Entrepreneurship and COVID Strategies

 

COVID 19, the pandemic which shook the world with the ferocity of its extent. This has left many entrepreneurs in lurch and confusion. The world was never ready for this pandemic and the economic doldrums have abominably affected numerous startups. The following pointers will help an entrepreneur during this patch.

 People are business

If you are an aspiring entrepreneur, you should first approach the business as people and not revenue and profit. This is the major aspect pretermitted by many and triggered their catastrophe over a period of time. Branding may help you to snowball your business, but remember that a bunch of people can reinforce your business. Many of the zealous entrepreneurs and businesses follow the below-mentioned loop

a) Back up an idea

b) Build up a team

c) Scuttle behind VCs

d) Guesstimate the company

e) Raise funds from VCs or Angels

f) Egress with compensation

 

The pivotal thing they forget is that they became an entrepreneur because of their passion. The time you scout for VCs can be used for building up a bunch of staunch people. Instead of worrying about the percentage of profit, you can give an opportunity to people who have relevant proficiency in the field as business partners. They will run the affairs for you and business sharing has limitless alternatives. This pandemic has supported only such types of businesses and marked the end of doltishly evaluated companies. Many of the investors incurred losses because they run behind trends rather than feasibility in the longer run. If you scrutinize and peruse the companies which survived for a long period of time, you can conclude that it's solely because of a bunch of people and not because of evaluations and fake branding strategies. Being genuine is indispensable in the market rather than showing it off. COVID situation has wiped off highly evaluated companies because of the lack of supporting people.

 Adaptability and Flexibility

Being an entrepreneur, setting up a vision is imperative. The strategies followed towards the mission creates the difference. You have to be adaptable and flexible in the master plan. For example, businesses that heavily relied upon offline methods to bolster customer acquisition is pushed to back foot because of the pandemic. The business ideologies which balanced offline and online methods survived. Flexibility in your approach is very much important. You have to remember that demands push a business irrespective of a pandemic. Diversified segments are the need of the hour. Cross-selling is the mantra. We cant reckon on a single segment and run the establishment. You should be flexible enough to deduce the customer requirements and nudge the right segments at the right time. As an entrepreneur, your vision cannot be changed, but strategies can. You should clearly understand that you may be deprived of personal life, luxuries, holidays, etc during the preliminary period, but a buoyant entrepreneur will know to convert the toil into results.

Disentangled methodologies, The prominence of social media & Business sharing and resources

Creating a naive and disciplined business process is significant. Complicated customer support and troubleshooting have devoured myriad businesses. A consumer yearns a simplified process. Sometimes just talking to them can bring repose to them. Creating a hierarchy to tackle micromanagement may be good tactics. But you should make sure that there will be a logical TAT ( Turn Around Time) for the same. Otherwise, your portfolio will vaporize at a rapid pace before even consolidating it. Branding and marketing are facile with the introduction of social media platforms. I think giving benefits to your customers rather than spending a huge amount on the advertisement will fetch you more results. If your 10 friends have an average of 500 connections in social media platforms, this will burgeon to 5000 at zero cost. If you give the right benefit, the reach of your idea will be far more extensive at a nominal cost. An organic reach will fetch business compared to a paid reach. Giving the opportunity to the right people and share your resources will take your business to the pinnacle. A start-up should bank on a shared business profit strategy rather than an employee module. An employee module will sustain once your salary liability is 10% of total revenue. May be your profit revenues are less but the generated revenues will be colossal. You need partners or associates who are capable of generating revenue, creating multiple strategies, and developing technical overlays. A rich partner can be a curse rather than a blessing, since his input will only be money, and money alone can't run a business. The companies who flaunted crores of investors' money are the best paradigm of this.

Emotional intelligence

A group of people emotionally connected with a business can move mountains compared to a group of intellectuals. It's very important for an entrepreneur to imbibe the ownership of his/her idea to the people encompassing the entrepreneur. Pro-activeness and resourceful brainstorming will commence from emotional connection only. I am not saying that IQ is not important, but during testing times an emotional quotient will keep the odds together. A business propagated through people as an emotion will grow and hold its ground for a longer time. LIC is a perfect example of the same. The company may be losing portfolio because of technological advances but the emotional quotient allowed it to stand as a major player in their segment. 

Entrepreneurship is not at all a comfortable career option, but the right strategy with the right vision can take you to limitless opportunities. I salute many entrepreneurs who toiled their way up and who lost their way in the process. This pandemic has taught us that connections and business advancements can be achieved without expensive business events and branding campaigns. The majority of people think that segments like tourism and aviation are nearing extinction, but an entrepreneur will see this as an opportunity to reboot and wait for the right opportunity. Because once this crisis is over, let it be 1-2 years, the influx of people who will be using these platforms will be countless and the loss can be recovered in 1 month time. But you have to slash your costs and think of survival strategies as of now. The segments which are dead will open up with a threshold of revenue that you can't even imagine over a period of time. So I suggest startups not to lose heart rather work on strategies in a flexible and adaptable way with loads of emotional quotient. The world is there for your taking... Hard work always pays...

With Hope,

LEEMON RAVI