie Yunzhen, founder of Xicha
Starting a business is never an easy task; On the way to making money, I have never passed the corner. It is most important for entrepreneurs to focus on details and continuously deepen their progress. I hope that the sharing of Kuaichuangtong today can bring some inspiration and thinking to friends on the road to entrepreneurship.