Nothing sucks more than to see your pitch or funding request turned down because “you are a rookie and have not enough prior experience”.
Being the new kid in the block is difficult enough and it doesn’t take much to break you and send you packing.
New entrepreneurs, writers, musicians, etc, are very fragile most of the time and need the approval of higher authorities and their audiences at the early stages of their ventures. One bad criticism and they flee.
The not good news is that the world doesn’t care if you close up shop and disappear in to thin air unless you are Facebook or Amazon.
So what do you do in this cold and lonely journey to entrepreneurship?
1. Make sure you are offering something damn great
This is one of such cases where just good isn’t good enough; if you want to skip the excruciating phases of unnecessary conventional growth in your field, you must offer something great.
Truth be told, there is no such thing as an original idea nowadays (perhaps there is but I haven’t seen it). Every new big name invention we see today is a product of an already existing idea, repackaged.
A digital autopsy of Amazon kindle and Smashword would better explain the meaning of repackaging in this context. While they are both great companies, it is obvious which one of them would be mostly missed should they pack up today.
In one of those moods an idea might come up and you would think that you have nailed the Trillion dollars idea. If it were so the world wouldn’t take so long to surpass the 2000 Billionaires’ mark.
When such an idea comes, you make a physical note of it and come back to it later. If it still sounds like that great idea, run it through your family and friends. You might be blind to the truth but they might not.
Go on the internet and search for identical products, the chances that you would find something similar is sky high. If you don’t, well good for you; welcome billionaire, but if you do, do not throw away the towel just yet, you could shake it up a bit (or a great deal) and see what comes out of it.
Make sure again to run the idea through others and not just rely on your own opinion. You are the worst critic of yourself.
2. Accustom yourself with the kinks of your niche
Once you give some time to it, it becomes quite easy to figure out the ropes in your niche. I once gave up half a day to learning about Marijuana for a book project I was to handle for a client and within a short while, I was lecturing some friends about the line between the highs of indica and sativa.
12 hours of reading eBooks and articles on cannabis didn’t turn me into an Einstein of cannabis but it did give me a great deal of information to go on.
It might even be simpler in your case. You might not necessarily have to learn about how products in your area work, you have your own ‘unique’ product so you have that covered. All you need to know are stuffs as:
Who are the authorities in the field?
What do these authorities do different from the crowd?
What are they not doing (this is a crucial question)
What does their organization setup look like?
Devote some time to studying these authorities; virtually every available information about them and draw out a pattern.
3. Be professional
I should have listed this under the bullet points above but then it wouldn’t be well emphasized.
One crystal clear difference that you would notice between a thriving business and a dormant or withering one is their level of professionalism.
A big budget client would rather go for a graphic designer who has an organized portfolio and the characteristics of a professional. True anybody can set himself up to look like a professional but they don’t. Most of the professional looking businesses you find out there are actually run by long time experts. Most of them never made a deliberate attempt to appear so professional, it just comes after a long time and so the conviction becomes that almost any person with a professional look knows his onion.
It doesn’t take that much to get the professional look.
Some hints to looking professional are:
Design a professional website:
A website isn’t just enough to make you look like you mean serious business; a professional website is. Unless you are ready to read through series of how-to books and articles, you might want to consider hiring a web designer. A professional web designer would know the right looks to give your website and the features that should follow which must include a custom email address.
Respond to messages as quickly as you can:
One thing I have noticed about big and successful businesses is that they respond to customers ASAP. Facebook has over a Billion users but still manages to respond to every query by these users in good time.
It could get overwhelming for one person when the business has gotten a bit bigger. With such size you should be able to hire a virtual assistant at the very least; problem solved.
Gain grounds as quickly as you can:
You might not get a lot of customers as a newbie even if your product is 9th wonder awesome, no one would know because they haven’t tried it out. Your aim should be to let people meet your product as quickly as possible. Free always works. What new novelists do is to plan a series and make the first of the books free. If the book is as good as the author thinks, he has gotten himself an audience ergo a market and the sequel goes boom.
With your name out there, you have established a presence.
4. Always offer more
“Why should I leave my trusted source and go for your product instead ?” Is what almost any person would ask you when you try to lure them to your product. Giving them more than your competitor would eliminate this question right from the very start.
It is all part of the repackaging of the already existing idea. Almost everyone feels that it is useless to read a new book that says “50 ways to redecorate your home” when there is already a book that gives 50 ways. Even if it contains 50 different ways, good luck trying to convince a reader that yours contains different content. If it looks like it, it smells like it, it might as well be it.
Here’s a thought, how about “150 ways to redecorate your home” ? Who would be interested in brand new 100 ways assuming you have included the initial 50? And wouldn’t it be nice to surf through bookshelves and the internet and find out that you are the only one to have written 150 ways?
Facebook wasn’t the first social media site but is the best because they offer more reasonable features than any other social media site out there.
Moreover, there is the belief that with experience and expertise comes more quality. A well learned preacher would go on and on because he knows quite a lot of his stuff but a rookie would be done in a jiffy.
5. Network with the big players
One common thing amongst successful business owners is that they know themselves and so if you manage to get acquainted with them, your business would be as big as theirs? That’s not really it though. It is more of the adage that says “birds of a feather flock together” . You stand a greater chance to learn how to go though the success avenue when you roll with someone who has already been through that way.
Ever wonder why it is easier for a new artist who has just been signed to a big record label to become a household name than for a well talented musician who has been working up the ladder all by himself. It is all about the company they are in.
It wouldn’t be easy to get that friendly with the bigwigs but you could walk your way up there. Start by getting familiar with the middle-class and it goes from there.

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