False Start Guarantee Failure

Many business fail not because they were bad ideas or they were not managed well. Even with all the resources (phisical, financial, human, technology, etc.), a business can still fail, and we have seem many of them, haven't we? Some people would have all the machinery needed, and good people with the right skill, but failure would still be eminent.

Businesses can be viewed, metaphorically, like children; the environment you create for them from the time of birth formulate how they perceive the world, and ultimately the foundation of their attitude. With business, its even worse, because the factors brought by the environment affect both the baby business and the person behind it. Even with all the machinery, if the conception of the idea came with incorrect - unresearched or outdated - information the business will not make it. Remember that a good business idea is the one that solves certain problem(s) for your market (your community/government/other businesses). So for new business that attempts to solve a problem that you are not sure that even exist, or how many people that problem affects, how will you expect them to pay for it, or even to determine the size of your market (i.e. how many clients you expect to support your business)?

To ensure your business start right, firstly get the right information. Do your research well. If you have capital, do not rush into buying the machines and cars, or hire people, put some of the money into research and development (R&D). Actually, most of those things may even be liability, which is not necesary for a baby business. Understand your market needs - who's out there serving them? Are they happy with available products/services? What can you do better, at what cost? How will you get your products/services to those who need it (distribution)? - and many other question you need to ask yourself. But don't wait to have all the answers, start and give yourself some time of trial and error. Look, listen, learn and fix!

Get few people, one or two, and train and empower them well to enable them to see the vision. They are the one's who will carry you during the rainy days; trust me the rain season will come. Don't fool yourself, the rainy season is coming, it does not matter how much capital you have to start your business, the universe does not care how good your political connection you have, as long as you are on earth, problems will come, payments will delay, people are going to disappoint you - some will even steal your ideas! You need the right people to start with, and treat them well, they in reality are not your employees but rather the magicians who take what you have in your head and mix it with the real-world information to create the bricks with which your business will be built, they are your associates. And yeh, that's another important thing, building!

You see, one of the bisgget business killers is the notion that you can start a business and become successful in a vacuum. Many people know about starting businesses, and they go pay thousands of rands  - to people who never started or ran businesses, anyway - to learn how to manage a business, only one in ten understand that inbetween start and managing there is building. It's a big topic, one that haunted me for years, because I wanted to understand my own failures...we'll discuss it in the near future.