Tag: Product Strategy

Skills Required to be a Successful Entrepreneur

Developing entrepreneurial skills can lead to developing several types of skill sets together.

Entrepreneurs play a fundamental role in any economy, using the skills and initiative necessary to anticipate needs and bring good new ideas to market. Since there is so much at stake when starting and growing a successful business, there are specific skills that an entrepreneur usually needs to hone or acquire to be successful. 

Successful entrepreneurs have mastery over both hard and soft skills. Hard skills like accounting, marketing, and financial planning are critical for running and managing a business. On the other hand, soft skills like communication, problem-solving, and decision-making help you scale up your business. Mastery of entrepreneur skills requires practice and a dedicated learning plan. 

Below, we highlight seven such skills required to be a successful entrepreneur.

Successful entrepreneurs have mastery over both hard and soft skills.

Who is an Entrepreneur?

An entrepreneur is typically an individual who creates a new business, plays an active role in its operations, assumes most of the financial risk, and enjoys most of its success. The process of creating a new business – often driven by new ideas for products or services – is known as entrepreneurship. 

He is a person who pursues an opportunity, often commercially driven, to bring a new product or service to market with limited resources and high risk. The process of creating a new business is entrepreneurship, also defined as organizing limited resources to capitalize on a business opportunity. 

What are Entrepreneurial Skills?

Entrepreneurial skills are those associated with being an entrepreneur, although anyone can develop them. Being an entrepreneur usually means starting and building your own successful business, but people with entrepreneurial skills can thrive within larger organizations, too.

Entrepreneurial skills can encompass a range of various skill sets like technical skills, leadership and business management skills, and creative thinking. You can apply entrepreneurial skills to many different job roles and industries. Thus, developing entrepreneurial skills can lead to developing several types of skill sets together. 

7 Skills Every Entrepreneur Should Have

1. Communication Skills

Every entrepreneur needs to be an effective communicator. Whether you’re a solo entrepreneur or running a Fortune 500 company, you need to understand how to communicate effectively to all stakeholders and potential stakeholders that touch the business.

Whether through verbal communication during meetings or sending reports and messages through emails about the project, entrepreneurs require superior written and verbal communication skills. Apart from communication skills, entrepreneurs must be excellent listeners to understand the project requirements and discussion during project meetings.

2. Business Management Skills

Regardless of whether you like it or not, you will always need to manage your company. 

Business management skills are traits an entrepreneur must have to run a business and ensure all business goals are met. Entrepreneurs with this skill set can oversee and manage the operations of different departments because they possess a good understanding of the functions of each department. Business management skills include multitasking, delegating responsibilities, and making critical business decisions. Often, entrepreneurs achieve success in their businesses through their sheer strength of will.

3. Sales Skills

It is the most crucial entrepreneurial skill you need to have. A startup cannot survive without selling something to its customers. Entrepreneurs who develop skills in sales will learn how to stay on top of a competitive market, regardless of industry. 

Learning sales helps entrepreneurs develop tenacity and deep comprehension of their business process. Developing sales skills helps entrepreneurs make necessary failures, climb the learning curve, and gain the insights required to do well in business.

4. Time Management Skills

Time management: Among other soft skills, time management skills – such as prioritizing, scheduling, task management, and delegation – are of utmost importance to being a successful entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs with time management and organizational skills understand different ways to prioritize tasks and avoid procrastination. 

If you can manage your time well, you may find it easier to be more productive and more likely to finish your projects by the deadline. Developing time management skills will help you focus on time-sensitive tasks and reduce wasted time.

5. Leadership Skills

As an entrepreneur, you lead. 

Being able to inspire colleagues, empower the workforce and lead from the front requires excellent leadership skills. Exemplary leaders lead by example and can take a leadership role and work as a part of a team. Entrepreneurs with leadership skills motivate their employees, manage operations, and delegate tasks to reach the business goal.

Entrepreneurs also need to be able to train and manage the people they add to their team. When business owners learn how to encourage, develop and motivate staff, it boosts morale and keeps the company moving in the right direction.

6. Persistence

Persistence is a defining trait of successful entrepreneurs and one of the top qualities of the famous success iceberg. This quality helps entrepreneurs handle rejections, stress, and slow progress.

Persistent entrepreneurs are able to watch their ideas grow from nothing to the business they always envisioned. Entrepreneurship is not an easy route, and it requires a tremendous amount of patience to be able to see any results. Patience and persistence are keys to success for any entrepreneur, as well as learning how to view failures as valuable learning moments.

7. Networking Skills

Another valuable entrepreneurial skill is networking. Building a strong network of potential clients and business partners is what enables your business to grow. Networking allows you to search out and take advantage of opportunities you might not have had access to otherwise. Entrepreneurs need to learn how to develop mutually beneficial relationships with others. Networking is not all about what you can get from the other person. Rather, it is based on good communication and an exchange of value. 

Through a solid network, entrepreneurs can meet professionals to fund their ideas, access professional business expertise, and get feedback on their new venture or idea.

“Logic will get you from A to B. Imagination will take you everywhere.” – Albert Einstein

Importance of Entrepreneurial Skills in the Workplace

With the job market constantly changing, one should stay up to date on the top in-demand skills of the market and strive to learn or improve on them. Here are a few reasons why entrepreneurial skills are important:

  1. Ensures adaptability: Life skills make you more adaptable by preparing you to face difficulties and overcome them.
  2. Helps deal with failure: With life skills, you develop the ability to recover from failures and view them as learning opportunities.
  3. Assists in team collaboration: Mastering these skills will help you work collaboratively with others which will help build team collaboration.
  4. Increases accountability: Life skills teach you to be accountable for all your actions. It encourages new ideas and helps you stand for yourself. 

How to Make a Funding Proposal?

Startup funding proposals help startup founders share an overview of their business and make a case for why they should receive funding.

Whether you are a startup founder, business owner, or corporate entrepreneur, your funding proposal is very important. After all, it captures your rationale for why people should invest in your idea and give you a lot of money.

In this guide, we explore what a startup funding proposal is and how you can leverage it to build momentum in your fundraising.

Startup funding proposals help startup founders share an overview of their business and make a case for why they should receive funding.

What is Startup Funding?

Funding refers to the money required to start and run a business. It is a financial investment in a company for product development, manufacturing, expansion, sales and marketing, office spaces, and inventory. Many startups choose not to raise funding from third parties and are funded by their founders only (to prevent debts and equity dilution). However, most startups raise funding, especially as they grow and scale their operations. This page shall be your virtual guide to Startup funding.

Why Do Startups Require Funding?

A startup might require funding for one, a few, or all of the following purposes. An entrepreneur must be clear about why they are raising funds. Founders should have a detailed financial and business plan before they approach investors.

1. Prototype Creation

2. Product Development

3. Team Hiring

4. Working Capital

5. Legal and Consulting Services

6. Raw Materials and Equipment

7. Licenses and Certifications

8. Marketing and Sales

9. Office Space

10. Admin Expenses

What Is a Startup Funding Proposal?

Startup funding proposals help startup founders share an overview of their business and make a case for why they should receive funding.

Simply put, it is a text document, PDF, or slideshow presentation which gives a complete overview of the company and its goals. Through the proposal, investors can understand the what, why, and how of the company and get a better idea of why you are looking to raise a certain amount of money. It also helps investors who like to remain actively involved understand whether the company is worth their effort or not.

Startup funding proposals help startup founders share an overview of their business and make a case for why they should receive funding.

How To Make a Funding Proposal?

There is a basic structure to every business proposal. Here are the four parts, in order:

  1. Introduce yourself
  2. Show that you understand your customers/clients and their needs
  3. Describe how your goods and services meet those needs and present your expected expenses and profits
  4. Persuade the bank or committee that you have the integrity to be trusted with the money.

You don’t need to start with blank pages, either. You can speed up the proposal writing process using pre-designed templates and samples.

Here is a short list of all the different points an investment proposal should touch upon:

1. Summary of your project:

Start the document with an abstract of your project and its purpose. It is the part that most investors will use to determine if they wish to continue reading. In it, make sure you discuss the key points that offer clarity to investors. You can include details of what your company does and how is it different from existing solutions to pressing problems. You may also emphasize the importance of your product in your industry and how it improves the industry.

2. Current performance of your company:

Here, you give a more in-depth overview of your company. Point out what you are doing, how you are doing it, and what you are building. List your current assets and liabilities to help investors understand your startup’s strengths and weaknesses. If your company is still at its ideation stage, pair the proposal with an MVP presentation. If you are at a later funding stage, it is also important to add a paragraph where investors can find out more about your financial reports.

3. Details of existing investors, partners, and team:

Briefly introduce existing business partners (including investors), their background, and the amount you have managed to raise from them. If applicable, enter the number of funding rounds your company has already been through and the amount raised. At this stage, you should also briefly introduce the existing team members, their background and skill set, and a link for those who wish to see their complete CV and LinkedIn profile.

4. Information related to the product market:

Mention the market size, obtainable market share, product adoption rate, historical and forecasted market growth rates, and macroeconomic drivers of the market you plan to target in the funding proposal. Briefly describe the results of your market potential analysis and showcase the potential to scale shortly, along with a sustainable and stable business plan. If your business is already generating income, make sure you indicate and break down your revenue numbers.

5. Operational feasibility:

Create an overview of the projected operating costs by splitting them into different categories of expenditures. Describe the assumed operational costs of your biggest competitors and how these translate into their growth (if applicable). Further, describe the challenges and limitations related to the technical aspects of your company and the team’s skillset.

6. Company’s current valuation, investment requirements, and expected returns:

Start by pointing out the current valuation of your company and list the sources that derive this conclusion. Make sure to get your company’s valuation done by a trusted third party. Based on the company valuation, describe the amount and type of funding you are looking to acquire and the amount of equity you are willing to give up. Now, give an overview of how the funds will be utilized by creating a generic overview of the next steps. Spend a lot of time on this one as it is the most important subchapter for investors.

Five Steps to a Successful Product Launch

A well-planned product launch strategy can also help improve the company’s reputation.

So you have aced the task of identifying and developing a product you believe in. So, what’s next? Do you want to launch it to market? Well, launching a new product is no easy feat!

Countless new product and service ideas are conceived every year. But most ideas fail to succeed because they’re not brought to the market properly.

If you think having a recognizable brand name guarantees the success of a product, you’re most certainly mistaken. Many highly recognized companies failed the product launch step, including the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 and Amazon Fire Phone.

On the contrary, other well-known brands have been a raving success with product launches, including Apple, Google, and Under Armour. Then there are brands we had never heard of before but suddenly became household names due to successful product launches. These include Magnum Icecream and FiberOne.

Planned Product launch strategy can also help improve the company’s reputation
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Product Development Process: A Step-by-Step Guide

The six stages outlined above will get your team through all steps of the process, from initial idea screening to the development phase.

Bringing your vision for an original new product to life is frequently one of the biggest hurdles for aspiring entrepreneurs.

However, it has become crucial for businesses to keep updating their products to conform to current trends. The business environment is dynamic and competitive, and new product development is one of the best ways to withstand competition.

What Is the Product Development Process?

Product development encompasses all steps to take a product from concept to market availability. It is the overall process of strategy, organization, concept generation, product and marketing plan creation and evaluation, and commercialization of a new product.

Product development requires the work and input of many teams across a business, including Development, Design, Marketing, Sales, Finance, and Testing. Product managers act as the strategic directors of the development process and oversee the progress.

Bringing your vision for an original new product to life is frequently one of the biggest hurdles for aspiring entrepreneurs.
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Conducting Market Research: A Guide

Today, we live in a consumer-driven world, and businesses face cut-throat competition to survive and succeed in the market.

A company cannot succeed without understanding the consumer’s needs and behavior, so it relies on intensive backend market research. Market research not only tells a company what to produce, but it also tells how to present the product to the consumer. Work doesn’t end here. Once the product is out in the market, market research is conducted to gather information about customer feedback so that the company can make necessary changes to increase its reach.

If you’re new to market research, this guide will provide a blueprint for conducting a thorough study of your market, target audience, competition, and more.

A company cannot succeed without understanding the consumer’s needs and behavior, so it relies on intensive backend market research
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Steps to take an idea to market

While a good business idea will have an impact on all phases of a company’s development, other entrepreneurial efforts also play a role in shaping the future.

Everything begins as an idea. Whether you’re in business, school, jail, or debt, that’s how it all gets rolling. But what is the true significance of an idea? An idea is a thought or collection of thoughts generated in the mind. Ideas often form during brainstorming sessions or through discussions.

All world-changing events and great success stories can be traced back to a single idea. But don’t fall into the belief that having a great idea is all you need. If you have a great idea, then you’ve completed the first step of becoming a successful entrepreneur. Now you need to work on turning that idea into a reality by taking it to market and letting your business change the world.

A business idea is a starting point for any current or future entrepreneur. It is necessary because it marks the start of a new life – the life of a business and an entrepreneur.

While a good business idea will have an impact on all phases of a company’s development, other entrepreneurial efforts also play a role in shaping the future.

This post covers all the necessary steps for an entrepreneur to take an idea to the market.

A business idea impacts the overall development of the company.
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Determining the Market Size of a Product

The two quickest and most common ways entrepreneurs use to determine the market size are the top-down and the bottom-up approaches.

One of the most important things to know before you even think about turning an idea into a product is the size of the market you’re going to be targeting.

You might have a great product, a cutting edge website, a well-trained and enthusiastic team, and customers who love your product, but your company might still run at a loss if there aren’t enough customers in the market to support the business. 

To avoid such a situation, professional entrepreneurs and investors conduct market sizing exercises before investing in a new business.

Don’t find customers for your product, find product for your customers- Seth Godin
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How to Know if a Product is Marketable?

You might think your product or service will sweep the market away, but without having a foundation of information about your customer’s wants and needs, you can’t know if your product will do well.

Thousands of new products launch every month. Yet only a fraction of those gets enough traction to be considered successful.

Knowing whether or not your product will sell is one of the biggest questions in marketing. You might think your product or service will sweep the market away, but without having a foundation of information about your customer’s wants and needs, you can’t know if your product will do well.

In this article, we explore the concept of product marketability and ways to know whether your product is marketable.

Conducting market research can help you learn how many consumers or businesses could use the product

What Is Product Marketability?

Marketability is essentially a measure of whether a product will appeal to buyers and sell at a set price range to generate a profit.

Marketing techniques include public relations, advertising, trade shows, collateral production, and other functions such as product quality assurance and documentation.

Product developers should complete a marketability evaluation before attempting to market products. Doing so helps marketing managers and other executives determine whether the product is marketable in the current and future market.

4 Ways to Know if Your Product is Marketable

When starting a business one of the big questions you’ll want the answer to is, “How can I know if my product will sell?”

There are several ways to know if your product will sell before creating it. These methods don’t guarantee success but will dramatically increase your odds.

Conduct Market Research

Researching to determine if there is a market for your business is key to successfully selling your product.

We recommend you do some market research before devoting too much time and money to the business. Conducting market research can help you learn how many consumers or businesses could use the product. Once you’ve determined the demand for your product, ensure that it can be made and supplied at a low enough cost that your retail pricing is affordable. It can also help you assess your competitors, which will exist regardless of how unique you believe your innovation is.

Listen to the Market

If you are in the business world, you need to accept that customers in the market determine the fate of your company’s success. Customers have the final word when determining whether an item is purchased or not. Getting to know the market before you begin selling your product can give a clearer outline of what you will experience.

Once you have a better understanding of the market you are about to dive into, you can make better business decisions on how to approach the market.

Your target customer should serve the base upon which all other concepts are built. After all, your consumer determines your product’s success.

Test Your Product

Some of the biggest companies test their products before introducing the product to an entire market. You can create a prototype and begin with small testing either online or in select stores. It will help you answer questions to a degree that research may not. Getting customer feedback can help you tweak your product or idea before mass producing something that might fail.

If your target customer enjoys your service and offers good feedback, you know you’ve got a marketable product.

Find the Right Price

One of the most impactful product marketing tactics is pricing. Product price gives your product a status (affordable or high-quality), an audience (based on disposable income), and competitors. Use your product, audience, and competitor research to identify the perfect price point for your product, considering product costs and profit margins. Keeping up with market trends will help you determine if you should raise your lower your prices.

The key to determining your price is that it needs to sustain your business. If you price your products at a loss or an unsustainable profit margin, you will find it challenging to grow and scale.

There are other important factors that your pricing needs to account for, like how you’re priced in relation to your competitors, and what your pricing strategy means for your business and your customers’ expectations. But before you can worry about anything like that, you need to make sure you’ve found a sustainable base price.

Product price gives your product a status.

The Product Manager Roles

The product manager is in charge of determining a product’s marketability and is ultimately responsible for its success in the market. In terms of determining the marketability of a product, the product manager’s responsibilities include product conception (product market and market research), product development, product launch, product sustaining, and product discontinuance.

Wrapping Up

People often laud entrepreneurial risk-taking. Indeed, starting a business requires a leap of faith. However, it is important to remember that people who took a risk and lost it all tend to keep their failures to themselves, and thus we only hear about those who have succeeded.

We recommend that you start your own business only when you’ve done your research and are confident you will succeed instead of underestimating the risk involved in starting a new business.

How do you take a business idea to market?

The process of conceiving an idea to seeing your product on the shelf can be very long and most inventions take years to come to fruition.

Introduction:

Everything begins as an idea. However, when it comes to turning a business idea into a marketable service or product, many entrepreneurs struggle with where to start. Maybe you’re struggling with how to sell your product or service, or you’re afraid someone will steal your idea. Wherever your challenge lies, the magic is in the execution. You must be prepared to invest time and money and factor in some determination to turn your vision into reality.

This article explores the concept of a business idea and streamlines the process of turning an idea into reality.

Proven methods and easy to start business ideas to make a successful business.

What is an Idea?

An idea is a thought or collection of thoughts generated in the mind. Ideas often form during brainstorming sessions or through discussions. Although all world-changing events and great success stories can be traced back to a single idea, don’t fall into the belief that having a great idea is all you need. If you have a great idea, you’ve only completed the first step of becoming a successful entrepreneur. Now you need to work on turning that idea into a reality by taking it to market and letting your business change the world.

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How to take a business idea to the next level ?

Whether you own a small, medium, or large company, there is always room to be more innovative and make improvements aimed at growing your business and taking it to the next level.

Isn’t it every entrepreneur’s ultimate goal to take a business from zero to hero?

Taking your business to the next level is key to ensuring that you’re ready to meet the market’s changing demands and that you’re always leading the charge in your industry. It allows your company to survive in difficult times and grow when opportunities arise.

Whether you own a small, medium, or large company in any phase of the business life cycle, there is always room to be more innovative in the way you deliver your product or service and make improvements aimed at growing your business.

However, for most business ventures, growth doesn’t happen overnight. Typically, there will be trial and error as you wade through what will make your business successful.

To assist you in the process, ahead are a few business strategies for taking a business idea to the next level.

Every business has to be very innovative to take the business to the next level.

Connect with customers

Knowing your customer in a wholesome manner is prominent to have a strong customer base. As an entrepreneur, you must know what your customers want, their preferences and desires, what they are looking for, and their purchasing behavior.

Maintaining an enhanced customer base will build confidence and loyalty in them for the brand and give the company free marketing in terms of word of mouth.

If you are a retailer with no online presence, consider setting up a web store as another way to capture sales and connect to the clients. Consider engaging with your clients through emails and social media campaigns.

Leverage social media

Social media is one of the strongest tools in the business development strategy. Numerous social media platforms allow sellers to reach their potential customers and the masses.

By implementing a comprehensive social media strategy, you can ensure social media works as a driver of new business that positively promotes your service offerings. However, to best leverage social media, it is important to understand your customers and identify the channels through which they prefer to communicate. Instead of using social media to sell your product, use it to give away your knowledge, your industry trends, your insights on the preferred platforms, and focus on building a relationship with your followers.

Stay abreast of technological developments

Keeping abreast of technological developments is paramount to flourishing in the industry. Knowing and learning new technologies can help businesses make sound decisions that can further help them to save time, money, and other resources. Updated technologies can help enhance business activities leading to holistic development and a profound market stand. Further, you must consider information security not so much as protection against a threat, but as an investment to grow in a digital economy.

Network and ask for help

As an entrepreneur, you have to dedicate effort to networking as often as possible. Networking will give you a tremendous learning opportunity, knowledge, and new connections to lead your company to the next level, with the support and advice of others.

All small businesses face challenges, particularly in the early operational stage. This is why asking for help from your peers/mentor who may be more experienced than you is critical. Tapping into the mind of someone with more experience and a broader knowledge base will ensure you learn and acquire the skills needed to make a success of your business.

Think outside the box

Taking your company to the next level requires thinking creatively. Make sure your company wins the innovation game. Introduce fresh products, ideas, services, and new ways of doing — not for the sake of just coming up with something “new,” but to anticipate what else you can do to help your customers achieve a greater result.

Think outside the box, venture into uncharted territory, and expand your intellectual scope. For example, the drive-through concept commonly found in fast food was an idea borrowed from bankers.

Own the Right Skills To Take Your Business To The Next Level

There are several skills and attributes you may find helpful to possess and develop to form a successful business, including:

  • Perseverance
  • Organization
  • Commitment
  • Negotiation
  • Sales
  • Communication
  • Time management
  • Problem-solving
  • Attention to detail

Conclusion

If you have been struggling to figure out how to take your business to the next level, you must check out the i2MF program. This program is for aspiring entrepreneurs who have already taken the first step of entrepreneurship – the thinking up of an idea – and are now looking to turn it into a sellable product. It will help you know your target market, target customers, and competitors better, and thus build your business model.