YOU TOO CAN BE AN ENTREPRENEUR.

Arthur Ashe once quoted, “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.” I hope this statement means a lot to you like it means to me. Everybody can be an entrepreneur, which is for fact. The only thing is to change how we conceptualize issues or rather how we look at things. Let me use an illustration I saw one of my friends share on twitter this week. A businessman usually buys water melons and sells them for profit. An entrepreneur buys the same water melons and adds value to them by making a juice, this means the entrepreneur has opened himself up to endless opportunities. With the juice, add a tetra pack packaging and it remains fresh for twelve months, quite smart huh! For the businessman, unless everything is purchased, the melons can rot while in his custody and hence he will end up making losses.

Back to Arthur Ashe, that statement holds a lot of truth than ever. One time I was reading a post by Ryan Allis of icontact on, “how to be a startup CEO,” and he said a statement that resembles that of Arthur or rather illustrates his concept. He said, “When I hear first-time entrepreneurs say, “All I need is $250,000 to start my business and as soon as I raise this money I’ll be able to get started,” I get concerned for them. Unless they have a wealthy family member who is willing to take a big bet, I worry they are going to spend the next nine months of their lives trying to raise this money, only to find it is not available or not available at terms they can live with. Instead of planning to raise $250,000 and then getting started, plan to raise $10,000 from your own savings and close friends.”

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Any idea can be translated into a business. In the Kenyan scenario, a young man out of college has a lot of opportunities to exploit. Keinvest released a list of opportunities available in the Kenya market and value addition on dairy products is there. This means if one can invest in a yogurt plant, it is ideal for a fresh graduate. With increasing specialization and more ladies getting full time employment and executive positions, the market thing is changing rapidly. This means if a young entrepreneur can invest in fast foods, vegetables and fruits supply/home deliveries, then they can reap real huge results. Professionalism is turning out to be a work ethic that firms are real keen on right from physical appearance to habits and character. Investing in professional fashion designs and boutique could turn your life round. Still on this line, setting up a firm that trains new employees and those old ones on work ethics and how to think smart, write good essays, do best presentations which translates to maximum output, people will certainly pay for this. The above ideas among others need not much capital to begin. Have grit, embrace Kaizen- continuous improvement while eliminating waste- and lean management – embracing high inventory turnover- with perseverance and resilience and you are on the way to huge success.

In your start up strategy, make sure the following counts:

30% Operations Management – This ensures that the business is fully and efficiently running all through. Unless the business is up and running and doing it pretty well, then the objectives of the business, mission and vision are at stake. It simply translates to a business in name and losses in financial statements. Proper operations management, means proper organizational, coordination, staffing and planning management which at the end of the day mean lots of benefits in growth potentials, expansion and profits.

18% Marketing – without a market, the business is not a business any more. Getting one customer is key in opening for other customers. So most of businesses invest heavily on marketing strategies especially in the current customers because they understand what it means to get a customer, maintain them and adverse effects that come with the loss of even one customer. A proper marketing strategy can still be done on low budget but by investing heavily on word of mouth, social media platforms and email marketing. The objective of a business is enlarging its market share and command a large customer base.

17% Momentum – momentum measures the capacity of the business to meet targets according to current demand, in terms of increasing volume demands and high turnover rate. If the measure is positive then it means the business is progressing well and has lots of potential of growth. This further pushes the enterprise to enlarge its market share and hence command a huge capital base.

16% Quality service – Quality services and products is part of marketing in itself. Making exceptionally good products can mean a USP (unique selling point) in its own way. Further to that, quality service and products means maintaining the current customers and adding others. Maintaining the current customers means that at least you have repetitive sales record.

14% Good management – good management for your business should come up with and implement highly achieving objectives. The management should at all times make sure resources are available to other key departments of the business, organize events that translates to marketing and motivation for customers and staff. At the same time the management should always be keen on cutting down on cost of production, eliminate unnecessary waste and expenses.

4% Financial resources – At the start up level, make sure you financial resources are well managed. Have some financial reserves that will come to your aid in case of risks or in case of abrupt ventures that mean good to the business. Make sure you reinvest back to the business and you can embrace wisely what Napoleon Hill calls OPM (other peoples’ money) to help bail you out in case of urgent matters that mean well to the business especially when you are financially on rocks. Otherwise be prepared to face lots of challenges in your business journey in all aspects of management including finances.

3% others – others simply means that your strategy should to a lot of extent cater for unpredictable business demands. It should have measures of dealing with unforeseen things and challenges that might come your way. An example can be change in political profile or rise of some litigation issues.

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In order to succeed, you desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure. Get started with the small resources you have, build sequentially that idea you have, keep going and grow big.