Transcripts
1. Introduction to the course !: Hello everyone, Welcome to our exciting course on
entrepreneurship and innovation. I'll be your guide on
this incredible journey. This course is designed to
transform your big idea into a Weibull startup will begin with the basic
of entrepreneurship, creativity and innovation will delve into the techniques
of idea generation, introduce you to the
business model canvas and help you identify
key components, value propositions, and more. We'll see ourselves in market research and
customer validation. You'll learn how to
identify target market, how to gather customer insights through interviews and surveys, how to analyze and
interpret data to develop minimum
viable product. We'll also dive into
the financial planning and operations from financial fundamentals
to understanding cash-flow and key metrics
will cover it all. We'll also delve into legal consideration
for startups and discuss various aspects
of operations logistics, and supply chain management. Finally, we are
going to focus on marketing, scaling,
and pitching. I'll guide you
through developing a go-to-market strategy, crafting a compelling
marketing plan and exploring growth hacking will also
cover networking partnership, pitching to investors,
and how to cultivate a resilient growth mindset
in entrepreneurship, whatever decades of experience in the field of
entrepreneurship, launching successful startups, and guiding others
in the journey. I'm eager to share
all the insights, tips, and tricks I have learned. This course is about giving you the tools to
build your business from ground up and helping
you to avoid common pitfalls. So whether you are
just drawing up with your business idea or
you're ready to launch. This course is
tailor-made for you. Join me in this exciting journey and let's turn your
dreams into reality. I can't wait to see you
in the class until then. Happy planning
2. What is entrepreneurship and innovation ?: You're welcome to our course on entrepreneurship
and innovation. Now let's understand what
is entrepreneurship? Well, you might have
heard these days that there are
different companies who are coming up with new ideas and they're
doing good business. Now these new companies are
a part of entrepreneurship. So the process of
creating, developing, and managing a new business to generate profit is
entrepreneurship. And who is an entrepreneur? A person who does that? A person who starts the
business from generating an idea to creating a business model and working
on it to generate profit. This entire process is
called entrepreneurship. Now the second question that
would come to your mind is, what is innovation? That innovation is
development and implementation of new
ideas, new products, new ways of manufacturing, developing new processes or business models to create value. So why, and how is innovation and
entrepreneurship related? Now we already understand
that there are big businesses already out
there who are serving people. How come a new
business enterprise? How come a new business
idea be successful? Well, the only reason
is because they understand the problems of the customer and based
on the problems, they come up with solutions. Now, just imagine there are companies who are already
solving those problems. So how is the small
entrepreneur coming up with new ways to solve the same problems which already the big
companies are doing. Here comes innovation. Now, this small entrepreneur
is using innovation, new ideas, new techniques, new products to solve
the same problems, or maybe some new problems
which the big companies might not have realized with
their innovative products. And this is where
entrepreneurship and innovation comes together. So the importance of
entrepreneurship and innovation is there
in economic growth, job creation and
social development. He wants to have heard about successful entrepreneurs
like Elon Musk, web developed companies
like Tesla and SpaceX. Richard Branson, Virgin Group. These small
entrepreneurs who are now one of the richest
men in the world, started with small ventures, started as entrepreneurs, and now they're
doing big business. So how does it
actually get started? Well, the first is
idea generation. Now how do you generate an idea? Now, an ID can be generated
through a process which is called brainstorming,
mind-mapping, etc. Let us understand what
is brainstorming. Now you have a team of four to five people.
You have a problem. The problem is the
people are not getting the services on time. What you do, all six of you
said together and brainstorm. Brainstorming means in a group
you're solving a problem. The problem is the customers are not getting the services, the government services on time. Tonight you all come up with
different forms of ideas. How to make the customer
get these schemes, get these services
at their doorstep. Can you play an important role? And if yes, how you're
going to generate profit. So all six of you come up with different ideas, different
innovative ideas. Now, all six of you
might not get to an idea which is acceptable
to all six of you. But since all of you have put your brain and come
up with these ideas, this process is
called brainstorming. The second step is
called mind-mapping. Now it's a visual technique wherein you structure, analyze, generate ideas by connected, by connecting related concepts
through a central theme. For example, you
create a flowchart. For example, if you
have to develop and give services to the
people at the doorsteps, what could be the ways? One way could be Internet. Second way could be
through service providers. Third way could be
doorstep delivery. So one idea, One concept
of giving services, has now three ways in which
you can deliver the services. Now through internet, how you can give those services will come out as branches for
the Internet concept. So this is how you will create
an entire mind-map where it on a piece of paper you will have all the ideas together, the related with each other
in a form of a map that will give you a better understanding of everything that
has been discussed. Let's scamper is a
creative thinking tool that uses seven techniques, substitute, combine,
adapt, modify, put to another user,
eliminated reverse. Now this is one of
the ways to generate innovative ideas which you can
certainly try and explore. I'll give you an example. Airbnb was born from a simple
idea wherein the founders rented their air mattresses and the apartments to
conference attendees, addressing a shortage
of hotel rooms. Now, AirBNB is such a
big, big business today. All the people who
have spare rooms, they can rent it out and
earn income from it. So that was an idea, an innovative idea that was creatively transformed
to a business
3. What is Business model canvas ?: Now let us understand
business model canvas. Now what is Business
Model Canvas? Business Model Canvas helps to identify the key components. It's a visual framework
which is used to design, describe an innovate,
a business model. It consists of nine building
blocks arranged one by one. First is value proposition. What problem your company
is going to solve? Customer segments? What are the different
kinds of customers you are going to
attract channels. What are the channels
through which you're going to serve these customers? Customer relationship, how
you are going to build customer relationship
with all your customers, revenue streams. What are the different
ways in which you can earn revenue through the
customers and your product. Key resources, key activities, key partnership and
cost structure. These variables will describe what are the resources
available with you, how you're going to
use these resources along with any partnership
to get to a business. For example, Uber
business model canvas includes the value proposition, which is a convenient
and affordable, right? This is the solution you
are providing to a problem of not getting cabs on
time, customer segments, you are covering the
riders and the drivers, people who need a
job to write a cab, and people who require
transportation services. And the channel is
through mobile app. So this is how you develop and create a business model canvas, which will help you
to eventually find out how you're going to
develop your business. The next concept is
value proposition. What is value proposition
and customer segment? Now a value proposition
is a statement which explains the unique
benefits of a company, what the company is
offering to its customer, how it solves the problem, what sets it apart
from the competitors? So value proposition is
basically in a summary format, what you are going to deliver. So you have already
identified a problem. How you're going to
provide a solution to that problem is your
value proposition, how it is different from others, what value you are adding to
the solution of the problem? I hope this concept of value
proposition is understood. The second aspect is
customer segments. Now there are different
groups of people or organization that
accompany aims to serve, whether IT products or services. For example, you have a
product which is a toothpaste. Now this toothpaste will
serve different segments because it can be used by
anyone of different age groups. So your customer segments include youngsters,
the older generation, and also the adults who are between the youngsters
and the older generation. So this is how you
segment your customer. These are the different
groups of people whom you are going to target accordingly, you frame out your marketing
and advertising policy, how to attract these
customer segments so that they start
using your product. For example, Spotify
value proposition is personalized on-demand
music streaming and it customer segments include music listeners, artist,
and advertisers. So I hope this concept
is absolutely clear. Now, let us understand channels and customer
relationship. Now, what are channels? Now? The means by which a company delivers its products
or services to the customers as a direct sales retail
stores or online platforms. So every product
or service has to be delivered to the customer
in some way or the other. Whether the product has been delivered through
a retail store, through online platform or directly to the customer
at his doorstep. This is called different
channels of delivery. The second aspect is
customer relationship. Let me kind of
relationship interaction. After-sale services you provide to the customer
is going to build relationship of that
particular customer with your product and brand. So the personal
assistance, the service, the automated services of the free services which you
offer to some customers. This is going to build
relationship with the customer. And once you start
building relationship, you will get repeated sales, not only from the same customer but from the others as well. Why? Because the customer who's happy with
your relationship is going to tell
about your product to others and you will
get more clients. For example, Amazon uses
online channels like websites, mobile apps to deliver
products and services and maintains
customer relationship through customer service, mostly recommendation
and customer reviews. And let us understand what
is employee engagement. Now, there are different
streams of revenue. There is different
cost structure. For example, a product might be used online and also might be
delivered through offline. So you are generating revenue
both through streaming of that application and by
use as a product form. Because structure
includes major expenses the company incurs
to create, deliver, and capture value
such as fixed cost, which is rent and salaries and variable cost of
materials and marketing. For example, Netflix generates revenue through
subscription fees, while it cost structure
includes content Licensing, production costs, and
marketing expenses.
4. What is market research and analysis ?: Now let us talk about market research and
customer validation. Now, what is market research? Well, systematic gathering, analysis and interpretation
of information about the market
and customers and competitors to make informed
decision is market research. Now before you come up with
an idea and after you have found how you're
going to provide a solution to a
particular problem. The next step is
market research. Without doing market research, you cannot come up
with a product. You need to understand
the market. What is the demand
of your product? What is the price the
customers are ready to pay? How many customers
you can expect? What is the competition in
that particular segment, all this information has
to be gathered and then a thorough analysis and
interpretation has to be made. And this process is
called market research, where importance
of market research in understanding customer needs, identifying opportunities,
and minimizing risks. So why do we do market research? Well, it's better to understand the market before launching your product than doing market research after you
launched your product. Why? Because just
imagine you have put in all your
money, hard work, number of years and you
developed a product which does not have any
demand in the market. A big loss, not only money, but also time and resources
which you could have easily saved had you done the
market research first, you need to identify whether
there is a customer need, what are the opportunities
and how you're going to minimize any risk associated
with the product. So what are different
types of market research? Primary research,
which is called collecting data firsthand
directly with the customer. And secondary research
is collecting data through different
resources, right? Through websites, through
directories, etc. For example, before launching
a new product or company conducts market research to understand customer preference, competitor offerings
at marketing trends. I hope this concept
is absolutely clear. Now let's learn how to identify target marketing
customer profile. So what is target market? Every product has
a target market. There are specific
group of people who are going to use your product
more than anyone else. Or there could be
only those group of people who are going
to use your product. For example, you have
developed a course, a course on
administrative assistant. Now this course will
only be used by people who are already into the field of
administrative assistant or want to apply
for that position. So your target market
is the youngsters. We have just graduated and
are looking for a job. And the people who are
already working as an administrative
assistant and want a switchover or maybe
a better position, or maybe an increase or improvement in their
position or salary. So that is called target market. Now what is customer profile? Now, every customer has a profile based on the product
which you're offering. I gave you an
example of a course which we are developing an
administrative assistant. Now, what is the profile
of the customer who is going to buy discourse on
administrative assistant. He could be a student, he could be a working
professional. He could be a male or a female. He could be offers
going or a fresher. He may live in the city. Mostly. You will
live in the cities. He will have good
communication skills. He will have to be presented. So this is how you
make a profile of the customer based on the
product which you're offering. So first we have
identified the target. The second thing which
you're going to do is to profile the customer, what kind of customers going
to buy or use your product. For example, a meal kit
delivery service targets busy professionals who value convenience, health,
and variety. Their customer
profile includes age, income, diet preference, and
frequency of cooking at home
5. How to analyze and interpret data ?: Now let's come to conducting customer interviews and surveys. And how do you take a feedback without knowing what
the customer wants, you won't be able to
deliver a good product. So customer interview and survey play a very important
role to gain an insight or to
take a feedback on anything which you have already developed or do you
want to develop? So customer interviews include in-depth one-to-one
conversation with potential customers to gain
insight into their needs, preferences, and pain points. Surveys are foremost structured questionnaires administered to large number of respondent to gather quantitative
and qualitative data. For example, a fitness
app startup conducts customer interviews who
understand workout habits and desired features
and distribute online surveys to collect
data on workout frequency, Let's talk about conducting customer interviews and survey. Now in order to know
about your product, to get the feedback, customer interviews
are very important. Customer interview is
one-to-one conversation with the potential customers to
gain insight into their needs, preference, and pain points. This can be done
through a survey, which is a structured
questionnaire administered to large number of
respondents to gather quantitative and
qualitative data. For example, a
fitness app startup conducts customer interviews to understand workout habits
and desired features. It distributes online service to collect data on
workout frequency, preferred type of exercises, and willingness to pay
for premium features. Now let's see how do we analyze
and interpret the data, which is a very important
step in data analysis, is the process of
organizing, cleaning, and interpreting the raw data to identify patterns,
trends, and insights. This is what is
going to help you do a proper market research. It involves qualitative
data analysis, which includes analyzing
non-numerical data, such as open-ended
responses through coding categorization
and thematic analysis. Also quantitative data analysis, wherein analyzing numerical data through
descriptive statistics, that is mean, median mode
and inferential statistics. For example, a clothing company
analyzes survey data on customer preferences
for fabric types, colors, price points, and uses these insights to
design a new product line, also developing a
minimum viable product, the simplest version of
a product that can be released to taste
it scores features, and validates it
value proposition with the real customer. So let's suppose you
are a new company. You have done the
market research, you have analyzed,
studied everything, and now you have developed a product that's
the sample product before launching the product in the market on a large scale, you want to test
its performance. You want to see what
kind of response the customers are giving dead. This minimum viable
product will be used. It is the simplest
version of the product, and this is used to test the
core features and validate whether the product is
delivering what it has promised. Importance of MVP in is quickly gathering
customer feedback, minimizing development
costs and reducing risk. For example, Dropbox
started but simple MTV, a video demonstrating its
file synchronizing feature, we've generated
significant interest and validated the need for an easy to use file-sharing solution. So you, as a
business can come up with our MVP before you
launch your product. On a big scale, just to
gorge the customer feedback, iterating and refining
the product based on customer feedback is
very, very important. Iteration is the
process of making incremental improvements
to a product based on customer feedback, market research, and testing. Let's suppose you have
done customer feedback, you have done the
market research. You have also done the
tasting through NPV. Now, there is a feedback
from the customers that the packaging is not good and the taste could
be much better. So these are the two feedbacks
which we have received from the customers,
most common feedbacks. So you have to bring
these changes to your product before it's launched on a big
scale in the market, this is where iteration is going to play an
important role because the importance of iterating and refining the product
to meet customer needs, stay competitive
and drive growth. For example, Instagram
started as a location-based check-in
app called Bourbon, but Pitt pivoted to focus on photo-sharing after analyzing
user behavior and feedback, eventually becoming one of the most popular social
media platforms. So this is how you test your product and once you
get a positive feedback, you launched it in the market.
6. What is the importance of financial fundamentals for entrepreneurs ?: Let us understand and
study a topic which is most critical for
a new entrepreneur. This is the reason why
most of the businesses fail in the first or the
second year of its existence. Why? Because of financial
planning and operations. So what is the importance of financial fundamentals
for entrepreneurs and why it is essential for them to keep an eye on
the financial part. Now, the importance of
financial management for entrepreneurs is to ensure sustainability
of the business, profitability and growth unless and until you get three of them, you won't be able to survive. Your business will be non-existent within
one or two years. So in order to
sustain the business, in order to generate
profit and grow your business every year
from one point to the other, you require proper financial management
for entrepreneurs. So what are the basic
financial statements? Income statement, balance sheet, and cash flow statements. Now these are the three
basic financial statements which will help you to have a complete look on the financial
aspect of your business. If you want to start a business as an
entrepreneurial venture, you need to be good in reading and analyzing
income statement, balance sheet,
cashflow statement. For example, a successful
entrepreneur closely monitors financial statements
to track the revenues, the expenses, the
assets it has created, the liabilities, it has to
comply with Andy cashflow. This will enable the
business to make informed decision
about its operations. Just imagine if I'm running a business and I have no
idea about my income, my expenditure, the
assets that I've created, will I be able to
sustain the business? So knowing the financial is the most important
and critical aspect of being an entrepreneur. So how do you create financial
projections and budgets? Now let us understand what
is financial projection. It is the estimate of a company's future
revenues, expenses, and profit based on historical
data and market trends, no matter which
business you start, you have to make an analysis of the future projections
in the next five years, how much cashflow my business
is going to generate, how much income
I'm going to make after paying all the
loans and the debts, then comes to budget, detailed financial
plans that outline how a company will allocate the resources to
achieve its goals, where every company has to manage and brings certain
resources, take loans, borrow money from
friends and family, and this has to be measured, this has to be
allocated properly. For example, a startup founder creates financial projections and budgets to forecast sales
plan marketing campaigns, and determine staffing needs
for the upcoming year. So understanding this aspect, making financial projections
is very important. Now let's quickly
talk about cashflow, breakeven point and
key financial metrics. Now, what is cashflow? Now, in order to sustain, in order to run any
business in this world, you will need cashflow. If there is no cash-flow
in the business, your business is going to fail. Your business has
to generate cash. The movement of money in
and out of the business is crucial for maintaining
liquidity and solvency. The future loan repayments
will depend upon the cashflow, whether you will get more debt will depend upon the cashflow. Whether you will achieve profit in the future or at present, will depend upon the cashflow. So any business that you set up has to generate cash flow. The second aspect is
break-even point. Now this is the point at which a company's revenue
equals its expenses. This indicates that the
business is neither making a profit nor
incurring a loss. For example, you have started a business by
investing 1 million. Now, it took three
years for you to generate revenue of 1 million. Now you can say that
the money which I have put in of 1 million and the
starting of the business, that money I have
generated through revenue this point
after three years, I'm just giving you an example
is the break-even point. It's the point where, where the company's revenue
equals its expenses. Now key financial
metrics now ratios and indicators that measure a
company financial health, such as gross
margin, net margin, return on investment,
and current ratio. These financial metrics helps
the banks, lean Westerners, entrepreneurs to determine
the profitability, to determine the growth
and the business. For example, a restaurant
owner tracks cashflow to ensure they have enough
funds to cover expenses, calculates the
break-even point to determine the number of meals
required to cover cost, and monitor key
financial metrics to assess profitability
and efficiency
7. How to raise capital for Business ?: Another important aspect
is raising capital. Now let us understand certain
important terms which will help you in your
entrepreneurial venture. The first is bootstrapping. Now what do you mean
by bootstrapping? Any business that you
start with your own funds, with your own personal
saving revenues or other internal resources, that is called bootstrapping. So if I have certain amount
of money which I have saved or invested
somewhere and I use that money to
start my business. That is bootstrapping. The second is loan. You are taking a loan to
start a business from a bank, or you're bringing
in investors who are giving you a loan in
form of interest, you have to repay that
loan along with interests. That is loan grant is a non
payable fund provided by normally governments
or organizations which support specific business
activity or initiatives. Equity financing is raising capital by selling
shares of the company to investors who become
partial owners and the exchange of
their investments. Now, this type of
financing will become at the latest stage when your
company is a big company, is ready to go in
the market where the people can invest
money in form of shares. For example, a tech startup, my Bootstrap in
the early stages, take out a loan or
receive grant to develop, prototype, a sample business, and then seek equity
financing from angel investors or
venture capitalists to scale the business. This is how he might go further. Now, let us also understand the legal considerations
for startups. Now what should be the
business structure? This is a decision
which the owner of the business is
required to take. So you need to choose the appropriate legal
structure for the business, whether you want to be
a sole proprietorship, you want to run the business in partnership
with your friends, or you want to establish a limited liability
company or corporation. Intellectual property
is another term. It is protecting your ideas. Retentions, annual creative work through patents,
trademarks, and copyrights. So once you have an
intellectual property right, no one can copy that. So if you are opening
a new business, you have an idea. You need to preserve that idea and take patent,
trademark and copyright. The third is contracts
and agreement, not drafting and negotiating legally binding documents such
as partnership agreement, employment contract, and non-disclosure
agreements are very important
aspect of business. Also regulatory
compliance, which is ensuring the business
meets applicable laws, regulations, and
industry standards. It has to be kept in mind because any business
that you start has to follow certain rules and regulations laid down
by the government. If you don't follow
it, you'll either be penalized or will be asked
to stop the business. For example, a software
company, a new startup, establishes a limited
liability company to limit post liability. It files for a patent to protect its
innovative algorithm. Draft contracts for
employees and partners and complies with Data
Protection Regulation. Now another important aspect which you are required to know is operations logistics,
and supply chain. Now, what is operations now? Operations is the
day-to-day activity of a business that produces
goods or services, such as manufacturing, quality control, and
customer support. So anything that you do on daily basis in your
business is operations. So there is Operation Manager, that is operational
control team. So these are the people who are responsible for taking care of everything that is getting
manufactured on daily basis. Any service that you're
providing to the customers on daily basis, that is operations. The second aspect is logistics. Now logistic is the process
of planning, implementing, and controlling the
movement and storage of goods and resources
within a supply chain. This also forms a
very important part. So you are planning, you are implementing
annual controlling the physical aspect
of your business, any movement of goods and
services, the resource, or you're making
a supply chain of distributing your final
goods and services. Third aspect is supply
chain management. The coordination of all
activities involved in sourcing, procuring, converting, and delivering products
to the customers. For example, an e-commerce
company optimizes its operations by streamlining,
order processing, automating inventory management, and partnering with
reliable supplies and logistics providers to ensure timely delivery of
products to the customers
8. What is Marketing, Scaling, and Pitching ?: Now let us talk about marketing,
scaling, and pitching. Now, what is a market strategy? Well, a go-to-market
strategy outlines how a company will deliver its products or services
to the customer. How it'll create brand awareness and achieve market penetration. It basically has to do with
the marketing of the product. The components of
go-to-market strategy include the target audience, the value proposition,
the distribution channel, the pricing, the
promotional activities. This is how you are going
to penetrate in the market. You need to know your
target audience, who are the people who are
going to buy your product, your value proposition, what is the solution you are
giving to the problem? Are you able to deliver
it through your product? What are the
distribution channels through which you are
reaching out to the customer? Is the pricing of your products appropriate according
to the market or the customers going to purchase your product because you
have a good pricing. What are the
promotional activities which you have planned to gain interest of the customers
because your product is new, people do not know about it. How are you going to
promote your product in the market with your
customers and clients? For example, a mobile
app startup develops a go-to-market strategy that includes targeting young adults, offering unique social
networking experience, distributing app
through App Stores, adopting a free
pricing model and leveraging social media
influencers to promote the app. So it's a perfect marketing
strategy for a mobile lab. That's for an example. Now let us understand how
to create a marketing plan, how to do branding, PR, digital
marketing, and sales. Let's first talk about branding. Branding is developing
a unique identity for a company or its
products through name, logo design, the messaging, and it should resonate
with the target audience. Just imagine you have
launched a product and you are just similar to all
the other existing products. There is no differentiation. So will the customers border? No, they will not be already
using good products. You do not differentiate your
product from the others. That is called branding. You have to come up with a new
name, a very attractively, a great logo design, a color pattern
which is similar on all your brand products. So it has to resonate
with the customer, wants the customer, listens, or just goes through your
name and the product look at is attractive and it
appeals to the customer. That is branding. Branding plays a very important
role in establishing you as an entrepreneur in the
future public relationships. Now, managing the company, pushing and communication with the public through
media coverage, events, and community engagement is a very important aspect today we know we are in the
age of new social media, where in everything
that gets talked about is shared in
the social media. So are you able to create a positive buzz
around your product? And your product is getting
shared by the people, among the people so that
there is word of mouth, there is good public relations. People are loving your
product and it is spreading like wildfire
in the market. So you're doing a good PR. The third is digital marketing. As I said, we are living
in a digital age, promoting your products
or services using online channels such as social
media, e-mail marketing, content marketing, search
engine optimisation, pay-per-click advertising
and reaching out to people through digital medium
is very, very essential. You cannot ran a
business or make it successful without getting
yourself and Whorf digitally. That's a fact. Next step is sales. Now generating revenue
by directly selling products or services
to customers, employing tactics like
cold calling, networking, and relationship building
plays a very important role. An example, an eco-friendly
clothing brand creates marketing plan that includes a distinctive brand identity, PR efforts to secure media
coverage on sustainability, digital marketing campaigns
to reach online shoppers. Anna Sale strategy
focus on partnering with equal conscious retailers. Now let's talk about scaling
strategies and growth. Now what is scaling? Scaling is expanding
your business to serve larger customer base
while maintaining to improve the efficiency,
profitability, and quality. Let's suppose you have opened a store of ice cream parlor. And that ice cream
parlor is doing great. People are loving your brand, people are loving the
quality of your ice cream and there is a positive
buzz around your ice cream. People across the cities are demanding your ice cream to blood to be delivered
at dark place. This is a point
where you decide to scale your business to open another ice cream parlor and different area so that
you get more business. At the same time, your profitability is
increasing and you are maintaining the same
quality as well. What is growth hacking? Well, a rapid experimentation
across marketing, product development and sales to identify the most effective
ways to grow a business. Well, as a new entrepreneur, you might not be comfortable. You might not know how to
go about doing marketing. So you do experiments and see whether this particular
thing is working or not. And if it is not
working, you change it. That is growth hacking For example, a software as a service company scales
by automating customer on-boarding using growth hacking techniques like testing and referral program to optimize user acquisition and retention. Now, let us understand
another important aspect, which is network and
building partnership. Now networking is building and maintaining relationships
with individuals, organizations that
can provide support, advice, resources, or
business opportunities. As I said, we are living in a globalized world where
everything is interconnected. You are not required to do
everything on your own. You can do lot of things through outsourcing three
different companies, three different networks. You do not need to spend
time on digital marketing. You can give the job of digital marketing to a
digital marketing company. So building good networks, good contacts with companies who are ready to do your work at an optimum price is going
to help you in the future get more productivity
out of your business. Partnership is collaborative
arrangement between two or more
businesses to achieve a shared goal such
as coal marketing, product development,
or distribution. For example, an entrepreneur
net attains industry events, join professional
associations and using online platforms like LinkedIn to connect with potential partners,
mentors and investors. So how do you craft effective pitch for
investors and partners? As I said, business
is a moving venture. At every stage, you
will require funds, whether you are
running a business or expanding our business. Now in order to expand your business and scale
it to a bigger level, you will require investors, you will require partners. You will require people to
invest in your business. They will only invest in
your business once you are convinced yourself that you
can sustain this business, you can make profit
from this business. And how you're going to do
it is called the pitch, a concise and persuasive
presentation that communicates the value and potential
of a business to investors, partners,
or customers. So what are the key elements
are effective pitch problem. You need to identify the problem and the solution that you're
bringing to the table. What is the market opportunity? What is the demand
in the market? Which business model are
you going to follow? What is the
competitive advantage which you are bringing
in the market? What are the financial
projections of the next five to ten years? Which team do you have? Does your team have
qualified professionals who are the core team members? And other questions? For example, a health
tech startup founder prepares a pitch that clearly articulates
the unmet needs for the remote
patient monitoring. The innovative solution
that product offers, the size of the market, the revenue model and
competitive landscape. It's financial projection,
the expertise of the team and the amount of
investment they are seeking. This is drafting ineffective. So how do we cultivate a growth mindset and resilience
in entrepreneurship? Because unless and
until you have a growth mindset
and you are doing the same thing again and again without
getting frustrated. That is being resilient is going to give you
results because it's easy to get demotivated and stop everything and close
down the business. But what will take you further? It is the growth mindset, the belief that
intelligence, talents, and abilities can be
developed through dedication, hard work, and learning
from experiences. So every time you fail doing an experiment in your
business, you will learn. You do not repeat it. Resilience is the ability to recover quickly from setbacks, adapt to change and preserve
and the face of adversity. For example, a successful
entrepreneur embraces a growth mindset by seeking feedback,
learning from failures, continuously improving
their skills, while also building resilience
by staying optimistic, developing strong
support networks, and maintaining a healthy
work-life balance. This will all eventually
help the business to grow and the entrepreneur
to flourish in the future.
Satish Kumar Sahani, Learn to Earn and Earn to Learn
