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To women who decided to start a business after the age of 35, it is certainly a lot like starting a business at any other age. All companies have almost the same set of rules for achieving success-incubating a new idea, treating customers well, delivering value and outpacing the competition.
Even if you’re a 35+ woman and are thinking of becoming your own boss, we say go for it, there is no better time to follow your entrepreneurial aspirations. Here are a few things you should know before you begin-
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It can be very easy to think about starting a business the way most people over 35 do. Entrepreneurship is a team sport, and women are particularly better at working with others. That is a little advantageous for them. If you need a little inspiration, look at Ms. Falguni Nayar who quit her 25-year career in finance to chase her dream of building India’s premier online retail brand for beauty and wellness and founded Nykaa in 2012.
While looking at the booming startups year by year can be very tempting and motivating, before you start your own venture look at your strengths, your skills and take into consideration of what you are good at. Assessing all these things is a very good starting point for coming up with a business idea.
This is the most obvious advice, but it needs to be said – Don’t invest more than what you cannot afford to lose. Avoid tapping into your retirement, or even your home line of credit. You might be tempted to use your savings in your dream venture but experts suggest otherwise.
You won’t have to start from scratch to be an entrepreneur and the best part of having a bigger savings account than a 25-year-old is that you may be able to buy an existing business. Becoming a franchise owner or purchasing an existing business may be the simpler way to go.
Getting that first round of funding is often the most challenging. When it comes to raising capital make sure you have a Power Of Attorney ready to go. You can get funds from friends, family, banks and traditional lenders, or you can move to Investment companies and angel investors.
Hiring your employees is a very important and often confusing part of any business. Instead of going for track records, hire employees based on their potential and let them demonstrate their skills. Hire at least one legal employee to take care of employment contracts and legal proceedings.
Effective marketing determines the rate of success of your venture and it doesn’t necessarily have to cost a lot of money. You can use low budget tactics like referrals, press release, email marketing and even use the social media for marketing.
No matter what your business idea, you can never have a monopoly in the market and hence you must analyze your competitor’s strengths and weaknesses and utilize it to the full extent. Remember ‘Knowledge is power’.
It can be very difficult for startup businesses to get their steps right when very little or no market research has been done. If a startup doesn’t know the audience that they are targeting, how can they customize their approaches to achieve the best returns from their venture?
Customer interaction is the cyclic process between entrepreneurs and customers to understand a problematic area and find a solution to it. This is a brand-building exercise. Gathering feedback from customers is a critical step but most startups tend to ignore this part.
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