Have you been dreaming about starting your business for the last five years? Stop dreaming and get started.
Women often find it hard to get started on their business but they can dream about it for years. Penny Chan is one example of this strange phenomenon.
“I had an idea when I was in university to start a chain of shops selling different Asian-flavoured pastries,” she said. “I would dream of the flavours, the different ways to bake them. I even tried out some experiments in my kitchen, such as a roasted pork loaf, which received great response from my family and friends.”
After 12 years of dreaming the dream, Penny’s heart fell to the bottom of her shoes when she came across BreadTalk for the first time.
“It was nearly exactly what I wanted to do. I even had a floss bun (but my technique was different). I was so crushed when I saw the shop — my dream just died there on the spot.”
Many women, like Penny, are what the media affectionately term “armchair entrepreneurs”. They have a great idea, but lack the impetus to bring it to reality. For Penny, it was a matter of “the huge amount of accounting and admin I imagined I would get stuck with and that put me off.” For others, it’s fear of failure, or mental barriers like the daunting task of finding seed money.
But as many great women who have founded and owned businesses will attest, it is worth the risk, hard work and even failures along the way.
Here are three ways to push your dream out of dreamland into the real world:
1. Do your research, then do it some more
As serial entrepreneur Nanz Chong-Komo advises in her book One Business, 99 Lessons, the first step is to do your research and planning. This step takes a lot of time and effort — but you want to be sure your idea is as close to foolproof as possible, to ensure the ultimate success of your business. Set a goal for the period you need to complete your research.
Start to investigate if your idea is as original as you thought. Has anyone registered a company name that is close to what you are thinking of calling your business? Test your products, like Penny. Make sure they work well or taste good. Go and check out every competitor you have in the area of business you are interested in — travel if you have to. Become the expert in the area of business you want to enter into — know who your market is, how to reach them, and who or what you are up against. Only when you are 100% sure that your product or service has a clear difference and advantage, then proceed to the next step.
2. Make a business plan.
Before you start setting up your business it is important to make a business plan. A business plan should include the things you need to set up your business, what the costs are, what your income would be, etc. It should show if you will be able to keep your head above the water during the time that you will develop your business. Your business plan is an evolving piece of information — don’t start until you are very sure your numbers are realistic and you can make a profit.
3. Look for your dream team.
Work with the right people. In some cases it is nice to have coworkers or people that share the same interest to help you with the development of your business. In some types of businesses you will need certain business relationships or providers of goods. If in example you want to import something it is important to start contacting both companies and shipping companies, knowing costs, comparing sources. Find the right expertise and your path to business success is much smoother.
Of course, there are many other considerations to have when planning for your business, and you must be prepare to work very, very hard. But with these first three steps above, you can start propelling yourself off your armchair and on your way to becoming a successful entrepreneur.
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