Business In a Box

“Begin at the beginning,” the King said, very gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”

Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

You too can create your own wonderland. This blog is all about you. I have helped many young entrepreneurs over the past 7 years think about their business and how to get started.

Recently, I helped a friend with his pitch deck and delighted to say, he and his team raised $500,000 in seed funding for their startup.

Personally, I made several attempts to start my dream projects, a couple of them did not take off as I had planned. So, I am painfully aware of the pitfalls and losses.

However, when I think of all the businesses that I started, what has remained with me is the exhilaration, the adrenalin rush and pure joy in accomplishing what I set out to do.

So, if you’ve been toying with a business idea, let’s get started.

Business In a Box

I have put together a short video with yours truly as well as an interactive presentation to get you started. Over the course of this year, I will add more tips, tools and templates to this Box. I hope this will become a living, breathing Go-To resource for all of us dreamers and entrepreneurs.

YouTube Video

Interactive Presentation

The intreractive presentation is good to review because you can absorb the content at your pace and review slides that you want to spend more time on. I highly recommend you view this on your computer or tablet. Please click here to see the interactive presentation.

Final Thoughts

The world economy has had a massive shift since the pandemic. Work From Home (WFH) is now more of a norm than an exception. The world is much smaller because of the internet and increasingly faster and better bandwidth.

What does this have to do with you? Well, the world truly can become your Oyster.

If you have a good job, or you need the income from your regular job, then do the following:

1. Continue working at your job. Do a good job but you only need to do enough not to get fired. Why? So that you can leave work at a decent hour.
2. Build your MVP (Minimum Viable Product) in the evenings and during the weekend.
3. Test your product. Set goals and metrics to qualify your success rate with the product. For example, numbers of customers who downloaded your product or clicked on a link, or bought your product, number of enquiries, number of vendors onboarded, number of views on a media content you put out, etc.
4. Once you start meeting the metrics and you can see a path to accelerated growth, if you need to, consider doing this full time or dedicating more time to your project.
5. Financials are extremely important. Make sure you have at least 1 year to 18 months of cash flow to sustain yourself and your business.
6. Keep your professional relationships so that you have a safety net or back up plan if things Dont’t work out.

There are no failures, only growth and learnings.

I also blog about investing in the stock market. If you would like help on how to budget, save or invest more, please feel free to reach me, on Twitter @saq3 or LinkedIn @Shaheeda Abdul Kader, or leave a message at say@shaheedasays.com. I’d be happy to offer you my services. Please do check my other blogs here.

Disclaimer:

I am NOT a certified broker or financial advisor. Please DO NOT make investment decisions based solely on my blogs. My intention is to show you how to research stocks or funds for yourself so you can feel empowered and knowledgeable to do your own investigations and invest with confidence. It is best to consult with your broker or advisor if you have questions. You can also reach me, and I’ll do my best to help you with your queries.