Business Lessons from our Local Shops
Follow me on LinkedIn.
Entrepreneurship has become a fancy word in the last few years. Few have struggled too hard to make their company worth millions and few didn’t make it last even for a year also. Several have managed to stay in the game for long. I am an employee. So perhaps I won’t always understand the perspective of a business owner, but I am always interested in their mindset and way of working. It’s not 9 to 5. You must be there always 24*7*365. Yeah, no Sundays too. No weekend parties until you make it. It may take 1 year or 10 years.
After I got employed, I seldom visited my native town. Distance and leaves are always the major factors for the frequency of my visit. In this narrative, I only mentioned the gist of our conversations.
My native Bhadrak is a small town of around 8kms in the state of Odisha. It’s a coastal area. Though the markets are less crowded in normal seasons, I always felt there is a lot to learn from the people who are running businesses for more than 30 years. You would always find the stories of million or billion-dollar start-ups on BuzzFeed. Seldom you find the stories of your next-door shops.
The lessons I learned from people who are running restaurants, grocery stores, jewelry showrooms, medicine stores, petrol pump owner and tuition centers. Few people didn’t even go to high school and only one is graduated.
My question was “What are the key points essential for starting a business?”.
1. Idea
2. Product
3. Team
4. Execution
Ask yourself What’s your idea? Why is it different from the existing businesses? Like you cannot start another facebook now. There is no point in doing that. You will never make a dime profit. If your business location has already several restaurants, there is no point in opening another one in the same area. You must understand your customer base and demographics while working on an idea.
For one instance, there is a company or mill nearby to your location. That means there are working people looking for lunch during the afternoon. You can open your food service at a decent price in your area.
In this case, the food center owner’s shop is near to our district college. College students come for breakfast and lunch. When hostel food is not good, the hostel residents also come. The college students look for economical meals.
Next is , what is your product ? Are you selling samosa or dosa? Or what is your service? Are you teaching physics or economics? You need at least one solid skill to offer. It’s all about selling a product or a service in business. Without it, there is no business at all.
I always go to one place to taste Dahibara Aludam in my town. Dahibara Aludam is a famous breakfast dish in Odisha. Bara (Vada) dipped in Dahi Pani(Curd Water) and mixed with Aludam(Potato Curry Semi Gravy) are the brief recipe when you prepare it.
Why do I go to a particular place? Because his product is good. He serves in a reasonable time. More importantly, he smiles :) while giving our Dahibara Aludam plate.
Team, most of them said few businesses require more than one person to run a business even in a small town. And sometimes your network who supports your business. The people whom you don’t pay to work with you daily, but they provide a particular service to you at a regular interval.
For example, a sweet shop cannot prepare sweets if the milkman doesn’t deliver milk in time. Sweets makers must have good co-ordination or networking with milkmen in order to run smooth daily operations.
The team does solve many problems for you if it’s managed properly. You can delegate your tasks and focus on what you are good at. Suppose you are good at Physics. And your partner is good at Chemistry. You both can rent one place at the market and run your tuitions. Students can get both in one place and save their time & effort of running from one tuition to another.
After the billion-dollar evaluation of Byju’s , we don’t have any doubt regarding the tuition business.
Execution, ah haaah!! The most important and difficult one. No matter how good your idea or your plan is, it won’t work unless you execute. You can discuss your ideas and big ambitious plans with your friends and families for hours, days, weeks or months as much as you want. All is in vain unless you commit to your business. You cannot take Sick Leave(s), Casual Leave(s) or Annual Leave(s) as per your comfort. TVs show the luxurious side of entrepreneurship, but they don’t tell you the hard work and sweat one put in to build a business even the small ones.
CONTD…
Follow me on LinkedIn.
