Becoming an entrepreneur

1.0 Who is an entrepreneur?

An entrepreneur is an individual who creates a new business or improve an existing one, bearing most of the risk and enjoying most of the rewards. This process of setting up a business is known as ENTREPRENEURSHIP.

Entrepreneurs play a key role in any economy, using their skills and initiatives necessary to anticipate needs and bring new ideas to market. Entrepreneurship that proves to be successful in taking on the risks of creating a start-up is rewarded with profits and growth opportunities.

An entrepreneur combines resources (land/natural resources, labour and capital) to manufacture goods or provide services. They typically create a business plan, hire labour, acquire resources and financing, and provide leadership and management for the business.

Land/natural resources: This can include the facilities, raw material, equipment, chemical needed for manufacturing or to render service.

Labour: This means any valuable service rendered by a human agent to make your business grow. It includes the services of manual labourers, but it covers many other kinds of services as well.

Capital: The money you have at hand to run day-to-day operations of your business and grow in the future.

2.0 Why be an entrepreneur?

There are many reasons to becoming an entrepreneur, from its freedom and flexibility to the job satisfaction it can offer. Some of the reasons why you need to consider being an entrepreneur are listed below:

 There are problems to solve

Looking at the world today, problems that needs solution are figured at daily which require individual to consider being an entrepreneur so as to be an answer or solution to the problems by creating and starting a business.

 Be your own boss

If you want to be in control of an organization or business, you need to consider entrepreneurship. All key decision, leadership of the business will be made by you and controlled by you.

 Decide where, when and how to work

Being an entrepreneur is one of the most flexible jobs that exists. You set your own timetable, judging when to work hard and knowing when to take a break. It is a real gift to be able to fit a job around your lifestyle, and not the other way around.

 Create a positive impact

Starting and running a business gives you the opportunity to make a positive impact. Whether it's uplifting society, creating jobs in your local community or leading the way in sustainable business and showing others how to protect the environment.

 Constant growth and development

Being your own boss is not easy and neither is running a business. You will need to be brave, take risks and believe in yourself. You will also need to be able to solve problems and admit when something has gone wrong. Staying positive, thinking creatively and being solution-minded are all valuable skills that will serve you well in life, as well as business.

3.0 Types of Entrepreneurships

3.1 Small business Entrepreneurship

This refers to an individual opening a business without turning it into a big conglomerate or having many chains i.e., not expanding. Examples of small business entrepreneurship are as follows:

 Grocery shop

 A retail shop to sell goods and services

 A little restaurant

3.2 Scalable start-up entrepreneurship

This kind of entrepreneurship is when entrepreneurs believe that their company can bring a change. They often receive funding from venture capitalists and hire specialized employees. Scalable start-ups look for things that are missing in the market and create solutions for them. Many of these types of businesses start in Silicon Valley and are technology focused. They seek rapid expansion and big profit returns. Examples of scalable start-ups are Facebook, Instagram and Uber.

3.3 Social entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurs in this category want to solve social problems with their services and products. The main purpose of entrepreneurs in this category is to make the world a better place. They don’t start to make big profit or wealth. Examples of entrepreneurs in this category include NGOs (non-governmental organisations), social group.

3.5 Innovative Entrepreneurship

Innovative entrepreneurs practice the establishment and creation of new business ideas intending to generate profit, assist their community and accomplish company goals. Innovative entrepreneurs develop business models to meet the needs of an organization and improve their competitiveness in the market.

Other types of entrepreneurships are:

 Husler entrepreneurship

 Imitator entrepreneurship

 Researcher entrepreneurship

 Buyer entrepreneurship etc.

4.0 CEO Mindset

A CEO mindset is a set of psychological traits, which form the makings of a successful business leader/owner, including confidence, ambition and resilience. Setbacks and challenge should not stop these individuals from growing and moving forward.

NOTE: “What you think, you become!”

We are all capable of developing and growing as individuals. If you allow yourself to believe that you can develop a CEO mindset and working towards it, you will.

A CEO mindset is categorized into the following:

4.1 Growth mindset: A growth mindset is the believe that you can develop your skills and talents through hard work, guidance from other and the right strategy.

4.2 Positive mindset: This means that you always think the best is yet to come and is going to happen.

4.3 Entrepreneurial mindset: An entrepreneurial mindset is a set of skills that enable people to identify and make the most of opportunities, overcome and learn from setbacks and succeed in variety of settings. Even when the conditions say otherwise, entrepreneurial mindset is resilient, resourceful and solution oriented.

4.1 Challenge mindset: This is when entrepreneurs react positively to the stressors and adversity that they encounter.

5.0 Starting a business

Being your own boss starts with the decision to make the big leap. You need to follow the steps below to starting your own business.

5.1 Discover your big idea

It all begins with an idea. It is very important to know what mode or kind of business you want to go into or problem you want to solve. this is often a long and time-consuming process but have some patience and you will bring to life some fantastic idea.

5.2 Research your business idea

This deals with making enquiry or wanting to know about that business idea of yours. It starts by defining and analysing your target market, knowing the demand for your product or services, having a marketing and sale plan and making sure your model will work in the market. The best way to do this is via social media or by consulting an existing entrepreneur.

5.3 Write a business plan

Once your idea is well figured out, there are some important questions you need to ask yourself: What is the purpose of your business? Who are you selling to? What are your end goals? How will you finance your start-up costs? These questions can be answered in a well-written business plan.

Business owners make a lot of mistakes by rushing into a business without considering getting a business plan which is the road map for every business.

You need to find your target customer. Who is going to buy your product or service? What would be the point if you cannot find evidence of a demand for your idea?

5.4 Finance your business

Starting a business comes with a price, you need to determine how you will cover those costs. Do you have the means to fund your start-up, or will you need to borrow money? If you are planning to leave your current job to focus on your business, do you have savings to support yourself until you make a profit? When you are financing a business, you don’t put all your savings into it i.e. do not put all your egg in one basket, by knowing this, you will now decide where you want to source your fund from depending on the level and capacity of business.

Some of the source of business funding are listed below:

5.4.1 Personal investment/funding: This is when you invest your personal savings to fund your start-ups.

5.4.2 Friends and family financing: Sourcing for business capital from friends and family can be an option when starting a business. Consider asking them for some financial help to kickstart your business. This type of business funding can take the form of loans or equity in exchange for cash. If you ask for funds from friends or family, also known as love money, it is usually just to get your business off the ground. Chances are they do not have enough money to completely fund your business.

5.4.3 Angel Investors: These are wealthy individual who are ready to give the funding you need to kickstart your business in exchange for equity. They can be just one person or group of people who join their money together.

5.4.4 Crowd funding: This is when you get small amount of money from many people {businesses, organization, individuals}. This usually happens online where communicate with large group of people.

5.4.5 Grant: Grant is a money given to business for free without paying back. This kind of fund can be given by government or other organizations for a particular purpose.

5.4.6 Loans and overdraft (Commercial banks, cooperative group): This is a fund given by financial organizations to business or individual. The loanee will pay back the fund given together with interest depending on the agreement between the bank and the loanee.

5.4.7 Venture capital: This is a form of private equity financing provided by venture capital firms or fund to early stage and emerging companies that have been foreseen to have long term high growth potential. This venture capital firms invest in this emerging companies in return for equity.

5.4.8 Business incubation: This is a program that gives emerging company, early-stage companies access to professional mentorship, support and investors.

These are the few out of the many ways to fund your business as a start-up or existing one. You can contact us at [email protected] for consultation and further enquiry.

5.5 Choose a business name

Getting yourself a business name is very essential to make it distinctive and easy to recognize in the market world. There are ways to go about this, knowing the message you want your business name to pass and the kind of brand or niche you are considering. Many businesses fail because of failure to choose the right name also many businesses make wave and prosper due to the right business name. Some of the things to consider when choosing a business name are:

 Decide on what your business name want to communicate

 Choose out of many i.e., have many option

 Avoid long name

 Let your business name be unique

 Ask your audience (Family and friend, targeted audience)

 Visualize it

For more business consultation, do well to contact us at [email protected]

5.6 Register your Business

Registration of business is very essential and very important to operate legally in your country. This registration is either done by government or responsible body in the country. E.g., the body responsible for registering a business In Nigeria is called the “Cooperate Affairs Commission” CAC. Registering your business with this appropriate body gives your business the full legal right to operate in the country. The best way to know the procedure for registering business in your own country is to go to your web browser and search “How to register my business in my country”. You can contact us at [email protected] for your business registration.

5.7 Choose a business bank account

Getting a business bank account for your business helps you to separate, monitor and manage your business finances. A business account can be gotten from a commercial bank, registered microfinance bank etc.

6.0 Growing your Business

There is no sure formula for instant success and growth in business, but it is sure that with consistency, hard work and having the right mindset you’ll surely build your business from start up to being an established business owner. Follow the tips below to know how to grow your business.

6.1 Be organized

In order to achieve business success, you need to be organized. To be organized is to create a to-do list each day, this will help you to complete task and achieve your day-to-day target and also help you to ensure you are not forgetting anything in your daily business growth.

6.2 Hire the right people

Hiring the right people will fast track the growth and success of your business. When you hire hardworking and vision carrier employees, with time your business will grow beyond measure.

6.3 Be wise in taking risk

One thing that is inevitable is that you must take risk but always take a reasonable risk. There is a saying that ”you can’t check the depth of a river by putting the two legs” which means you need wisdom in running a business. When you see an opportunity to grow your business which will require lots of funding, you are required to test-to-confirm with a little fund to know how it works, an offer to partner with a co entrepreneur might surface which is good but what you need to do is to take a good risk and not a harmful one. An entrepreneur must learn to identify, evaluate and mitigate opportunities and strategies before taking the ris.

6.4 Invest in yourself

The best or greatest investment an entrepreneur can make is in himself/herself. By investing in yourself is to make yourself into a more experienced, outstanding and knowledgeable person. Some of the ways to invest in yourself is to:

 Set goals

 Find a mentor

 Read books/journals

 Learn always/ feed your brain

 Obtain new certification

 Attending business conferences/seminars (paid or free)

“Are you prepared to put in the time and energy to create change in your life? Are you prepared to make and keep that commitment? If not you, then who? Invest in yourself.”

6.5 Be accountable to someone

This is very important because without having someone to be accountable to is like a sheep without an anchor. This kind of person can be a mentor, even though you are the MD/CEO of your company, you must account for all the activities going on in your business to such person. Such person will let you know when things are fine or not in your business.

NOTE: The person you must be accountable to must be an entrepreneur and must also be someone you trust or can vouch for.

6.6 Boost your customer service

One of the greatest methods of growing business is to focus on improving customer service. When you make your customer happy by exceeding their expectations, they will likely offer you a free advert by telling their friends, colleagues, family and followers about your business. Offering of discounts to customers, making sure they are satisfied with the service rendered by you or the goods sold to them will make you establish a good reputation for good and certified customer service.

6.7 Make use of the social media effectively

Social media has been the marketplace for businesses, and it is the best place to reach customers home and abroad. Creating of profile on every major social media platform like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and twitter will make intending and existing customers find your business and reach it easily.

6.8 Be a wise spender

Never have it in mind that you have gotten there and start spending all profit anyhow. Some people when they start making profit in their business will think it is time to start buying luxury, going on vacation or even going out with friends. It is good to enjoy but it is wiser to reinvest your profit at the early stage of your business.

6.9 Always put God first

The source of idea and inspiration is God, so always put God first in your business to experience massive profit and growth.