How to Become an Entrepreneur?
Overview
In this video, Mr. Paritosh Sharma, Chief Learning Officer of Bada Business Pvt Ldt, shares 5 points to become a successful entrepreneur as a student.
Learnings
The 5 points to become a successful entrepreneur as a student:
- 18-months rule
- Build MVP while you are still in college
- Build traction while you are still in college
- Get your first 1 to 100 customers to validate your idea
- Understand the customer
Let us discuss these 5 points in detail.
#1 18-Months Rule
18-months mean one and a half years. So, you should know what you are going to do in these one and a half years like:
- What product or service are you going to make?
- What traction are you going to create?
Even if you are going to fail in 1.5 years, it is alright to fail.
In the 18-months, you need to perform two tasks, which are:
1. Validate customer’s problem
It means that you need to validate the product or service you are making or the customers’ problem you are solving.
You need to check whether you will be able to get money for selling the product that you are trying to make.
Validation of an idea has two steps:
- Build your product/service
- Have capital to sustain for 18-months
If you are a student, then collect at least Rs. 6-10 lakhs to sustain for 18 months.
Once you have made your product/service, next, you should take your product/service to the customer.
2. Onboard first 10 to 100 customers
- If you are making a luxury product, then bringing 10 customers is a challenge.
- However, if your product is a mass product or is required by several people or it solves the specific problem of a lot of people, then you should bring the first 100 customers.
- So, you should bring 10 customers for the luxury product and 100+ customers for mass production.
- If the customer is paying money that you want him to pay, then your product is validated.
- While you are in your college, it is the best time to validate your product/service because you don’t have risk during this time as:
- Your parents are paying your college fees
- You have college infrastructure like the building, labs, testing, etc.
- So, you can build a good venture while you are in college. If you don’t do so, then you are wasting your time.
#2 Build MVP while you are still in college
Whatever your product is, build a minimum version of it.
For example:
- If you want to make a software product, then make a minimum version of it and give it to your customers.
- If you want to create a service for customers that involves several moving parts, then make a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) of it and give it to your customer.
So, you should:
- Understand the need and problems of the customer
- Determine how the customer is dealing with their need or problem in the absence of your product
- Leverage your college infrastructure while making your MVP so that you can make a good product with low investment
Today, most of the colleges have entrepreneurial cells and entrepreneurship departments; you should connect with these departments.
Several colleges have incubators and accelerators who fund several startups.
For example, Amity University funds several startups.
So, you should go to your college and check whether you have incubation and acceleration cells and develop your MVP.
#3 Traction
- After 18 months, if you feel that you want to move your venture ahead, then you will need more money. In such a case, you will look for investors and hire a new team.
- Funds are raised based on the traction.
- Traction means the number of paying customers or the number of users using your product today if it is an internet product.
- For example, if you have launched a product, then how many users have onboarded in the first 100 days, 300 days, 1000 days, etc. This is traction.
- The investor wants to see your traction or how many users you have onboard within 18 months.
You need to cover all these points in the 18-month rule. If you can do so, then you can become a successful entrepreneur while sitting in your college.
There are several examples of successful entrepreneurs who have started their ventures in their college time or have left college for their venture. Some of them are Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, and Ritesh Aggarwal of OYO Rooms.
This doesn’t mean that you should drop out of your college or take a big risk in your life but you should:
- Implement an 18-month rule in your life
- Validate your idea
- Build MVP
- Focus on traction
If you follow all the above points, then you can become a successful entrepreneur from a student.
You don’t have to do a job.
But, you have to implement this framework for 18 months again and again.
In this 18 month journey, after 6 months, you might feel that you are into a wrong venture and feel for course correction. While doing so you can start a new venture or you join some other team. You might go through various permutations and combinations but it is a guarantee that you will not fail after 18 months.
For example:
When Mr. Paritosh Sharma started his first venture after college, he failed because he lacked clarity and he didn’t have anybody to teach him all this.
But, today, you have this 5 point framework that you should implement in your life to become a successful entrepreneur.
Several students want to be an entrepreneur but they don’t have a clear direction. So, in this video, you learned the framework of 18 months to become a successful entrepreneur from a student.
After becoming an entrepreneur, you need to understand several things like cash flows, marketing, finance, HR, sales, operations, etc. For understanding all this, you can take the different PSC courses of Bada Business available on the Bada Business App.
Key Learnings
- Follow the 18-months rule
- Validate your product/service
- Build a Minimum Viable Product (MVP)
- Determine your traction