India is a country with more than 4200 startups and it ranks globally as one of the top startup countries. Every one of us has at least one friend who is into start-ups or is thinking to start one. At times, it makes me wonder if entrepreneurship is such an easy task. In my journey with Career Guide, I have met many young people who aspire to become entrepreneurs or who already are an entrepreneur. They all share similar zeal and vigour in their dreams.
I get surprised to see their ideas which are ready to solve various problems that we face in our daily life. The sad part here is that not all the start-ups see the face of success and many strive for long time before finally shutting down.
A year ago, I met a young girl of around 24 years. She was full of energy and was working on her idea of providing online examinations to school students. Her way of representation was really enticing and I was quite sure that she will succeed.
To my surprise, I got to know that recently she has shuttered her start-up and has opted for an easier option of doing a job. When I happened to talk to her, I found several aspects that impacts the success of a start-up. She discussed with me several factors that contribute to the success stories of start-ups.
Major points of her discussion were;
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1. A good partnership:
A partnership in a company is like having an extra wife. A partner knows you more than your wife at times. You stay with your partner for almost whole day and discuss with him/ her all the intricacies of your start-up. You get motivation from your partner and new ideas as well. If the partnership goes wrong, there is a high chance of start-up failing up.
There should be only two choices, either the partner is very understanding or there is no partnership. The girl I was talking about clearly stated that one of the reason she failed was lack of cordial partnership with her partner. Differences between partners led to differences in the motives and as a result led to a directionless company.
2. Financial knowledge:
Another factor that contributes to the success of a start-up and its founder is the financial knowledge. One need not be an expert or an accountant but must be having clear understanding of differences between assets and liabilities.
Addition of liabilities in the beginning always hurts a start-up in the longer run. On the other hand, assets add to the value of the start-up. Most of the start-up founders make the mistake of adding on liabilities in the beginning and at the end they find it difficult to support the company and its operations.
3. Perseverance:
One of the highly needed quality in a start-up founder is perseverance. Start-ups do not always give returns in just 2 or 3 months rather for a long time, founders need to work hard on their ideas to develop them and modify according to the market needs.
The founders need to be flexible as well with their ideas, approaches and operations. Whatever comes their way, they need to be perseverant and keep on going with the hard work.
4. Survival mode:
This one is the most interesting. It has been said that year one of any business is of survival mode, year 2 and 3 are of investment and 4th year starts giving you profits. For at least one year you need to survive on whatever you earn or your savings.
This is the time when you resist on taking up liabilities and try to make your firm as an asset in the form of knowledge source. This is the time of learning. My friends also made the mistake in this one year, she invested more than required and could not keep up with the increasing expenses and thus had to shut down her start-up eventually.
5. Team building:
Behind every successful start-up is the hard work of an ambitious team. At this time, you need a go-getting team which is ready to strive in adverse conditions and still give their best. You just can’t hire an employee but you need to develop a family. Unless it is a family bounded by same goals, success cannot be guaranteed.
So, While we are in an era where Entrepreneurship is being romanticized, in reality you need to put in real hard yards to achieve success!
About the Author: Surabhi Dewra is the CEO of CareerGuide.com, a one-stop platform which answers your What, Where,Why & How’s of all your career related questions.
