Posts Tagged Entrepreneurship
Posted on January 16, 2010 by Tahlent Team
Many people who commute to regular day jobs are very happy with the orderly rhythm of their lives. If you are one of them, this article is not for you. But if you feel straitjacketed in a cubicle job, if your dreams are too big for your workstation, and if you feel that your current job demands only a fraction of your skills and potential, you may be overcome by diminishing ambition and an overwhelming sense of frustration in your current job.
Read on. This article is for you.
Consider this: Maybe it’s time to break free. But remember, your self-imposed freedom is hard-won and takes a lot of back-breaking work before it is worth the effort. A home-based business requires extraordinary discipline in order to survive and eventually to succeed. Think over your decision several times and be absolutely sure that you are doing the right thing by leaving the security of your job for an independent home-based career.
First off, be sure that your skill is conducive for a work-from-home model. Accounting, writing and editing, translation and transcription services, illustration, graphic design, web design, travel agency, teaching music or dance, technology consulting and advisory services are more suitable for those who aspire to work from home. Network assiduously and test-market your offering by doing some research and speaking to contacts who you think will be potential clients.
Next, ensure that you have enough savings to shore you up in the event your business plans fail to realize profits within the required time. It is important to have enough money in the bank to see you through six months without a job. This time window is a bare minimum and may vary depending on your credit position.
Ensure that your home-based office is well set up and provided with everything you need to run a client-friendly business. Choose reliable service providers and ensure that your utility bills are paid. If you intend to employ other people to help you with the business, make sure that your contract clearly sets out terms and conditions such as minimum working hours, leave, medical facilities, and other benefits and privileges.
Register your company and ensure that your paperwork is complete before you begin soliciting business. Set up separate bank accounts — a current account for your business and a savings account for yourself. Make sure your service tax account and company PAN account are set up and other regulatory requirements are met before you begin doing business. It is equally important to define your rate card, set up your website and print your business cards so that you can make an impact as soon as you begin. It makes sense to initiate all of these efforts before quitting your current job.
The one big thing missing from your life once you leave an office environment will be the all-too-familiar water cooler conversations. Make up for their absence by networking actively and building connections consciously. You must set aside a small fund for business lunches and cocktails. As a self-employed professional, you can claim tax rebate on such expenditure.
Go online. If you a freelancer, ensure that your social networks are well set up. If you are a writer, editor, translator or other creative professional, it makes sense to create a profile on web communities offering services to freelancers.
Get noticed. Find out the best ways to advertise and market your business. For instance, if you decide to make a living from teaching dance or music, make sure your posters are on display at the local cafe or restaurant. Make cold calls and request meetings with potential clients if you offer technology consulting services or other advisory services. Publish a classified advertisement in a newspaper or magazine that is widely read and circulated. Ask for customer testimonials and publish them on your website and business collateral.
Focus and find the heart of your business. Initially, you may grab everything on offer in order to pay the bills. However, as your business starts to make money, you may find it prudent and practical to start focusing on core skills or specific kinds of work. Develop a specialty and be really good at it.
Make sure your home-based business doesn’t leave you too busy to enjoy life and spend time at home. Work-life balance is critical. Ensure that you have clearly defined working hours and if you do have to bend these rules occasionally, make sure you compensate by taking the odd day off.
Finally, just to pep you up, here’s a verse from an old poem that you might want to memorize every time you feel overconfident or under confident about your decision.
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same
- From If by Rudyard Kipling
Tags: Entrepreneurship, freelance, freelance career, home-based business, self-employed professional, self-employment, work from home
Posted on November 4, 2009 by Tahlent Team
In November 2008, Harish met the same fate as many software engineers. His employer, a technology giant based in Bangalore, handed him the pink slip.
For two weeks Harish stayed at home, unable to come to terms with his misfortune. He had no back-up plans and little in terms of savings. The outlook seemed bleak, as calls to job consultants didn’t get past the receptionist. To shore up for the uncertainty looming ahead, Harish sold his three-month-old Zen Estilo and moved to a smaller home. He sold his LCD TV and his iPhone on eBay.
One afternoon he picked up his digital SLR camera, which he had hardly used, and sat down to compose another ‘for sale’ classified ad. It was painful to write it, because Harish had been extremely attached to this camera.
And then, suddenly, an idea struck him.
Harish slapped his laptop shut, picked up his camera, hurriedly packed a rucksack and caught an overnight bus to Hampi. Arriving in Hampi in the morning, he checked into a cheap hotel and freshened up. After breakfast, he stepped out for a stroll through the town and towards the temples and monuments. It was an overcast day, and the light was perfect. He spent the day photographing the monuments and the breathtaking rocky landscapes as well as some market scenes. He took a night bus back to Bangalore the same evening.
He downloaded his photographs to his laptop the next morning and uploaded them to his Flickr account. For the next few days, he continued his job search and forgot all about his photos.
Three days later, he received a comment on one of his pictures. It was from the editor of a travel magazine who wanted to buy the picture for use on his magazine cover.
Harish was pleasantly surprised. Though he had received praise for his photographs earlier, he had never considered the possibility that anyone would have a commercial interest in them. His heart in his mouth, Harish wrote back to the editor, asking him what he would pay.
There was no reply. Harish thought he had offended the editor by asking to be paid for his amateurish photos. Two days later, the editor wrote back apologizing for the delay in responding. He expressed interest in buying three more photographs and offered Rs 3,000 apiece.
Harish couldn’t believe his luck – a trip to Hampi that cost him no more than a thousand rupees had fetched him Rs 12,000! On a friend’s advice, he enrolled for a photography workshop to polish his skills. It was a therapeutic way to spend six harrowing weeks that would have otherwise been spent in a fruitless chase after headhunters.
By the end of the course, Harish’s confidence had grown immeasurably. He set up a website and mustered the courage to offer his photographs to publishers. At first, eight out of ten turned him away, but he soldiered on. Within six months, he was selling about ten pictures a month for anything ranging from Rs 1000 to Rs 5000 apiece.
If he had not lost his job, Harish reflected, he would never have found his true calling!
Harish is not alone in being a “lucky victim” of the recession.
MySunnyBalcony, an innovative business engaged in designing and creating innovative garden themes in small enclosed spaces such as apartment balconies, was started by four Bangaloreans in the midst of the recession. They followed their hobby – gardening – with passion and zeal when the economy was looking down.
Similarly, many risk-takers have taken advantage of the recession to exit the boredom of corporate life and focus on their hobbies and interests, eventually turning them into successful careers. Not surprisingly, the recession has engendered unusual careers such as bartending, DJing, floristry, jewelry designing, sports coaching, teaching swimming or music, coffee/wine/tea tasting, freelance writing and web designing.
Smart, determined people see an opportunity in anything – even a recession. For them, crisis is just another avenue to chase their dreams. Making the shift takes guts, drive and an extra helping of self-belief but it is possible to make the most of your recession if you look within to find your calling. Your hobby can be your passport to an unusual, satisfying and rewarding career. When the economy springs back, you will find yourself happier and wealthier in more ways than one.
Do you have a similar success story to relate? Share it with us by posting it as a comment.
Tags: bartending, Careers, coffee tasting, designing, DJing, economy, entrepreneur, Entrepreneurship, floristry, freelance writing, hobbies, Indian Professionals, music, recession, Talent, Talent Community, Talent Network, tea tasting, unusual careers, wine tasting
Posted on October 31, 2009 by Tahlent Team
Finally, the curtain of the recession seems to have lifted. While the market slump has drawn blood in the form of lost jobs and made the market more cautious, it has not stopped some gritty entrepreneurs from seeking and finding their pot of gold.
In fact, when everyone else was worrying about what the recession would do to the future, some people just rolled up their sleeves, dug their heels in and created their own future.
It is perhaps ironic that the announcement of the TATA NEN Hottest Startups Awards 2008 came just after the recession had taken hold of the economy. About a hundred startups were identified in the fray and five were named for the top position.
Rajesh Varier’s activecubes solutions, founded in 2007 and offering business analytics services, placed first among the TATA NEN Hottest Startups. Close behind was Vamsi Krishna’s Lakshya, which helps students prepare for engineering and medical entrance examinations. From India’s booming agribusiness sector was Amith Agarwal’s Star Agri, which provides comprehensive warehousing, procurement and collateral management services for agri-commodities. Also on the list was Pavan Kumar Vijay’s takeovercode.com, which provides IT-enabled legal, financial and management consultancy to companies. From the consumer retail sector, the judges picked Jay Gupta’s The Loot, a multi-brand discount store that helps shoppers buy their desired brands at half the price.
Several hundred companies applied for a place among the Hottest Startups. The wealth of ideas that came to the fore was a clear indication that entrepreneurs were looking for opportunity in hitherto untapped sectors.
Among the most vibrant and unusual business ideas were in the underserved sector of sports. GoSports, for example, works with promising athletes “to groom the next generation of world-beating Indian sporting champions” and aspires to “invigorate the country’s sporting ecosystem.” On the other hand, there are companies whose work borders on social activism. DailyDump provides products that enable us to manage household waste and convert it to useful high-quality compost.
That, however, is only the tip of the iceberg.
In a May 2009 story about India’s successful young entrepreneurs, The Washington Post reported that the economic slump did not halt the dreams of India’s budding entrepreneurs. The Post article outlined the success stories of Rajesh Razdan’s mCarbon, which provides sophisticated call-management services to cell phone users, and Zibika.com, an online personal finance portal focused on the insurance market, started by 25-year-old entrepreneur Arun Balakrishnan.
According to the Post, “Analysts say that although the amount invested in start-ups dipped in the first quarter of 2009, the number of deals did not.”
Does that mean that the best is yet to come?
Tags: activecubes solutions, DailyDump, entrepreneurs, Entrepreneurship, GoSports, India, Indian Professionals, Lakshya, mCarbon, Star Agri, takeovercode.com, Talent, Talent Community, Talent Network, TATA NEN, TATA NEN Hottest Startups, The Loot, Washington Post, Zibika.com
