Guideline To Become A Successful Digital Entrepreneur
By Badr Berrada
Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk inspired a new generation of digital entrepreneurs. They have revolutionized the way we interact, shop and communicate. Facebook, Amazon and PayPal have become essential in our daily life. They believed in themselves, their idea. Likewise, you can also create your own success story by believing in your idea. Every digital entrepreneur has to put their great idea through the rigor of careful validation to understand whether they have a winning online business in front of them.
Some points to ponder:
Brainstorming and Developing your idea:
Birthing the right idea that could potentially disrupt the digital world requires a good understanding of your strengths and weaknesses. You also need to master sales techniques. It’s difficult to hire a team and have employees when you are just starting. Hence, it’s important to have a good understanding of what it will take to bring your idea to market and eventually find investors for your project.
It’s important to be at ease with your idea. You might not be able to hire people right off the bat. Hence, it’s important to understand from top to bottom how you are going to develop and sell your idea before hiring and finding investors. You need to find the gap in your industry and make sure that you are filling it by providing amazing customer service, unique products & services to keep people coming back.
Get your creativity flowing by considering the businesses you rely on in your daily life. Survey people to understand their pain point and then provide solutions accordingly. Some of the most successful digital ideas arose from unmet needs. Watch TED talks, pick up magazines you’ve never read before, read books on a daily basis to expand on your idea. Your website can very easily be turned into an actual online business: from selling e-books to building online stores and cryptocurrencies, there are numerous ways that you can use your knowledge about a specific niche and convert it into a lucrative business.
It’s important to bear in mind that it’s never a good idea to ask friends and family to validate your business. They will always respond positively. Only real target customers will provide you the right answers.
The number one piece of advice I would have for someone looking to start an online business today is, “don’t quit.” This sounds so simple, but I have seen many people giving up within six months of starting a new venture. Success doesn’t happen overnight and persistence always pays. It took years for Instagram to grow and achieve the success they’ve found recently. By sticking with a core concept and brand identity, they eventually achieved the results they wanted.
No matter what business stage you’re in, smart growth is key for guaranteeing a solid future for your company. Fostering a strong, healthy and sustainable mindset is essential to survive as an entrepreneur. #GrowthHackingBook #GrowthHackingDay #GrowthHacking
Creating a solid business plan
A solid business plan is one of the most valuable resources for launching any new business venture whether it is physical or online. Just like your first attempt at coding a website, practicing your pitch, or riding a bike, your first business plan is not going to be perfect.
A business plan has the answer to all these questions to attract potential investors and customers. These days business plans are used as an internal roadmap for the execution of the company since pitch decks have taken over when it comes to fundraising required materials. A good business plan must include an executive summary, company description, products & services, marketing plan, operational plan, management & organization, financial plan and appendices.
Even if you’ll never use your business plan to attract investors and raise capital, it can be a vital tool to improve your business. Do your best!! Get outside input from experts and previous entrepreneurs. Get it done, start taking action and stay flexible.
Selling and monetizing online
Finding the right formula to sell online takes time. It’s important to combine your sales and marketing skills to craft unique strategies.
If you are a content provider, you can sign up for Google Adsense, Infolinks or Media.net to monetize your traffic. You can also use affiliate marketing by partnering with brands and businesses to promote their content on your website. You could also monetize your video content through sponsorship deals.
Recruiting and motivating employees
Hiring the right people who believe in your vision is a challenge for start-ups. Often it is an after-thought as the focus is almost entirely on getting the product or service to market, launching the brand and raising capital. Share your story and make your team aware of the exponential growth opportunity and they will be equally invested in your company as you are.
Joining a rising start-up with fewer employees means a greater opportunity to do more and to have a bigger impact. True leadership talent doesn’t want to be a cog in the wheel of a large organization. Have a defined mission. Let sought-after candidates know your company’s potential.
When you can’t compete on salary, benefits or name recognition, compete by offering employment that is mission-driven, that rewards results and that is flexible. Offer the chance to build something, to have an impact and to be a key player in something. Someone who is motivated by that offering is someone a protective start-up founder can confidently delegate to.
Fostering a successful company culture
Your culture is your identity. It conveys your shared values, style as a firm, how you work, your design, how you interact with each other and the outside world, how you overcome challenges and celebrate successes, are all part of your company culture. It is always reviewed by investors and something that is very much taken into consideration during due diligence before the investment.
Keep lines of communication open among departments to help your organization work together more fluidly. Being able to leverage different resources internally creates an environment of collaboration and breaks down silos to work toward our overall revenue goal for the year. For better communication, hold a quick weekly stand up to recap the highlights of each business unit. Hire people from diverse backgrounds to create a healthy mix of ideas and experiences.
It’s important to invest in productivity tools. For example, if someone is accustomed to using a PC at home but uses a Mac at work, they might feel their workflow is disrupted because they are spending time adjusting to a different computer, rather than focusing on their job. Encourage your employees to suggest new tools they feel would enable greater efficiencies and allow them to make a bigger difference.
The dark side of entrepreneurship: Overcoming odds and obstacles
Most of your friends and family members will discourage you to become a digital entrepreneur, not because they hate you, it’s simply because they do not believe in you. It takes guts to launch an online business. You have to bear in mind that you are going to lose loved ones in order to succeed. Being an entrepreneur involves making a lot of sacrifices. If you feel like you are living on the edge of a knife, you are not alone.
You will go through several sleepless nights, experience depression and fear failure. Fostering a strong, healthy and sustainable mindset is essential to survive in the wild. No matter where you are in your entrepreneurial journey, remember that setbacks, loneliness, darkness and hopelessness are part of the game. Giving up should not exist in your dictionary.
My family and soulmate Selma played a huge part in my daily motivation. Nobody is going to believe in you if don’t believe in yourself.
Leapfrogging your competitors
Everybody wants an edge. Even if you’re among the lucky ones that thrive, there are no guarantees for the future. The best way to beat your competition is to create a killer product or service, sell it in a unique way, delight your customers, take their feedback and do it all profitably. Simply being good enough and word of mouth is not enough to survive let alone outsmart your competition.
If you want to be number one, you have to think outside of the box. Consumers’ attention span has decreased. They are impatient and will not give you a second chance. Outspending your competitors is expensive, and rarely works. Outsmart them instead by creating a unique company built on purpose and passion. It’s more profitable and much more exciting.
Map out your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses to take them down.
Use available online tools to penetrate the market, apply SEO techniques and invest a lot in your digital reputation to blindside the competition. Seize on all possible opportunities that will open up for you. If there aren’t, create yours.
You do not have to fight every battle that comes your way. By arming yourself with business intelligence, you will be able to choose your battles. Never lose heart. The battle is long and arduous. That is a given. But if you will maintain your courage and determination, no obstacle will ever be insurmountable.
Consistency and scaling your business
No matter the stage you’re at in your business, smart growth is key for guaranteeing a solid future for your company. After all, while increasing revenue streams can add to your income, it also requires internal expansion within the company itself. Don’t be afraid to fine-tune your positioning if something needs to change.
You can always incentivize your current customers to share your brand with special discounts, free service offers or even affiliate programs. As you drive customer growth and fine-tune your company’s internal structures, you can scale successfully and plan for lasting success.