Felix Dennis in his book “How to Get Rich” discusses various aspects one needs to be aware of when looking to become rich. These aspects include: • Ideas • Luck • Ownership • Negotiation • Delegation • Focus • Self-Belief
1.The significance of executing your Ideas
Dennis discusses the importance of executing your ideas umpteen times in this book.
Ideas don’t make you rich. Correct execution of ideas does.
Essentially, one needs an action oriented mindset to be able to become rich. If brainstorming and coming up with ideas is all you do, then you will not be successful with your business. Therefore to be successful one should materialize his/her ideas into actions.
2. The importance of Luck in Becoming Rich
Dennis discusses his successes and his failures in this book. In this aspect Dennis discusses how he ended up in the hospital due to his drug use. What was lucky about the situation is that he insisted on going to his cottage and since he was not in New York City, he was able to be diagnosed quickly and accurately in a smaller hospital. This allowed him to turn his life around and continue to make more money. This event was certainly lucky as Dennis could have died from this event. When building, growing, and owning a business, there are many events and outcomes which can be influenced by luck. If you want to become rich, you will have to have luck on your side.
3. Ownership and Richness
If your goal is to become rich, Dennis argues that ownership of a business is critical.
Dennis said “To become rich, you must be an owner, and you must try to own it all.”
This is unlikely that working as an analyst or as a manager for other people, will lead you to extreme wealth. When you own a business, you tap into a different wealth building equation. With a business, you are increasing your wealth by both receiving the cash flows from the business, but also own a valuable asset. If you are working for someone else, all you get is your salary or hourly wage.
4. Negotiation Skills to enhance Your Wealth
Talent is the key to sustained growth, and growth is the key to early wealth
If you want to scale your business and wealth, hiring others to help you will be critical. Since working with other talented individuals can help you grow your business, and allow you to accomplish your tasks over time.
5. Delegation of tasks
Delegation of tasks will free you up to think more strategically because it helps you to focus on what really matters for your business. Dennis advises businesses to delegate tasks to subordinates. Thus the businessman can devote more time towards strategic decisions.
Identify it, hire it, nurture it, reward it, protect it, and when the time comes, fire it.
6. The Importance of Focus in Building Business
Focus is one of the most important skills to cultivate if you want to experience growth in your life. While it seems like multitasking is a great way to get ahead, being able to focus and be consistent with your actions over time will be much more beneficial. Focusing on one thing that is necessary for success today will allow you to move forward over time and grow your business.
7. Believe yourself to achieve Success
How’s your mindset? Do you believe you can do whatever you put your mind to? Believing yourself means trying to get out of your comfort zone, building a business, and growing as a person. When looking to become rich and wealthy over time, self-belief is incredibly important. But there is a lot of risk in starting your own business. However, done right, you can grow your riches through both the cash flow of the business, and the asset value of the business.
Belief in yourself and faith in yourself can move mountains. But not if you insist on trying to scale the mountain by an impossible route which has already failed.
So through affirmations and mindset you can trick your brain into believing whatever you want.
Without self-belief nothing can be accomplished. With it, nothing is impossible.
The foremost accessible source is to visit a bank wherein you already holds an account and shares a good customer relationship with the bank. Bring your business plan to the loan officer and get access to loan if you qualify for a loan. If the bank denies your small business loan application, you could also try to get a personal line of credit from that bank.
2. Approach NBFC’s
Non Banking Financial Corporations (NBFC’s) can be approached to access financial services who would not have access to conventional banking services. NBFC’s are engaged in the business of loans and advances and thus provide banking services without meeting legal requirement/definition of a bank.
3. Seek informal sources
Startups can seek help from their friends and family. Some entrepreneurs have stated that loans from their family contributed to their success because they had extra motivation to not lose the investment.
4. Venture capitalists
Venture capitalists are those who are willing to invest in the early stages of your startup/ company in exchange for an equity share. Sometimes they also provide with some other resources that can lead to further growth of the company.
But research and statistics shows that venture capital firms are typically drawn towards startups in software and technology sectors.
5. Angel investors
They differ from venture capitals. Angel investors provide capital to startups and their funding can also be exchanged for convertible debt. Angel investors can take an equity share of your startup in exchange for their investment, their funding can also be exchanged for convertible debt. Secondly, angel investors are likely to supply funding to businesses when they are still in the early stages, whereas VCs typically get involved a little bit later. Angel investors may also provide you with expert advice and management skills. Some of the popular Angel investors in India are- Indian Angel Network, Mumbai Angels, Hyderabad Angels etc.
6. Accumulate personal savings/ Bootstrapping
If becoming an entrepreneur is your only aim then start saving as early as possible and dip into your personal savings when required. Apart from this you can also use your money saved up for down payment of conspicuous consumption. This idea is suitable only if the initial requirement is small. Some businesses need money right from day one and for such businesses, bootstrapping may not be a good option.
7.Crowd funding
Crowd funding is gaining popularity these days. Entrepreneurs or startups can use crowdfunding websites to raise capital. It refers to taking a loan, pre-order, contribution or investments from more than one person at the same time. Some of the options are- Kickstarter, AngelList, CrowdFunder, RocketHub, Fundlined etc.
8. Business Incubators and accelerators
Business Incubators nurture the business by providing shelter tools and training and network to a business. Accelerators do more or less the same thing but it helps to take a giant leap unlike Business incubators. Some of the popular Business Incubators and Accelerators are- Amity Innovation Incubator, Startup Village, AngelPrime, Villgro, CIIE etc.
9. Participate in contests to raise fund
Such contests help to maximize opportunities to raise fund for your startup. Participation in such contests also enhances knowledge and encourages further business ideas. Some of the popular startups contests in India are- Microsoft BizSparks, NASSCOM’S 10000 startups, Lets Ignite, Next Big Idea Contests etc.
10.Government programs for startups
The government of India has launches a host of programs and schemes to boost innovative startup and employment in India. For example- 10,000 Crore Startup Fund, Bank of Ideas and Innovations program, MUDRA scheme etc. Further, the various state governments have also come forward to encourage small businesses with various programs like- Kerala State Self Entrepreneur Development Mission, Maharashtra Centre for Entrepreneurship Development, Rajasthan Startup Fest etc.
Gone are the days when MR= MC was the ‘only’ business strategy to sustain in the market.
Sometimes the startups fail to create a market or consumer drive to purchase their product. One reason might be the focus on generating profits rather than enhancing the market size. They may not be able to create compelling enough value propositions, or compelling event, to cause the buyer to actually commit to purchasing.
Secondly, sometimes the market size for the product is simply not large enough. Lastly, the startup may enter the market in the wrong time; either too early or too late.
2. Product problems
Another reason that companies fail is that they fail to develop a product that meets the market need. This could be due to strategic problems or failed geographic expansion.
To sustain the startup the product should not only cater to the needs of the customers but also it should also focus on the customers who acquire a taste of it over time. For this, up gradation of the product over time with regard to market demand and requirement is must.
3. Poor management
The entrepreneur finds it difficult to organize the management unit efficiently. The managing team is often weak on strategy; building a product that no-one wants to buy as they failed to do enough work to validate the ideas before and during development.
Moreover, sometimes the managers are a poor controller of the startup and less willing to contribute in prospering the business. This further weakens the lower sections/ departments of the enterprise.
4. Lack of capital and investment
One of the reasons behind the failure of startups is they ran out of cash. The primary reason behind this is that banks are reluctant to lend to startups. Also, venture capitals prefer investing in a limited number of startups to prevent themselves from losses. In other cases, if a business has scaled well, but needs additional funding to further accelerate expansion they fail to generate enough investments from external sources due to lack of familiarity in the market.
5. Failure of business model
Sometimes entrepreneurs fail to create an adequate business model on the extremely optimism based assumption that customers will beat a path to their door. But it becomes an expensive task for many of them to win customers and eventually, it increases the cost of acquiring the customers. So it is mandatory to monetize beforehand a strategic way to acquire customers at a significantly higher level to outdo the cost of acquisition.
6. Inadequate marketing
“Jo dikhta hai vhi bikta hai”. Startups fail to realize this old adage.
Insufficient and inadequate marketing is a common failure among startups.An anticipation of the target audience and the ability to convert potential customers into leads is one of the prerequisite for a successful startup. Many startups fail to materialize this due to insufficient funds and unwillingness.
7. Fails to create network
Apart from poor marketing, lack of network with investors and other stakeholders impede startup growth. Entrepreneurs often fails to utilize their network for the growth of the startup.
In addition, rather than exploring the prospective networks they become prey to asymmetric information regarding their networks.
Entrepreneurs believe that all they need to start- off their business is a huge amount of funds. In fact, many recent surveys state that investors and venture capital fund only one percent of all the startups.
In order to burst the myth, one should adapt to the practice of bootstrapping, which allows maintaining full control of the startup strategies, avoiding time delays and energy spent to attract investors, and retaining maximum equity.
2. PR activities are unaffordable
These days, startups are spreading all over the place, and have made it possible to afford and access startup PR tools and services. Not only there is an option to buy such services, but you can also offer yours along with a product in return for a written review.
3. Corporate setup can shackle Startup potential
One should know the fact that early corporate training courses along with potential customer contracts and getting real-world marketing experiences are really important for a budding entrepreneur to steady his/ her ship. In addition, regular paychecks and further benefits of working in a corporate setup help in building useful resources between or before setting up a startup.
4. Local incubators spring most successful startups
An incubator helps to get over hesitations in the initial stages, by connecting with advisors, peers and guiding on how to set up your own business. On the contrary, most good founders of a startup proceed faster on their own, by not draining their time on peers and programs, and with no equity dilution.
5. Success stands on the pillars of great technology
Early adopters love to indulge in new technologies, but mass market customers desire for solutions, not technology. Startups can taste the success without having high-tech sources.
6. Make the product your priority and then proceed with business work
Business experts recommend starting marketing first to confirm that they have real customer interest and an appealing product concept. In addition, good marketing and support plans can take as long as product development. In fact, both should be done parallel to each other.
7. Difficult to compete against big companies
It is mandatory to understand the needs and niche of your business. This makes you act in a creative way and helps you being agile in such a way that you can experiment with the personality of your brand. Being faster and more efficient is all you need to leave your competition behind. Keep track of other big organizations and fill the gaps, whenever necessary.
Two of the ways through which you can market your company is, setting your startup for the audience that falls under the required niche, and build long-term relationships and increase the lifetime value of each consumer by building up brand loyalty.
8. Investors are in search of great design
Technologists forget that investors are buying a chunk of the business, not the product. Every solution needs a business team first who knows how to market, distribute and support the product.
9. Marketing is a necessary evil to sell weak solutions
Nowadays everyone relies on marketing and social media to find solutions to match their needs. Even the best technical solutions often fail due to lack of good marketing. For innovative solutions, marketing is the education consumers need in lieu of experience.
10. Paradigm-shift solutions lacks competition
The real competition to a new paradigm is the old paradigm. If there is no competition, investors see no market, meaning no customers, slow growth and big marketing costs. Mention paradigm shift only with other technologists.
One of the best medium to attract the attention of your potential customers is to use social media platform. You may use many of the available social networking sites for instance- Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube etc.
2. Listen to your customers
Listening to your customers is a great skill because this would reflect the market needs and will attract more customer attention. As a result, the connection with your customers would improve.
3. Give attention to seek attention
The entrepreneurs should give attention to the potential customers. It is more likely that they will receive the attention reciprocally.
4. Be unique and realistic
Being unique is the best way to attract potential customers. As an entrepreneur you need to be realistic regarding what your customers think and want.
5. Identify the ideal client clan
It is important to have a vivid picture of what type of customers you are seeking as an entrepreneur. It is advisable, therefore to focus on the target and avoid broad and vague statements.
6. Discover your customers’ locality
Explore the expected location of your targeted customers and nudge them accordingly. Where you look for customers will depend on the nature of your business. Forums and social media pages are some online platforms. Apart from these online platforms conferences and conventions are a great offline source to meet plenty of potential customers.
7. Know the nitty- gritty of your business
Having a firm knowledge about the company and product is proved to create a positive impact on customers. Due to informative attitude towards your product you can attract interested clients. The people who would be interested in your offerings can see how knowledgeable you are and will seek your assistance.
8. Go for direct response marketing
Try to create advertisements that attract your potential and ideal clients by giving them something of value for free to get them started in your funnel. To materialize the advertising strategy learn about direct response marketing practices. Further, create compelling messages that tell your ideal audience why they’d have to be a fool not to work with you. In addition, you can use other various gimmicks to encourage them to believe in your company and product/ service.
9. Build and create partnerships
Come in contact with big businesses/ companies that offer complementary services. Thus you can and take advantage of creating an effective edge over others in the market. Beckett suggests. “Focus on building human relationships. The stronger your relationships are, the more likely your customers will be to tell their friends about you. And, the more likely they’ll be to come back.”
