Top 10 mistakes to avoid when starting an online business

mistakes to avoid when starting an online business

mistakes to avoid when starting an online business

Starting an online business is more about filling the gap and providing required services and less about publicizing and promoting it on a grander level. Only a handful of enterprises are able to make it to the successful list. If you see the list of successful entrepreneurs, there’s no specified paradigm but one look at the list of unsuccessful enterprises and you will spot the repeated pattern.

In the contemporary world, it is very difficult to list down the methods of being successful but it is extremely easy to discuss methods that will sabotage your success.

Here is a list of ten things/mistakes you need to avoid when starting an online business:

Not having a plan to start with: Agreed, this is entrepreneurship and here innovation is more important than strategy but a plan is still required. It is important for you to see the goal clearly in your mind. You will have to develop a plan to start with. You simply cannot start from the road, you will have to get yourself a room, you will have to come down to a platform, you will be going ahead with and you will also have to sort people for your team.

Focusing too much on Little Stuff: They say, build it with passion. True, you will have to see that every service is coming up in the right way but this is no excuse for you to boil down on your team members. You will have to give your team members their requisite space; you will have to see that you are not concentrating on small things that are not going to matter in the long run. Concentrate on leveraging your customer/clients with an irreplaceable experience. Concentrate on something that is going to evolve over the time and provide your business with the requisite boom.

Worry about it—Money: If your idea is as amazing as you can think of it then it is going to bring in a lot of money but when you are starting with it, you will have to see that you are spending the seed fund with a lot of care. Do not compromise on building an online store that will leverage customers with an amazing experience. Do not compromise on customer relations but for everything else learn to bargain. Try to tell people how your idea is going to benefit them in the coming times and acquire the required discount.

Never Underestimate what you are selling: You might be selling a service or a product. Your product might be first of its kind but this is no reason to list at a low price. Do the requisite market research, understand the value of your product and then do the pricing.

Never Ignore your Customers: Once you have failed to make it large, you will understand that everyone boils down to customer satisfaction. You can ignore an impressive paycheck but you should never ignore, what it is referred to as Customer Experience. Every customer is important, irrespective of the business he is bringing, he is important because in the business world terms like Word of Mouth exists and nothing is as good as this method specific method of marketing.

mistakes to avoid when starting an online business

Giving away too much: The new age entrepreneurs will have to understand that Angel Investor’s money is not for giving away in the form of cash backs and offers. You should never give away something until you are generating it from one or the other source. Investors’ money is to be used for business development. Enterprises should concentrate on creating a quality experience for customers. Use the funding for strengthening your distribution, network and relation with other counterparts.

Not Concentrating on Social Media: Social Media is a boon. Entrepreneurs should concentrate more on these sites instead of running paid ads in the boot strapping stage. Social media sites like Facebook and Pinterest are going to do wonders for customer building while Linkedin is a good option for finding the right set of people to do business with.

Do not Rush into Hiring: Now that you have decided to be an entrepreneur, it is time for you to play a lot of roles. Sachin Bansal was recently seen delivering products in Bengaluru. Well, Sachin is a successful entrepreneur but he used to do the same when they started Flipkart. Sachin’s one of the vivid memories of starting days is of distributing Bookmarks outside a bookshop in Bengaluru. Get on the floor and do all the available tasks and do it with a lot of passion.

Do not lose your Passion: It takes a hell lot of effort to ditch a comforting job and start with something on your own. Now that you have done that, it is time for you to go beyond your limits and get the task done. Your passion will take you to the heights nobody would have thought of. Do not let it slip out of your hand. Keep it there, read books, attend seminars and fill yourself with the required motivation and passion.

One Size Fits All is Obsolete now: Gone are the days when one model was good enough for every business. In the contemporary age of the Internet and other innocuous technologies, it takes only few months for paradigms to turn obsolete. Do not indulge yourself into the act of cheating of herd following. Look for something new and look for something that will help a lot of other people also acquire the requisite motivation to carry on. Flipkart started a race in India, which was already won by Amazon in the world and trust me when I say this, Flipkart actually won the race in India against amazon.

Entrepreneurship is not only about an individual; it is about a lot of other things at the same time. As an entrepreneur, it is important for you to get incessant with efforts and also inspire your team members to work with the same passion. If you are insistent and regular with efforts, you will end up carving out a niche for yourself and that day the world will start following YOU.

 

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One response to “Top 10 mistakes to avoid when starting an online business”

  1. Good points mentioned and I can’t agree more on those. If the business is online or offline they must come on internet, otherwise the business won’t survive in long run. And if they are already online they must focus on online business promotions. And in this case social media is surely not enough. An online business must have some SEO and PPC strategies for their websites, products and services. These two are absolutely important and drive around 80% of the total web traffic, which can be further converted into sales and money. Online businesses should also have some content marketing strategies.

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