Connect with us

Entrepreneurs

4 successful tips for young entrepreneurs

Published

on

Richard Branson

Every entrepreneur’s journey to success is different and unique. However, that doesn’t mean that there aren’t a few simple tips you can use to better your chances of success. Not everyone can afford to have a mentor to keep them motivated or focused. Thankfully, using the following great tips will mean you won’t need one.

Always challenge yourself

Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Group, has always conducted his business as per his one philosophy: challenger yourself. For him, one’s career should be viewed as a never-ending learning experience or one long stint at university. You never really graduate.

Be prepared for risks

Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, and the wealthiest person in history, encourages young business owners to be prepared to take risks. Most people encounter failure and regret it; however, one should never feel the regret of not trying. To be successful, you need to be prepared to embrace risks when they come to you.

Be patient

Patience is a virtue that many young entrepreneurs don’t have. They want success quickly and easily. No one has ever succeeded immediately or overnight, nor does money grow on trees. Steve Jobs was a staunch believer in this, arguing that even so-called “overnight successes” took a long time to reach that point. Be realistic about the pace of your success.

Know what you want

You must know what you want. This includes your goals, what you want to sell and how you want to do it. Knowing what you want to achieve will ensure that you have a vision for your business and how to make it. David Karp, who is the founder and CEO of Tumblr, suggests that every entrepreneur must have a unique vision. Not only do they need this vision, but they need to have a desire to keep it.

I am a journalist with significant experience covering entrepreneurial, finance, economics, and business around the world. As the senior editor I report on how technology is changing business, political trends, and the latest culture and lifestyle. I have worked and written for CityAM, the Financial Times, and the New Statesman, amongst others.

Continue Reading

Entrepreneurs

Rags to riches: entrepreneurs who came from nothing

Published

on

Oprah Winfrey

There have been some amazing, inspiring stories of entrepreneurs coming from absolutely nothing. Not everyone is born with a silver spoon in their mouth, and it’s a powerful reminder to everyone across the world to strive for happiness and success. Here are some of the most potent, awe-inspiring rags to riches the world has seen.

Howard Schultz

Howard Schultz served as the CEO and chairman of a little coffee company called Starbucks. He was born in an incredibly impoverished area of Brooklyn, New York, and spent most of his childhood in public housing projects. His father was a truck driver.

He graduated from Northern Michigan University with a B.A. in Communications and subsequently took up a role with Xerox as a salesman. In 1979, he became the general manager of Hammarplast, who supplied coffee machine parts to cafes. During this time, he came across the Starbucks Coffee Company, which he joined the following year.

At 29, Schultz was responsible for revitalising their retail operations and marketing. He oversaw the expansion of Starbucks into a global entity and international force in the coffee industry. As of April 2020, he is worth $4 billion US.

Oprah Winfrey

Most people know the story of Oprah Winfrey. She was born in Mississippi to an unmarried teenage mother and spent the first six years of her life living in rural poverty. She was molested by several family members and even gave birth to a son when she was just 14. He was born prematurely, however, and he died shortly after birth.

At 17, she began working in media and picked up work with a local radio station, WVOL. She relocated to Chicago and began hosting morning talk shows, like AM Chicago. Within a month of working on AM Chicago, the show’s ratings went through the roof. The rest is history.

Oprah is often credited with revolutionising talk show television, earning her the title “The Queen of All Media”.

Continue Reading

Entrepreneurs

3 things you shouldn’t do as an entrepreneur

Published

on

Steve Jobs

If you were to peruse a range of guides advising you on the best strategies for becoming an entrepreneur, chances are you wouldn’t find much relating to what you shouldn’t be doing. The world of business is built on entrepreneurial blunders, strategies mishaps and complete misfires. Want to know what you should be avoiding? Read on to find out.

Chase fame and success in the wrong places

Most young, naïve entrepreneurs are driven by one principle: get rich and famous. However, there’s more to being an entrepreneur and successful business owner than achieving fame and financial success. If you choose to operate your business on that philosophy, you are doomed to fail. If you want the best chance of success, make sure it revolves around something you are passionate about. Passion is arguably the essential attribute of a good entrepreneur.

Make everything about the customer

There is this misguided view that EVERYTHING must be about the customer. While adopting a customer-centric approach is crucial, letting down individual customers is unavoidable sometimes. You can’t please everyone, no matter how perfect your business is. Steve Jobs was reportedly a victim of this, especially when designing the iPhone.

Try and keep your messaging simple. Ensure that your staff are aware that pleasing the customer is essential; however, make sure there is some flexibility in that message. Honour the customer’s wishes, but don’t assume everything they want or need is essential. You’ll end up hurting most of your customers and pleasing the minority.

Use ineffective servant leadership

Most business owners think “servant” leadership is the philosophy your workers need to use. However, it’s the opposite. It would help if you worked to “serve” your employees, thereby giving them what they need to succeed. This includes things like training, compassion and holding them to a high standard. Sometimes, the most appropriate form of servant leadership is making someone redundant when things aren’t working out. It seems mean and harsh, but it’s unfair to keep someone in a job they aren’t thriving in.

Continue Reading

Entrepreneurs

The crazy entrepreneurial stories that you’ll find inspiring and wacky

Published

on

Mark Zuckerberg

Most business stories are conventional – a business magnate born into wealth, a “rags to riches” stories or a regular business owner that suddenly falls into that “lightbulb” moment. Some of these crazy stories below happened after the person had become an enormous business success; however, that doesn’t undermine the value of the story in any way. If you’re struggling to find success in your career, check out some of these ridiculous stories for inspiration, or to pass the time.

Mark Zuckerberg radically changed his diet

Zuckerberg is universally known as the founder and creator of Facebook (albeit contentiously). In 2011, Zuckerberg decided to switch things up in his diet by announcing that he would only eat meat that he killed. The purpose was to learn about sustainable farming and more ethical forms of consumption. The Facebook founder lived this way for a year before switching back to meat from the store.

Clive Palmer loves dinosaurs

Famous Australian billionaire, Clive Palmer, loves dinosaurs so much that he tried to clone a dinosaur. He discussed the idea with scientists; however, it never took off. To quell his fix for the prehistoric icons, Palmer opened a dinosaur theme park called Palmersaurus in 2013. Unfortunately, it didn’t last long either.

David Daneshgar funded his start-up via poker winnings

David Daneshgar is the co-founder of BloomNation, an online floral marketplace. While he’s not a billionaire, Daneshgar is a multi-millionaire whose fortune came off the back of winning a poker tournament. He and a group of friends needed around $30 000 to get BloomNation up and running, which just happened to be the prize winnings attached to a poker tournament (the World Series of Poker in 2008). After collecting the money needed, Daneshgar reportedly told his friends “It’s flower time”.

Continue Reading

Trending