Some people feel that the global crisis makes them have to do some activities that may never be done before, even in their entire life. In the past, they might do the spending and shopping activities as their wish. They need not to think about the money they spend as well as the opportunity for them to use the money for other need that may be a lot more beneficial for some other important thing. It is involving the use of the credit cards that may become a huge burden for them in the future life. It is since the use of credit card is not felt as a big expense every time they purchase some items. But the bill will come and be prepared to be shock. Thus, so many people are now realizing the mistake that they made in the past, and they now start to do some consideration by doing household budgeting.
But still there are some important things that should be realized by those people who “feel” that they conduct the “correct” household budgeting. All they do is keeping track of the expenses that they do in the whole month. All the expenses or we can say where the money goes is done carefully and in detail so that the person can see what expense that is need to be cut or which one is the useless one. But is this the proper household budgeting that should be done by each person or each family? Some financial experts consider it as a waste of time. It is since they think what is the use of knowing the expense if you have already lose the money? For example, if you have already bought a plasma TV and later found that there is no use of buying such item while you can spend it to the more useful one such as education tuition and many more. Thus, a household budgeting should be done before you spend your money, not after you realize that you have spent too much.
While it’s not always the case, most likely you will need to find an investor for your startup. You have an idea, but it needs money to make the idea comes true. And since you just start, you might not have your own money to put into your startup. That’s why you need to find investors who are willing to put money into your startup in exchange of a portion of the ownership.
Sometimes you will find potential investors at unexpected times. That’s why you need to always be prepared to introduce yourself and your business. Moreover, you need to do it in the limited time available. You might have just a couple minutes to explain your business and because of that you need to prepare an elevator pitch.
The purpose of an elevator pitch is to rise interest of your business so that you can make further contact with the potential investor. The important thing here is to build interest. You don’t have time to explain your business in detail so don’t do that. You just need to make the investor interested enough to keep communicating with you. You can explain the details later when you already secure an open channel of communication with her.
So learn to explain your business in a concise way. Make sure to include all the points that make your business different from your competitors. Make sure to explain that there is demand for your product and that the demand will grow. Explain how your idea can solve your customers’ problems.
After preparing a pitch, practice it with your friends and ask for their feedbacks. Keep revising your pitch until you and your friends are satisfied with it. Now you are ready when those opportunities come.
Nobody wants to fail, though someone can learn a lot through failure. To minimze the chance of failure in your business, you need to prepare a business plan. A business plan won’t just help you get fund from investors, but also prepares you to manage your business successfully.
The reason is that preparing a business plan pushes you to think more about your business before taking action. It pushes to look at different aspects of your business so that you can anticipate potential problems that might arise. It also helps you prepare your business to face the competition and thrive.
For that reason, you need to prepare your business plan seriously. Don’t just make it for the sake of having a business plan. Instead, look at it as a thinking process that will prepare you for every aspect of your business. I’d even say that the thinking process is more important than the business plan itself. Why? Because the business plan – the document – could be irrelevant if situation changes. But the thinking process trains you to have a prepared mind that will be useful in any situation. Even if you meet new problems along the way, you will already know how to think about it to make the right decisions.
If you have partners, make sure to get them involved in preparing the business plan. Not only do you need to learn how to think, but also you need to learn how to think collectively. It’s a very useful skill for you to have.
When you want to start your own business, one of the most important factors you should pay attention to is finding the right partners. Don’t be so focused on the financial side of your business that you forget about the people side.
A business, after all, is run by people so the quality of the people you work with should be a top priority. Even the best business plan won’t help you a bit if the people can’t execute it. You need to have the best people on your team. In fact, many potential investors will decide whether or not to invest in your startup based on the quality of the people in your team.
So spend enough time to find the right partners. Don’t be in hurry in this phase. You want to make sure that you get the right people because it will affect you in the long term.
Now that we’ve seen the importance of choosing the right partners, how should we choose them?
One thing you should find in your partners is complementary skills. Don’t find someone who has the knowledge and skills as you. If you do that, you won’t be stronger as a team because you don’t broaden your range of knowledge and skills. Instead, find someone who can complement you. Look at your weaknesses and find someone who can cover it. On the other hand, make sure that your strengths can cover his weaknesses. This way your team will be much stronger because the people in it complement each other.
The next thing you need to find is, of course, the ability to work in a team. If someone has the best skills in the world but can’t work in a team, then don’t choose him. You need to synergize with each other as a team. Find a team player, not a solo player.
