How To Win The Startup Game?

Everybody wants to be a successful entrepreneur, but how many really succeed? they don’t succeed because they are not willing to follow the rules. You don’t win every moment of the match, you gain point, you give point, you hit a boundary and you get hit as well, you strive a lot until the end of the game to come out victorious, and that one moment of success will take away all the pain that you took to win the game.

Entrepreneurship is a game of risks, you may fail in it numerous times, its part of the game. You need to digest the hard fact that you may not win every day, keep taking risks, but never run away, you will surely win one day. “Sachin Tendulkar got out hundreds of times but that didn’t stop him hitting hundred tons”. Get inspired by great people.

Let us look into some basic rules one has to follow to win the startup game. 

Educate and Train yourself before getting into the game

Read right books, attend workshops on entrepreneurship, read tons of success stories, pick your best quotes and stick them on your walls, do direct selling, get motivated by reading great entrepreneurs autobiographies. Do all these things as much as you can before launching your startup.

Pick a right mentor

If you believe summiting Everest is the toughest task, then winning in business is also equally tough. The one who already summited Everest will show you the right route map, similarly, there are millions of entrepreneurs who won this game of business already, try spending some quality time with them, follow their footsteps, get to know their stories, pick the right mentor who inspired you a lot in this exploration and stick to them. Don’t shuffle your mentors too often, share your every move with them, although it is not necessary to strictly follow their directions but take their insights into your every move.

Alexander had Aristotle, Steve jobs had Mike Markkulla, Warren Buffett had Benjamin Graham, Bill Gates has Warren Buffet, Mark Zuckerberg had Steve Job. Swami Vikekenda had Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. Learn from the leaders how important it is to have a mentor, the golden rule to follow is, your mentor has to be at least 100 times knowledgeable and powerful than what you are, For example, if you want to build a 100 million dollar company, you have to pick a mentor who has already built a 100 billion dollar company.

Be aware of the failure and accept it

In the process of educating and training yourself, you will get to know how often you face failures in this game, but many don’t show the courage to digest and accept the failure in reality, they fall flat for it and they give up. How firm you get up again after the failure and how strong you play the game again defines your success.

Master the marketing skills

Your success depends on how well you sell yourself, the majority of entrepreneurs fail in this aspect, they think sales is not their job. You may have invented the best product in the world, but if you don’t know how to sell it, you will quit the game soon. Although you can recruit the best sales team to do it for you, considering your limited funds you may not afford them because the best are always costly. “if you throw nuts you get only monkeys”. You should always be the first and best salesmen for your company.

Have a to-do list and review it at the end of every day and week

“Starting the day without To Do list is like running a race without a finish line; you’re just running to nowhere”. Having a to-do list every day will set you well defined daily goals which will help to finish first things first, and reviewing it at the end of the day and week will take you much closer to your goals.

Follow the trend, follow your target customers everywhere

Watch the trends closely, be quick to fit into the new trends, adopt new technology, always be prepared for tomorrow. Do a deep analysis on defining your target customers, there is no point in advertising for a shaving kit on a TV serial program which is mostly watched by women. Identify where your target customers hang out, be there and ensure you create customer engaging marketing activities.

Have a strong technology team

Having your presence on mobile, web and social media with the befitting technology matters a lot, the lion share of leads are nowadays being generated online, develop a stunning and user-friendly mobile app and website that engages customers. Use all kinds of Google tools to track your audience behaviour. Have a strong technology team which can easily adopt new technologies and create a great user interface for your business online.

Always dream of success, Imagine yourself at the winning moment as many times as you can

Your mind is a mysterious machine, it doesn’t have any defined goals unless you train it and remind it, again and again, being clear on your goals will keep you focused on the important things first, there is a simple trick to hack your brain, whenever you set a new goal, always imagine yourself at the finishing point, by doing this your brain will give you all the strength to achieve your goals.

Keep reading, the game demands it

“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body”. Most of us read books before going to bed or at leisure times but try reading some motivational books before starting your work every day for 15 to 20 minutes at least, reading a book before starting your work, helps you stay focused and motivated. Especially the startup guys should follow this to be more productive at work. Reading books helps you to get the right motivation, reading is the most effective way to overcome stress. Running a startup is a stressful job, although you are a self-motivated guy, a lot of worries disturb you mentally, reading is a great relaxation technique which will keep you away from worries and help you to stay focused on your goals.

Being an entrepreneur it is most important to be knowledgeable, reading will equip you with great communication skills which will help you to establish strong business relations, life is a school in which there are various elements that contribute to the formation of knowledge, books and travel are the two major elements that highly contribute to your knowledge.

Keep fit

Fitness should be a daily routine, being fit helps you keep physically and mentally strong. Being fit boosts up your confidence in public speaking, it is widely believed that physically fit people are highly disciplined and balanced in life. Fit entrepreneurs win more deals comparing with the unfit ones, fitness improves your energy, productivity, confidence and creativity.

Travel often

Being a passionate traveller, I strongly believe that travel will not only help to relax mentally, it also gives you cool business ideas, the so-called Flipkart, Ola, Oyo, Swiggy are not Indian made, they are just photocopies of successful business models in the West, who knows, you may also find one product that fills the gap.

Biz Innings

By Chaitanya Gundluri

Chaitanya Gundluri is a Serial Entrepreneur, Business Investor, Interviewer, Passionate Marketer, Business Blogger and an Influential Sales Leader.

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