What’s the best way to steer clear of deceptive markets, false impressions, and mass hallucinations? The answer lies within.
At a time when worthless startups are valued at billions of dollars and others are just becoming the next big thing, illusions can creep into the minds of potential entrepreneurs and blind their judgment of reality. In this basic guide, we’ll tell you how get real and escape la-la land.
The Market
Following your gut may be a good thing if you’re playing a game of UNO with 16-year-olds, but going blindly with a gut feeling that your business idea will be successful is just a step toward a long and painful journey of enlightenment. Before you even think of starting a business, you’ll need to understand and study the market via number-crunching and extensive research.
If you’re opening a new restaurant, go out to eat at the establishments of your potential competitors. Look at what they offer, and see what really makes them stand out. If you have no potential competitors, you’re heading for an untapped market that no one else has discovered yet. There are no guarantees that this will prove an easier route. In fact, it can be much more difficult than competition with an established rival. Nobody has tried making a chapati-flavored milkshake, for example, but that won’t make it an instant success.
“If you have no potential competitors, you’re heading for an untapped market that no one else has discovered yet.
Your Customers
Your potential customers represent the only real force that can keep your business running. Mistreat them, and they will drag you out of business no matter how good your product is. We’ve seen so many companies that customers love to hate because of their greedy and vicious tactics: for example, shipping companies that rip you off because they are the only ones offering services to telecoms who monopolize countries and charge a fortune for mediocre service. At the end of the day, customers will fight back the moment they hear that a new competitor is in town.
Don’t plan a business that exploits your customers’ weaknesses and preys upon their immediate needs. They will only denounce you whenever they can. Be the business that saves your customers from the cruel companies they love to hate, and treat them the same way you would like to be treated.
Know Yourself
Before you commit time, effort, and resources to your new business, make sure that you actually understand yourself. We have no shortage of self-proclaimed gurus in every possible social media network, newspaper, and TV channel. Please don’t be one of the delusional idiots who builds towers of lies, one after another, until they can no longer decipher that what they have constructed is a mere illusion.
“Before you commit time, effort, and resources to your new business, make sure that you actually understand yourself.
Be humble, respectful, and realistic with yourself and your customers. Try to take criticism seriously in order to develop yourself, your ideas, and your business. Understand your actual capabilities and skills, and know who you really are. You will never be so smart that you won’t have to listen, and there will always be someone around who can outsmart you.
