5 Tips for Couples Who Want to Start a Business by Barry Silverstein
October 5, 2015 by Dr. Letitia Wright
Filed under Crowd Funding, Featured Articles
The economy has created a new breed of entrepreneurs: couples who want to start their own business. For many couples, working side by side seems like an ideal solution, a way to combine being your own boss with spending more time together. The first thing couples learn, though, is meshing their personal and business lives is a special challenge. My wife and I started a service business together and here are five tips based on our experience to help make your journey easier.
- Share a Passion
Your business is likely to be more successful if you share a passion. It could be anything: an interest in art, a love for animals, a concern for the environment, or something else. It’s important to then determine if that shared passion can be translated into a viable business idea: something people want to buy. The best way to do this is develop a business plan that proves what you want to do can be turned into a sustainable business.
- Fill Each Other’s Gaps
We learned that we each had particular strengths and weaknesses when it came to running a business. It would be easy for these qualities to become irritants, but instead we worked collaboratively to fill each other’s gaps. If you can learn to compensate for each other’s weaknesses, accept each other’s strengths, and work toward a common goal, your business will benefit – and so will your personal relationship.
- Set Goals Together
When you set goals together, you automatically internalize them. Writing down goals and agreeing on them makes them real. You want to set a goal that makes you reach a little but is still achievable. We set goals for lots of things: the starting date of our business, the number of clients we wanted to acquire, our anticipated income each year, and even how many years we wanted to run our business. Our goals helped us visualize our success.
- Build Your Knowledge Base
In your business, you learn there are things you know and things you don’t know. When you encounter something that goes beyond your joint areas of expertise, you either have to quickly acquire the knowledge you need or get outside support. If you always have a thirst for knowledge, seek out answers, and view co-owning a business as a learning experience, you will be more likely to succeed.
- Maintain Your Perspective
Fully expect that your business will have its ups and downs. That’s why it’s important for both of you to maintain your perspective and keep yourselves grounded. You want the business you operate as a team to enhance rather than detract from your personal lives. Running a business will be challenging and sometimes seem overwhelming, but maintaining your perspective will help it be fun and rewarding.
Barry Silverstein is co-author of the new book, Let’s Make Money, Honey: The Couple’s Guide to Starting a Service Business, available in print and as an eBook on Amazon and other major booksellers.
Discover 8 useful tips to attract more potential investors to your business
December 6, 2013 by Dr. Letitia Wright
Filed under A Note for You, Front Page, Wright Ideas
1. You Should Concentrate On Your Industry
Almost investors were small successful entrepreneurs in the past, and they will invest in some people who know their prior industry experience. All investors will invest in companies of people who have a lot of experience in this field of business
2. Target Investors Interested In Your Business:
Some investors only like to invest in the seed or start-up companies, and other investors find the later stage ventures for investment. Therefore you should find the right investors who are interested in your business.
3. Clear Plan
You need to have a good plan and good preparation for your business. You cannot find any investor if you cannot show them a clear plan with the advantages and disadvantages. Clear plan can be the first and important factor which affects your success along with all answers about how you can build your business, how you can get profits from your business, and how many risks can happen, and how can you deal with all risks.
- 4. Make Connections
You have a good plan, and how you can show to some potential investors? And how you can find the right investors who will interest in you plan? Those are always the headache questions for you. You can connect to some investors via a business associate, lawyer or accountant who can help you get more investors’ attention. You also can find other way to meet people with heavy pockets at the very least attend a venture capital conference or some meeting of investors. Or you can use network to discover your opportunities.
- 5. Be Persistent And Patient
All the entrepreneurs should be committed, thick-skinned, and passionate. Finding investors to raise your capital is a time-consuming process. It can take 50%-70% of total time for a startup entrepreneur to raise capital from potential investors. This process can be longer.
- 6. Build A Team
One of the most important things you must know is that all investors need to see not only your commitment, therefore you can cooperate some talented friends or other people to the venture. By this way, you can get the trust of all investors.
- 7. More Than An Idea
If you have only one plan, you can get some ricks, and that cannot attract any investor. You need more than one idea in your plan. You should prepare for anything before it comes.
- 8. Articulate A Clear Vision
You should spell out how you plan to get from point A to B to C because investor wants to cooperate with the good entrepreneurs who are bright, committed and flexible. All investors have experience of the first plan; and they always think that the first plan isn’t usually successful with some real factors such as wrong product or market and even wrong channel or approach.
If you have a good plan, but you cannot deal with tight budget or you cannot find potential investors, your plan cannot gain the full success. There are 8 tips for you to attract more investors.
If you like my blog, you can share it with other people. And if you are interested in this topic, you can leave you comment at the end of my blog. I appreciate your contribution.
What is an Entrepreneur?
February 17, 2013 by Dr. Letitia Wright
Filed under A Note for You, Featured Articles, Front Page
What is an Entrepreneur?
The best way that I can describe what an Entrepreneur is ‘Some people want it to happen. Some wish it would happen. Others make it happen’. That, to me, describes what a true Entrepreneur is.
Entrepreneurs have that special quality, the ability to reinvent something that may have been around for years but they put a new twist on it and make it different and attractive to an audience.
There are two examples that I can cite that will explain what I mean.
For many years kids grew up with a main attraction, the circus. Like many things in life it became stale and repetitive and the public starting losing interest. Then came along an entrepreneur with an idea and reinvented the circus, Cirque de Soleil, and the rest is history.
Coffee, a well-established drink in the USA but someone thought of selling coffee on every street corner, again the rest is history.
My point is that entrepreneurs think outside the box, they look at things from a different perspective. Too many people look at business in black and white, how about 50 shades of grey!
I had examples in my business life when I created businesses that were different, not necessarily new. I put a new slant on ideas and presented them in another form which was acceptable.
When I started my publishing business, the prime objective of a publisher of a trade magazine was to get a readership amongst buyers. I saw an opportunity to reach people who recommended products. This was a totally different approach to the other magazines but my idea was good as the people who made recommendations did so every day. This worked and the magazine was an instant success.
My finance company would be in competition with every bank, or organization, that offered money; a very competitive business. The idea we came up with was to target a specific audience and we choose lawyers. It may sound strange as lawyers earn good money, they do, but they are not too good a running a business.
We realized that and we designed a loan scheme specifically for them. They needed cash at certain times of year to pay their errors and omissions liability insurance and taxes. The amounts were in many cases very large, usually in the millions and had to be paid on time. We created a specific idea which addressed these problems and this took us away from the banking world. We set out to be seen as a specialist lender just for lawyers. It worked very well.
If you are, or want to be, an Entrepreneur you must think an idea through and see why you will be different and better to what is on the market. Create a new approach. The most important thing is that the idea must be good for your customers as well as yourself. To sell an idea it has to make money for those you sell to, this is the way to guarantee success.