Life is a gamble of Win and Lose. How's that you ask? Well you live (Win) or you die (Lose). You ate something good for lunch (Win) or you ate crap for lunch (Die). Et Cetera.
Well, business too is a sort of gamble. You can either succeed spectacularly (Win) or fail miserably (Lose). The thing is, nobody can predict whether a business can fail or succeed. However, there are some things that a person can do to increase the chances of succeeding (or prolong the inevitable heh heh).
Things to do to increase chance of success:
1) Research
Before starting a business, you need to do your SWOT analysis. You also need to know what you are selling, and actually sell what you intend to sell. That means you know what your market is, and what your market wants.
2) Prepare Team
When you start a business, never ever start it alone. You will not have the manpower to do anything on time. However if you start your business with a lot of people, things will get messy and ugly very, very fast. So pick a small group, something like 3-5 for a start up business.
3) Monitor Execution/Communication
Communication is key to success. If your team does not communicate well, you know the rest. Making sure that the team does communicate is important and must be done early.
There are more things that a person can do to ensure their business will succeed. It is not limited to what I have just presented. Indeed, different people will have different ideas of what is important to their business.
Showing posts with label Business. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Business. Show all posts
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Internet Entrepreneur
How to be an internet entrepreneur? Simple: start a business selling stuff on the internet! What can you sell? Either goods or services.
If you are starting a website hoping to make money off it, you need to know your revenue stream. If you build a website without any idea of monetization, you can rest assure that you will burn lots of money before realizing the error of your ways. This is exactly what happened to a lot of internet companies during the dot com bust.
It is not as simple as
1) Build website
2) ???????
3) Profit!
First you need to know what you are selling. Are you selling a product or are you selling some services? Products could include cds, e-books, shirts, pets, swags, etc. Services are a little tricky; you can host a service where people can meet and have meetings online, or a service that keeps track of customers, or an online inventory system that helps you buy stuff when you're running low on them.
Directly selling your products or services is just one way to make money. Another way of making money online is through advertising and affiliate programs. GoogleAds have reportedly paid out as much as a few hundred thousand to a lucky chap.
Thats the easy part though. The hard part is building traffic to your website. The more people know about your site, the bigger your chances of having some of these potential customer buy what you have to offer. You definitely need to work on you SEO aka Search Engine Optimization to make sure your site shows up when people look for stuff.
Even if you followed all the steps, success is not guaranteed. That doesn't mean you have to give up though. You need to keep working on your SEO, products, etc.
But what if you keep working on it for several years, tweaking your SEO, updated your products/services and are still losing money instead? Know your limits; some business are just not ready yet. Try going into other venture and come back to the ones you failed another time.
If you are starting a website hoping to make money off it, you need to know your revenue stream. If you build a website without any idea of monetization, you can rest assure that you will burn lots of money before realizing the error of your ways. This is exactly what happened to a lot of internet companies during the dot com bust.
It is not as simple as
1) Build website
2) ???????
3) Profit!
First you need to know what you are selling. Are you selling a product or are you selling some services? Products could include cds, e-books, shirts, pets, swags, etc. Services are a little tricky; you can host a service where people can meet and have meetings online, or a service that keeps track of customers, or an online inventory system that helps you buy stuff when you're running low on them.
Directly selling your products or services is just one way to make money. Another way of making money online is through advertising and affiliate programs. GoogleAds have reportedly paid out as much as a few hundred thousand to a lucky chap.
Thats the easy part though. The hard part is building traffic to your website. The more people know about your site, the bigger your chances of having some of these potential customer buy what you have to offer. You definitely need to work on you SEO aka Search Engine Optimization to make sure your site shows up when people look for stuff.
Even if you followed all the steps, success is not guaranteed. That doesn't mean you have to give up though. You need to keep working on your SEO, products, etc.
But what if you keep working on it for several years, tweaking your SEO, updated your products/services and are still losing money instead? Know your limits; some business are just not ready yet. Try going into other venture and come back to the ones you failed another time.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Starting A Business : Bootstrap Start-Up
I started my IT consulting business 2 years ago. November 1st, 2007 to be exact. At that time I had very little savings so this business is basically a bootstrap start-up enterprise. This is ok because since I am providing a service and don't have to produce products on a daily basis, I don't need that much. This is perfect for me since I can work out of my home, I don't have to rent an office, pay for office utilities, and spend money to travel to and from the office. The living room became my office, the coffee table became my desk, and the sofa and chair became my cupboard and drawer.
Basically, the only business spending that I did was the land line (RM32) and internet connections (RM88). I also invested (RM3,000) into an aquaculture business. So for the first fiscal year my expenditure was (RM4,440). Now during that first year, I did 5 projects that generated (RM3,000) each and 4 projects that generated (RM4,000) each. Totaling all of them up gives me a first fiscal year revenue of (RM31,000).
All this means that at the end of the first fiscal year on 31 October 2008, I made a profit of (RM26,560). It may seem a lot, but break it down to monthly and I am only getting (RM2,213) per month. After paying for groceries, cable tv, petrol/fuel/gas, utilities, etc. all I am left is (RM200) to spend for fun.
For the second year starting in 1 November 2008, I setup a couple of website which cost (RM800). I also invested another (RM3,000) into the aquaculture business I started the year earlier. so my total expenditure was the same at (RM5,240). This year, I did 4 projects that generated (RM3,500) each and 6 projects that generated (RM4,000) each. This gives me a second year fiscal revenue of (RM38,000).
With second year ending 31 October 2009 profit of (RM32,760) which broken down monthly into (RM2,730), things seems to be getting a little bit better. I have accumulated (RM4,000) in savings around this time, but due to unforeseen circumstances I spent it all, and still owe my credit card (RM5,000) on top of it.
Third year... well, we will see. So there you have it. It's not glamorous, it isn't fun, it is a lot of work, but it is a damn dirt cheap of running a business. One thing though, this model of doing business does not apply to all types of business. I made the mistake of trying to apply this method to my aquaculture business. It was a disaster. Check out "Starting A Business : Providing Goods vs Providing Services" for a post mortem of both my start up business.
Basically, the only business spending that I did was the land line (RM32) and internet connections (RM88). I also invested (RM3,000) into an aquaculture business. So for the first fiscal year my expenditure was (RM4,440). Now during that first year, I did 5 projects that generated (RM3,000) each and 4 projects that generated (RM4,000) each. Totaling all of them up gives me a first fiscal year revenue of (RM31,000).
All this means that at the end of the first fiscal year on 31 October 2008, I made a profit of (RM26,560). It may seem a lot, but break it down to monthly and I am only getting (RM2,213) per month. After paying for groceries, cable tv, petrol/fuel/gas, utilities, etc. all I am left is (RM200) to spend for fun.
For the second year starting in 1 November 2008, I setup a couple of website which cost (RM800). I also invested another (RM3,000) into the aquaculture business I started the year earlier. so my total expenditure was the same at (RM5,240). This year, I did 4 projects that generated (RM3,500) each and 6 projects that generated (RM4,000) each. This gives me a second year fiscal revenue of (RM38,000).
With second year ending 31 October 2009 profit of (RM32,760) which broken down monthly into (RM2,730), things seems to be getting a little bit better. I have accumulated (RM4,000) in savings around this time, but due to unforeseen circumstances I spent it all, and still owe my credit card (RM5,000) on top of it.
Third year... well, we will see. So there you have it. It's not glamorous, it isn't fun, it is a lot of work, but it is a damn dirt cheap of running a business. One thing though, this model of doing business does not apply to all types of business. I made the mistake of trying to apply this method to my aquaculture business. It was a disaster. Check out "Starting A Business : Providing Goods vs Providing Services" for a post mortem of both my start up business.
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