HOW TO BUILD A BUSINESS

Raj Anand

rs trepreneu
Su alumni En
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running a business or looking to start one'

ab o u t R a j i n t r o du ct io n

I’ m one the growing bread of

entrepreneurs in the UK
who built a business right
businesses or think as an
entrepreneur.

The last few weeks I have been

after graduating from university. I’m
getting a huge number of enquiries
the founder of Kwiqq - Social
from budding entrepreneurs for
Networking Platform and
advice on how to build a business.
Anderstand - Web Design and build.
Although I’m not sure if there are
Recently I have been active in the
any rules or best practices in
helping others developing their own
entrepreneurship, there are a few
business through Make Your Mark
things which I have learnt from
and launching SUE (Sussex
developing Kwiqq. Blog was first
University Entrepreneurs). For my
featured on the Kwiqq Blog.
efforts with Kwiqq I won
BusinessWeek’s Europe’s Young
Entrepreneur (2007), Observer /
Courvoisier’s Future 500 (2008) and
finalist of Sussex Entrepreneur of
the year (2008). My personal
ambition is to get more university
graduates to start their own

SUE - Page One
Shout about your Ideas /
Marketing I get fairly confused
when people make me sign NDAs
(Non Disclosure Agreements) or
feel that if they tell their idea, it will
be stolen. There is very tiny chance
that someone will steal your idea
and implement it as well as you
could. Rule of thumb: people only
copy ideas once the product or
service is successful.
Hence talk about it, tell all your
friends and family, maybe they
might know someone who could
help you out. Make presentations,
videos and images of your idea
upload them to SlideShare,
YouTube / Vimeo and Flickr /
Facebook. In general marketing is
something many entrepreneurs put
on the back burner, the sentiment is
to come back to it when things are
ready. My advise is to prepare your
marketing as you develop your
business. This way you don’t have to
develop it at a later stage.
If you feel marketing is not your
strength get a PR company on
board, again this needs to be done
early on. The later you leave it the
less effective the campaign would
be.
No man is an island Most people
have an idea and feel they can
shoulder the load of developing the
business. Although in reality any
good business needs atleast two
people. In my experience your
founding team’s skills needs to tick
all these boxes: sales, marketing,
legal, accounting/finance and
operation/product development. Its
rare to find someone who has all
these skills and carry out all the
tasks.
SUE - Sussex University Entrepreneurs
My advice is to find people at educate you but inspire you. When i
networking events, social networks was starting up I spent 1/4th my
etc who you could bring in or time reading, you would often find
outsource to. Think how would you me at Borders reading the latest
finance getting these people book on business, sipping Starbucks
onboard for atleast one year. My and then back home to read a blog.
advice is not to think beyond that, Often a good friend of mine Jon
as you never know how quickly your Markwell and I use to exchange
business would develop. links, very valuable to exchange
these free resources amongst your
Apart from the professionals in your
colleagues.
team, you also need a support
network. During the early stages of
a business things can be a little
Networking Business networking
disheartening and you need
events are held in most cities of the
someone to speak to just to get you
world, where business people come
thinking about something other
together and speak openly about
than your business. This could be
their business. If you are a bedroom
your partner or perhaps your friend
geek thinking ‘I will do that once
circle.
my product is out of stealth mode’
then my friend you are mistaken.
You need to start networking before
Most entrepreneurs fail
you have an idea for your product.
because they give up Most start-
Often networking can stimulate
ups don’t make it because they give
new ideas just by listening to others.
up. As a company founder you need
to be positive, even if the idea is It also helps to market your product
flawed you need to find ways of and opens door to partnerships.
improving it and maintaining the Real life networking can’t be
momentum. You are an inspiration replaced by online networking, even
to investors, partners, employees etc if its a skype video chat. So
they are putting in resources unfortunately Mr Bedroom geek
because they trust you. So you need you will need to step into the real
to give most events a positive spin world and get out there !
and develop your idea.
Giving up is not an option !
Pick up skills as you go When
you start a business you have to be
the sales person, marketer, designer,
accountant etc. Most people
starting business, after few years of
work experience, wouldn’t have the
skills to undertake some of these
tasks.
The only way is to overcome this is
to learn, my recommendation is to
read as many blogs and books on
start-ups as possible. They not only

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Get trained Like most skills in life
like sports, professional or academic
requires training. Getting trained in
entrepreneurship is tricky as there
is so much to cover. Saying that you
can identify things you are perhaps
not very strong at. Once you have
identified these get in touch with
your local Business Link or
Enterprise Gateway Service to keep
you informed via email on seminars.
Most government organisations
have free seminars at knock off
prices to get budding entrepreneurs
trained. I suggest you attend these
and sign up to your local
organisation’s newsletter.
Starting business with a friend.
No !! I have heard several horror
stories on going into business with
friends and I have one of my own.
Its great if you become friends
through business, although the
other way round generally has a
tragic ending. Last thing you want is
your business to go pear shaped
based on the relationship with you
business partners.
Ideal way to find a business partner
is through your business contact
book (if you have one) or through
networking events. Keep the
relationship professional but
friendly and you will go a long way.
Business Model NOT EQUAL
Advertisement revenue This
point is specially relavant to media
company startups, who building a
business on getting as many users
onboard as possible, hoping to
monetisation through
advertisement. Whilst I like the
business model and several
businesses like Facebook, YouTube
etc have executed with success, its
not an easy one to get investment
SUE - Sussex University Entrepreneurs
for. It is even harder to convince built a company supplying SaaS
investors given the current (Software as a Service) using client’s
economic climate. projects as a way to fund the
development. This way of building a
Fundamentally investors love
product or a company is often
numbers so if you came with a
referred to as Boot-strapping.
proposition like, I have 1000 users
on my website in my town, each
paying $10/month and profit of $3/
It also helps to market your product
user/month. Now the investor
and opens door to partnerships.
thinks, if I put in some money to
Real life networking can’t be
replicate this in 100 cities the
replaced by online networking, even
company would make $300,000.
if its a skype video chat. So
The decision becomes simpler and
unfortunately Mr Bedroom geek
your venture gets funded !
you will need to step into the real
Having just genaralised the world and get out there !
‘advertisement as a revenue model’ I
must also point out that there are
exceptions to the above. Especially Take less risks and reduce
if you are building an innovative spending Early stage of the
advertising platform. Ad platforms business its all about keeping the
is not the sames as sticking banners costs low. Your strategy should be to
all around the website. Look at do things yourself but don’t
Google adverts they are an compromise on quality. Pay for
innovative, undistrating and simple things which will guarantee a high
way of advertising. Other sites like ROI (Return on Investment). If
Facebook, Twitter etc are still there is something you are not
searching for similar revenue particularly good at, outsource it or
streams. So its not that easy but if bring someone onboard.
you crack it, sky is the limit !
For instance if you can’t build a
website don’t try and hack together
a HTML site. Websites are now
Boot strapping to product
considered as face of the company,
Building a product which can be
its your branding, bread and butter
provided by channels to a segment hence don’t take chances. The odds
of the market is a tried and tested
of you following all the accessibility
way of building a successful
and design correctly are tiny. You
business. Generally to develop a
might as well get a designer on the
product an upfront cash injection is
case, they won’t cost you the world
required, typically investors are very but will ensure you present yourself
useful at this stage.
well.
Many companies especially started
by founders with no business track
record, find it extremely hard to
raise cash. Your best bet is to work
out a way to generate cash, typically
by providing a service like
consulting, save some money and
then develop your products on the
side. Many companies like 37 signals
 SUE - Sussex University Entrepreneurs

SUE - Page Three

Business is all about Karma
Karma (dictionary definition): The
effects of a person’s actions that
determine his destiny in his next
incarnation.
If someone told me this three years
back I wouldn’t have taken it
seriously. Karma is all about giving
without expecting much in return,
which in turn brings good fortune.
Over the last few years I have
noticed: the more free stuff one
gives, the more people enjoy it and
then become their evangelists.
These people effectly become their
personal marketers.
So when starting a business try and
give away things. The more you give
the more you will get.

Finally JFDI (Just F Do it) You

won’t know how successful you will
be unless you actually jump into it,
so why not try. What’s the worst
that can happen ? If you are
passionate about building a business
you will succeed eventually. If you
fail the first time try again,
apparently first time entrepreneurs
only have 18% chance of
succeeding, although next time you
start a business the chances increase
to 30%.