Originally Written by
Kayleigh Alexandra
Microstartups.org
Starting a business is a goal that lots of students share while they are getting their degree. Some have the fire and motivation to make their dream business a reality. Students who complete college to continue onto the path of entrepreneurship are bold path blazers, at least they have to be to make it out there.
After trials and tribulations, the excitement of learning, the stress of exams, and the enrichment of social exploration, your studies will inevitably come to an end (as all good things do). For many, this stage of life is intimidating, if not terrifying. The familiar foundation disappears from beneath your feet, and you drop into uncharted waters — unsure where to go.
Still, it isn’t a time for fear or despair. It’s a time for exploration! Everything prior to that point is preparation intended to build your mind and spirit. Making you into someone with the strength and character to earn the kind of life you want. You’ve already shown you have what it takes to get ahead when you finish your studies.
Your future is for you to decide, so consider all of the available options. Maybe you want a comfortable position, or there’s a company you want to work with. Then set a goal and start moving toward it as soon as possible, maybe now.
Or perhaps you’re like many people today and want to work for yourself; being able to set your own schedule, profit fully from your hard work, and never have to deal with a boss. If so, you’re in luck, because it’s never been easier to start your own business. Read on for some tips on doing just that.
Come Up With A Workable Business Concept
This step is far easier said than done; so much so that plenty of people will never get past it. You need to think of a product or service that you can offer – and profit from selling. You can sell almost anything at a loss, so don’t assume an idea is solid because there’s demand for it. If there’s no potential for profit, it’s pointless to begin going down that path.
A good starting point when selling products is to push two existing concepts together to see what results. For instance, someone at some point had the idea of combining “the internet” and “refrigerators” to get smart fridges. Think about technologies and products already available in your chosen field, and look for gaps between them. You could easily fill those gaps and open up a new mini market.
If you want to offer a service (consulting, perhaps), then you need to pick out a unique selling point (USP) of some sort. What will make people want to work with you specifically? Your level of quality, your affordable rates, or your turnaround time? As you would when choosing products, try to choose a USP that fills a gap in the market.
Investigate Comparable Businesses
Next, you must conduct some market research to see what relevant types of businesses are already in operation. You’ll need to narrow things down, of course; think about what your studies have primed you to do (and what you want to do). See which brands are succeeding, or failing, doing similar things. Once you’ve picked out some brands, you can use a competitor analysis tool (like this one from Brandwatch) to learn about your ideal audience.
You can start with some simple Google searching. Type in the kind of product or service you’re planning to offer, and run through the top results. Note that your searches will likely be affected by your location, and if you plan to operate locally in another area, add the name of that location to your search. What impresses you about the results? How good or bad are the websites? What about the prices?
A good option here is to survey your target audience on the brands they like and dislike. You can use something like the online sample service from Qualtrics: define your niche, and get an appropriate sample of survey respondents. If you truly don’t feel that you can compete with existing businesses, and you don’t see enough room in the niche for everyone, then rethink your concept. Remember the GIGO principle — garbage in, garbage out. If your concept isn’t viable, then any effort to build a business around it will be an exercise in futility.
Base Your Business Online
Even freelancers used to need conventional offices to appear credible in the eyes of many prospective clients. Full businesses needed large offices, with their reputations often being heavily affected by the quality of their premises. This meant that setting up a business could be extremely expensive, to the point of most being unable to achieve it.
Today, you don’t need an office to run a business, because you can run it completely online. This is particularly true if you want to operate as a freelancer. You can set up a business website and promote your services purely through the internet, then work remotely. If you want to sell products, then it’s easy to move into the ecommerce world. You will admittedly still need to invest in sourcing, storing and shipping the products, admittedly — though there are options in the form of dropshipping and warehousing that can even make that easy.
This doesn’t mean that you have to be online-exclusive, though. Instead, you can view it as a launching pad: if you set up an online retail store that becomes hugely popular, you’ll always have the option of setting up a brick-and-mortar store to expand it. It’s actually fairly convenient at this point: for instance, Shopify has a POS hardware package that can provide the full range of tools needed to run a physical store that shares a back-end with an online store.
Alternatively, if you start making enough money through offering services, you can invest in an office to start building a team around you — or even just hire remote workers and save the office money, because that can work extremely economically when done well.
Promote Through Your Established Business Contacts
Simply getting your business up and running is just the start. If you want it to succeed, you need to promote it — and since you’re coming off your studies, why not take advantage of the contacts you made throughout that time in education? Whether it’s the friends you made in classes or the teachers who helped you, you have access to smart people with the ability to offer invaluable feedback (and possibly connections of their own). Use LinkedIn to help you piece things together since you’re unlikely to remember everyone.
You might worry about being accused of cronyism, but you’re not manipulating your way into a position of power: you’re just leaning on people who already know and trust you, and there’s nothing wrong with that. In the end, getting opportunities won’t make you a success: if your business can’t deliver results, then no number of connections will help it thrive.
After reading through this piece, do you think you’d want to run your own business? It’s very freeing, but just as stressful, and not for anyone who wants an easy life. If so, follow these suggestions to get started — you just might carve out your career path.
