Starting a business can be one of the most difficult endeavors imaginable. While some get lucky and succeed right away, most have to plug away for years before reaching their initial goals. As they say, it’s just the cost of doing business. Every new startup business is essentially a gamble.
Worse odds than a casino
It is estimated that nine out of ten (90%) of startups will fail within the first year. That means that any new startup is going to be a serious gamble. Even at a casino, you would have better odds than that! Unlike a casino, however, business success is not just a matter of blind luck.
One man who has successfully beaten the odds is Sam Ovens. As a millionaire financial consultant and the founder of consulting.com, Sam Ovens is in a position to know a few things about the various little tricks that can help a person break that 90% failure rate.
Don’t give up
Sam Ovens, according to his blog, had to fail at two startups before finally launching a successful one. Both of these ventures required him to invest large amounts of capital and thus he ended up deeply in debt. However, the third business succeeded.
Keep it specific
Mr. Ovens attributes the failure of his first two startups to the fact that his audience was too broad. His first business was called promote yourself, which was a job seeking network focused on New Zealand. While he did focus on one specific country, it was still just too broad of a demographic. His second business was called ToTheDesk, and it was based around the idea of a food delivery service for workers on their lunch breaks. Once again, too broad. His third business was called SnapInspect focused on providing an easier method of property inspection via an app. Since this product was aimed squarely at property management companies, there was less competition and a lot less chance of failure.
Fulfill a specific need
It has often been said that necessity is the mother of invention. Bearing this in mind, it is a good idea to design your product or service around the solving of a specific problem. Choose a demographic, and consider exactly what their needs and common problems are. By doing this, you can hopefully identify a product or a service that will fulfill that specific niche. This means that your competition will be virtually nil, unless of course someone else just happened to have the same idea that you did.
Make sure you have some side action
When Mr. Ovens was struggling with his first two businesses, he ended up about $30,000 in debt. This meant that he could not start another business venture until he had managed to drive down this debt. He did this by making and selling websites, and later on, he also began doing digital marketing on the side. Both of these were essential to keeping him afloat during the birthing pains that all businesses must go through. Without these backup cushions, he likely would have had to go back to his corporate job and forget about ever being a successful entrepreneur.
Once you know, teach!
When you finally do achieve some level of success, a new avenue is open to you. You can hire out your services as a consultant to businesses that are seeking to maximize profits or streamline production. When you have the experience and the authority combined with a little bit of social skill, it isn’t particularly hard to make money in this way.