New entrepreneurs especially startup owners all have at least one good reason for establishing their new business. They all believe there is at least one problem in the world that deserves spending their time finding the solutions.
Tip 1: Incorporate the company in the early months, sometimes the earlier the better, whether it is in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, or elsewhere in South East Asia area the company registration happens. This move would have saved you lots of argument especially legally in the future, as many times you are not only person who established and owns the company, but a few business partners (or cofounders/shareholders).
Tip 2: A startup should establish the problem statement right from the beginning. The statement indicates the purpose of the startup, and actually tells the major problem the startup is up for resolving. Sometimes entrepreneurs could have chosen to solve problems that have too few customers who would pay to get solutions, and that’s exactly where the problems are. They should use their personal experience and background in their fields of work to identify and figure out what the real problems that deserve the invention of solutions.
Tip 3: Put networking in your plan. In brief it is to enlarge of circle of acquaintance. The first reason is for business partnership purposes. In business, you cannot do it all. The best is to find out in your chain of production or services, which businesses or acquaintance would be complementary to your core business. They do not actually compete directly with your core product/service, but what they do or produce would add values to what you sell. This is the best type of partnership in today’s business. The second reason is one day some startups would grow larger in size in terms of business volume. Before that happens, you will need to keep an eye for people who may join you. They may join you as important partners in your company. When your business have more than sufficient revenue, you may consider recruiting them to become your employees/staffs. Good/great people are sometimes hard to find because all other businesses are competing for them with you.
Tip 4: Develop habits to learn new information and new skills on an ongoing basis. In the very beginning of your lone entrepreneurship journey, you will quickly find out you are missing a few key roles (who you used to have when you were working in a big corporate) such as HR person, admin person, receptionist, personal assistant, marketing manager, IT manager, salesperson, etc. You usually could not even afford to hire anyone. So you start doing their work on your own. Gradually you will develop the skills of these roles.
