How to Learn Business as an Aspiring Entrepreneur

However, building a business from the ground up is no easy feat. Only 40% of small businesses are profitable, while the other 60% either break even or lose money continuously.^[1]

So how exactly does one master business in this harsh economy? Though there is no fixed formula, here are some tips on learning how to help you learn a trade and get started as an entrepreneur.

1. Start Small

Starting small is underrated. Most aspiring entrepreneurs try to hit the ground running immediately, before even learning the basics and pitfalls to avoid. My advice is to take things slowly in the beginning and start small. Going significant from day one isn’t always the best approach.

My partner and I got on Forbes 30 Under 30 Asia’s list of honorees^[2]. However, we most definitely did not get there in a day. It took us seven years to get the hang of how to run our business, and it’s not something we were able to do from day one.

The first presentation I ever did was for a cheesecake shop in the United Kingdom for a few hundred dollars. It was not much, but it gave me the confidence to do bigger things, and a happy customer is always good to have at the beginning.

Start by trying to sell cheaper goods or services like selling old clothing pieces you no longer need online or offering graphic design services. These activities may seem trivial, but the opportunities they teach you to cost management, essential marketing, and how to deliver real value to your consumers (and deal with challenges along the way)

Trying to fast-track your progress and diving in immediately could lead to a rude awakening, potentially even business failure. 7 out of 10 small businesses are impacted by business failure, and statistics show they fail before their 10-year mark. Due to poor expense control or a lack of a proper business system, business failure can be minimized once you master the basics early.

2. Model After Success

Reading up founder stories online through feature articles, podcasts, and websites can give insights into how these outstanding individuals succeeded in their journey and the pitfalls to avoid on your own.

Business leaders tend to leave patterns of success. Modeling after them, learning more about their world views, and vicariously going down the same path they took will give you a strong head start, possibly clarifying difficult and similar decisions you’ll have to make.

Do ensure you pick the right person to model after. Choose someone who has reached the level you aspire to achieve. Read up about their mottos and visions, drawbacks and successes, and how they got to where they are now. To quote the adage: “Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself!

When I started our business, I reached out personally to entrepreneurs I looked up to, like Ana Foureaux Frazao, a keynote designer at Apple at the time. Fortunately, they generously shared their experienced advice and encouragement that got me through some tight spots.

Now, you’re lucky enough to start a business in a time when podcasts are all the rage^[3], and experts share advice for free on Linkedin.

Every success story belies a road laden with challenges and pitfalls waiting to creep up on you. Discover more about these founders’ failures and how they picked themselves up, and apply these lessons you have learned to your ventures. Not only do you get to avoid the mistakes they made, but you are also one step closer to your goal.

3. Enroll in a Course to Learn New Skills

Being an entrepreneur requires you to wear many hats, which often means you have to take on more roles than you would be comfortable with. In a big company, a few essential functions make the company tick, helmed by various people — HR, marketing, accounts, administrative, etc. Starting your own business means you’ll need to take on all of them.

Consistently acquiring new skill sets and experiences is the hallmark habit of a great entrepreneur.

Take some time to attend classes to improve your skills in areas that need work. Explore in-depth regions that you’re already adept at. By taking a crash course to explore different business topics, you can hone all your business skills, especially those which you avoided in school.

For example, apart from learning complex skills, like programming and design, you’ll also want to pick up soft skills, like negotiation, sales, and presentation.

Being an entrepreneur does not necessarily mean you need to be good at everything, but it does mean that you need to be willing to try everything and become a jack of all trades. Take the first step to better equip yourself with the most comprehensive duffel bag of skill sets for the long journey ahead because, in the beginning, you’ll likely have to do it all by yourself.

4. Master Marketing

Our world is changing. We have children making millions filming reviews about toys^[4] and teenage influencers earning more on good months than entry-level bankers. Attention is becoming scarcer, and if you know how to command it, you’ll be in an excellent position to profit massively.

As a starting point, you’ll want to master a few key elements and skill sets to begin learning marketing:

Platforms and Social Media

Get intimate with various new social platforms like TikTok, tackle professional audiences on LinkedIn, and get familiar with the old-but-gold Facebook channel for advertising. These will be the bread-and-butter channels you’ll own apart from your websites and will be crucial in getting the word out about your business.

Blogging and Publishing

Whether you’re using WordPress or Medium, the ethos is the same. Share valuable content for free that your audience will love and develop a community and expert identity. They’ll potentially purchase what you sell and spread your message.

Years back, SlideShare was the go-to platform for our niche before it got acquired by LinkedIn. I regularly put up PDFs there, which, in turn, got us hundreds of inquiries and leads. After a year or two, we had millions of people viewing our content. Now that it’s almost defunct, we’ve had to find new channels like LinkedIn to market.

Audience Personas

All the marketing tactics and strategies available will be for naught if you do not have a clear idea of who you’re targeting, what they want, and the best ways to reach them. Take time to understand your audience inside-out — their desires, fears, and aspirations.

Pricing Strategies

Marketing should lead to you getting noticed. It should also lead to you getting paid. The latter is more challenging to accomplish effectively. Setting the correct prices that resonate with your audience is crucial to developing a successful marketing strategy and business.

5. Meet Other Entrepreneurs

Nothing beats surrounding yourself with intelligent, like-minded, and driven individuals who face the same struggles as you. You are not alone in this journey; there are others that can help you along the way!

Being a successful entrepreneur can be rough and, most of all, lonely. There is a 100% chance that you’ll face challenges and hardship along the way, and having a solid mental game mindset is essential to persisting and staying optimistic.

Having an inner circle of entrepreneurs can offer you contextual advice on making difficult decisions and navigating your next steps. Exposing yourself to this new group of individuals is the best opportunity to pick up something new.

Using apps like Meetup, joining groups on LinkedIn, or attending business events on platforms like Eventbrite can set you up to meet your future inner circle of entrepreneurs.

You never know; you may learn a little something that can ultimately bring you to greater heights and accomplish even more of the unknown.

Aside from that, you can potentially find business partners or collaborators that don’t compete directly but serve a similar customer group amongst your target audience.

6. Identify a Product Niche You Know Well

It’s easier to sell a product that you are familiar with intimately. You understand the pain? points^[5] that drive you to make a decision, and your potential customers will go through the same decision-making journey. By understanding the pain? points of the product, you know exactly the change you want to bring to it.

In the best-case scenario, what you’re selling could be what you’re passionate about.

Your interest may be in working out, for instance, and as such, starting a business in that space can prove to be more exciting and, due to your intimate understanding of it, likely more successful, too.

We started our presentation consultancy, HighSpark, stemming from interest and expertise. Our existing skills in the area made getting our first few clients easier than selling a service or offering what we honestly didn’t understand. We could also clearly articulate the pain? points based on previous clients we helped on a freelance basis before starting the business.

Good business ideas hardly just “come to you” by magic. However, that shouldn’t stop you from starting. Start with a passion, pick a pain? point, and begin there. Your ideas and business model might evolve, but you’ll thank yourself for starting early.

7. Become an Intern

Before you start building your empire, consider getting some first-hand experience in the real world to have a good kickstart. Without knowing how the gears work behind the scenes, you increase the chances of yourself making mistakes that could have been avoided.

Interning at a successful small company can be a good start. It can give you insights into the company’s inner workings and how its founders developed their business first-hand.

A well-selected internship can expand your horizons and provide an opportunity to work directly with and learn from the founders of the small company. In a larger corporation setting, you might not get the same level of responsibility.

You’ll also have the license to make a few mistakes in a safer environment. People are generally more forgiving towards interns, who are usually less experienced than full-time hires.

This opportunity will let you capitalize on your strengths and easily apply lessons learned to your business ventures. Best of all, you get a free ticket to be mentored by a professional, so there is no need to feel your way in the dark when in doubt. You are not on your own!

Final Thoughts

These tips should be sufficient to get you started, but undertaking the responsibilities to nourish and grow your company takes a lot of courage.

With great resolve and continuous learning, you are only a few more steps away from becoming a successful entrepreneur!