In the past 15 years, I have had the privilege of meeting and interacting with over 200 business owners or senior executives within a business or organisation.
Many of them were pure start-ups, some were established in mid-sized businesses and others held “intraprenerial” posts within organisations.
The level of interaction differed, from meeting at an event or competition to intensive involvement through coaching or incubation inputs.
It is particularly in the past seven years that I have shifted my focus to what makes for building sustainable businesses and resilient entrepreneurs and that is what I want to focus on in this article.
What did these men and women do differently to position themselves strongly?
Here are some lessons which can be gleaned from them:
Successfulentrepreneurs have differentiated their product.
They have taken considerable time and invested energy to clarify what makes them special, what makes them unique and different, or, in the words of author and speaker Malcolm Gladwell, “What makes them a purple cow?”
It appears as if successful entrepreneurs have narrowed their target market focus, rather than trying to please everyone.
In fact, assuming “the more, the merrier” when it comes to defining whom you are targeting is one of the biggest marketing mistakes an entrepreneur can make. A lot of time and money is wasted on marketing campaigns that try to be all things to all people.
Conversely, the target market cannot be too small either, as the startup needs enough customers to sell to without saturating the target market within its first months of operation.
Start a business with an existing market in mind.
Those businesses that have gone past significant milestones appear to have this attribute in common.
They started with an existing market in mind and considerable interest in the product or service they were going to sell.
“Market research is always a good idea, whether launching a new business or embarking on a new product line,” says Jayshree Naidoo, ex head of Standard Bank incubator and a 20-year entrepreneurship industry veteran.
Unfortunately entrepreneurs are not doing enough of it, which results in a high failure rate.
It could be beneficial, therefore, to drill down with these questions on your market opportunity before you start:
What is the unmet need? (What problem are you solving?)
How big is this opportunity? (Is there a substantial market?)
Who else is trying to meet this need? (Is this business over traded, with many competitors?)
Successfulentrepreneurs refer to having a strong support base as an essential ingredient. Whether from family or friends, or from institutions like accelerators or people like mentors.
There is a lot of support available to the aspiring entrepreneur in the Western Cape. The budding entrepreneur may find support in the form of access to catalytic events (competitions); free or sponsored business advice and even be eligible to be a part of the accelerator/ incubator ecosystem.
Funding is also an area of great concern to start-ups. They are often ill prepared in approaching providers of funding or they simply don’t know who and where to go.
