What are the basics of an entrepreneur?

Do You Have What It Takes to Beat the Odds?
When you start your first business, to paraphrase the prelude to Star Trek, you are about to "boldly go where you have not gone before." -- Stephen C. Harper. Harper explains in Starting Your Own Business, "Someone once defined LUCK as what happens when preparation meets opportunity." Taking that one step further: it's not about relying on luck, it's about being prepared.

Can You Beat the Odds?
The odds of starting a new business and being successful are slim, and anyone who starts their own business can be defined as optimistic. No matter how great you think your business idea is, the cold, hard facts are:

More than half of the 800,000 business started this year will not be around five years from now.

Only 20 percent of the business started this year will be around in 10 years.

Half of the survivors will be producing only a marginal profit.

Don't Be One of the Losers
Before investing your time, effort, and money in starting your own business, you should first answer these two important questions:

"Do I have what it takes to be successful?"

"Am I starting a business where a real and lasting opportunity exists?"

Experience Pays Off
It's important for you to know that both management experience and business knowledge are essential in successfully starting a new business. The lack of these essentials is the main reason almost all businesses fail. In most cases, the entrepreneur:

Entered a market that was already crowded with competition

Did not offer exactly what prospective customers wanted to buy

Failed to make the appropriate changes in business operations to meet a changing marketplace

Started the business with insufficient funding

For the specific business, lacked sufficient knowledge about one or more of the following areas: legal, financial, purchasing, accounting, employee relations, and marketing

There is no substitute for experience

Did You Know?
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak started Apple Computer with $1,350.
Ross Perot started EDS with $1,000.
Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield started Ben & Jerry's with $12,000
Michael Dell started Dell Computer with $1,000.
Phillip Knight started Nike with $1,000.

Key Entrepreneurial Qualities
Regardless of the differences in successful entrepreneurs, they all demonstrate the following nine qualities that set them apart from most people. According to Stephen Harper, all successful entrepreneurs possess the following nine qualities:

Opportunity seekers

Future-oriented

Committed to being the best

Market-driven and customer-oriented

Value their employees

Realistic

Tolerant of the tedium

Resilient

Focused and decisive

Take a Good Look at Yourself and What Drives You

A solid business opportunity

The necessary skills and abilities

The right approach to doing business

Sufficient funds to start and operate the business until it can stand on its own

The first law of entrepreneurship is, "You need to offer what people want to buy, not what you want to sell." Customers do not buy what you like, they buy what they want. -- Stephen C. Harper

You can use this six-step process to help identify what type of business to start:

List problems in the marketplace.

Identify corresponding business opportunities.

Determine the needed capabilities and resources.

Project the financial dimensions.

Rate the opportunities in terms of personal preferences, financial worthiness, and perceived risk.

Select the business opportunity to pursue

If you need an advice, how to start your entrepreneurial career, let us know and we will help you in set up process! You reach us at the Swiss Business Club!

Click here to join un on the Swiss Business Club!

All the best and kind regards

Lucas