START-UP SELF HELP. 3 QUESTIONS

I often come across young clients who have great innovative ideas. They have the zeal, enthusiasm, marketing skills and dedication required to work. But still in the end their project seems like a looser. That’s because they did not think about 3 basic questions that is essential to be answered even before thinking of a business plan. Here they are:

1. What?
2. Why?
3. How?

Detailed Explanation..

1. What?  What do I plan to do? This is usually the question everyone has an answer to. This is a very deceptive question though. Because as soon as this question is answered, one jumps into the life after funding.
2. Why? Why would people subscribe to my service/buy my product ? This is the second question which very few people answer correctly. One needs to think what value is the service or product impart to the customer. Will it save him money? Will it save him Time? Will it provide him happiness? Will it entertain him? Anything that one could think of.
3. How? How many people will possibly use my service/buy my product? and How much could be the margin?  As simple as these questions sound, rarely people answer this. In my opinion this is the most important question. That is because this will give you the feasibility of the project in a few minutes.

I’ll substantiate this with this example.

I once had a client who wanted to build a niche training website for trainers in specific industry. The client was very determined to go ahead with it and had approached me for software development directly instead of business consultancy. I asked him a few questions. The “what” was answered. The “why” was answered. But now came the dirtiest question “how?” At the end of the conversation, he realised that the project is very good, people will definitely subscribe to his service but. The industry was very niche and moreover it was for trainers only which further reduced the addressable market. Eventually all his Hard Work of over a few months was wasted because of a small negligence.

So friends, remember to answer these three questions before you delve deep into any business idea.

Not many of entrepreneurs are from management backgrounds and hence I am trying to make the start-up planning easy for everyone.

And I hope this series will help you get better at business. Do let me know your thoughts by putting a comment below.

Thanks,

Aditya