In this first post on this section, I am going to write about some lessons that I learnt from my humble experience of starting a business.
- Invest time in building network: You work so hard to push your business ahead that you do not even have time to meet up, hang out, club. Over the time, you will realize that hard work is not enough. You need to meet new people every week, talk to different kind of folks. There are several benefits of constant socializing. Firstly, you keep updated on current issues, business environment, economic situation. New ideas for business may also come out from any talk. Secondly, you may meet your possible partners who could provide what you need in your business.
-Do not fear of being different: Many young entrepreneurs, especially in Singapore where I am currently living are afraid being different. As a result, whatever they do they will find out if someone has already done it before. In the end, entrepreneurship is about risk taking so if you do not dare to enter the area that noone has stepped in yet, you just may well miss a big fish.
- Get customer feedback early: At initial states of business development, I tried to hide myself from others what I was doing. Since the lack of user feedback, we developed our products based on your beliefs of what customers think. That’s wrong. Never assume that customers will perceive the products the same way you do.
