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10 advice to start your own venture in Nepal

I like the work of Entrepreneurs for Nepal. They are doing really great job. They have more than 1200 young, creative entrepreneurs, who have ideas and want to implement it in Nepal. They have successfully created a facebook group with 1888 members till date.

I would like to quote one of their resources which is called “10 advice to start your own venture in Nepal”

1. Success takes patience: Min Bahadur Gurung waited almost for a decade before he expanded his one-room cold storage shop to a small department store, which then went on to be today’s Bhat Bhateni Supermarkets at more than one location.
2. Know yourself: Karna Sakya has devised a test that helps you find out how you work, how you value time, and what your values are. His point is that unless you really know what you are good at, and how you function, you are not likely to be a success.
3. Know the strengths of others you are working with: You can’t do everything by yourself. Icchya Raj Tamang says that working well in a team is a function knowing and using the strengths of other
   team-mates toward your goals.
4. Aim for precision in communication: Jonas Lindholm says that bad communication lies at the heart of many business failures and misunderstandings. In Nepal, often, people say ‘yes’ too eagerly, without being aware of what they can do and what they cannot do. This can be a problem when things do not go right. Say what you mean, and mean what you say.
5. When choosing partners, do your homework well: Mahendra Man Shakya of Momo King says that most mistakes are made in Nepali businesses when people get into business partnerships without doing the necessary background research and without asking themselves some tough questions which need to be answered and understood upfront. There is no fun in quarreling with your business partners when things go wrong, which is likely to happen at some point in the business.
6. Honesty is the key: Min Bahadur Gurung says that long-term business success is anchored on honesty, and on mutually trustworthy relationships with your financial institutions, creditors, debtors, co-workers, employees and customers.
7. Analyze your mistakes to learn from them: Gyanendra Pradhan of HydroSolutions says that a good habit an entrepreneur needs to develop is an ability to reflect upon one’s mistakes, and learn from them without getting stuck in the past. This habit can be cultivated through conscious practice and reflective experiences.
8. Hard work is the only way to success: Ambika Shrestha of Dwarika’s Hotel attributes her success to her ability to work very hard when she was young. No work was beneath her, and she made many, many sales calls and visits to sell her hotel and travel agency’s offerings.
9. Persistence is important:Ajay Ghimire, CEO of Vibor Bank, says that he looks for a sense of persistence when dealing with entrepreneurs. Those who are persistent are likely to not get disappointed with failures and setbacks, and have the energy and willpo
10. Entrepreneurship is the art of selling: Ajay Ghimire believes that whatever an entrepreneur does, success comes from an ability to sell ideas, concepts, goods and services to others. This is why, an ability to sell what one knows and makes is a critical skill to have.

Click here to download their pdf version. If there is problem then click here

In this context I would like to share an article by Damon Darlin in New York Times.

Jack Ma, the chief executive of Alibaba Group, stopped by to talk about his plans for Alibaba.com, the Chinese Web site for making business-to-business connections, and Taobao.com, the Chinese answer to eBay.

As a prominent businessman in China, Mr. Ma gets asked a lot about the declining state of the world economy. He said that he was eating at a restaurant recently when the owner recognized him and asked when the recession will be over.

“Next year,” Mr. Ma replied.

The restaurant owner was surprised, Mr. Ma said. “The recession will be over next year?” the man asked.

“No,” said Mr. Ma, “Next year, we’ll all get used to it.”

Mr. Ma thinks the recession is going to last three to five years. “If you don’t accept that, you are in trouble.”

Mr. Ma said he was in the United States looking for partnerships. He thinks that Alibaba could help out-of-work Americans looking to start a small business. A person goes to the site to find suppliers among the directory of about 4.2 million companies. A click of a button next to a listing generates an e-mail asking about prices or samples.

Someone with an idea for a new product could use Alibaba to find a contract manufacturer, said Mr. Ma. They could also use the service to get a prototype built.

At least, he hopes he can appeal to entrepreneurs. He worried that the American dream is dying here. “You don’t see the hope here,” said Mr. Ma. “This time they are waiting for the government.”

Some are afraid of failure, some are afraid of the pressures of success, and some just want to tell people about their ideas, just for the sake of doing so. Here is a general step-by-step guide to taking an idea and turning it into a business.

Once you get an Idea…

1. Talk – Share your idea with your friends. Don’t worry about someone stealing your idea. Feedback will triumph over excessive paranoia. Take all feedback objectively, but consider them all.

2. Write it down – Putting things down on paper gets a lot of things out of your head and onto an initial plan. Don’t worry about structure, all the analysis just yet. Put down everything that comes to your head first. Getting this out of the way paves a much easier path to sit down in the future and do up a proper business plan.

3. Assemble a team – Pick your people based on motivation, communication, and skills. The lack of any one of these attributes will result in a higher likelihood of your team not reaching its full potential and morale being affected adversely. Having an especially cohesive team is essential, as a start-up will take a much longer time to reach a point of big rewards.

4. Find a deadline – Make your own deadlines and set your own lofty targets. Break things down into small tasks each which its own deadline so that you at least make baby steps towards the final goal. Failure of this will likely result in procrastination and unnecessary slowdown of the project

5. Manage the team – Be decisive. Insist on reasonable commitments on team members, and don’t be afraid to seek out new blood if they don’t reach expected levels of commitment.

6. Rinse and repeat steps 4 and 5 until you get into business – Constantly seek out new goals to meet, and manage your team based on those goals on deadlines.

Simplistic as it sounds, these are practical steps that will move you in the right direction in a timely manner.

Source: Friedbeef’s Tech.

After posting a job ad, the responses start to come in within a few hours. 95% of the time the candidates have no idea how to reply to the job ad and will either send over:

• The same old copy-paste reply which they use for every job ad
• A vague reply in which they don’t sell themselves to me

Having been on both sides of the fence – as an employer now, and as a freelancer about 5 years ago – I’ve come to learn what makes a great response to a job ad on a freelance site such as those listed above, and I thought I’d give you a few pointers in this article to help you win any and all freelance jobs you apply for.

1. What’s in it for me, the employer?

If you’re replying to my job ad for a freelancer, you need to sell me on your skills and the benefits of hiring you. The best way to do this is with a short list of bullet points, such as:

• Expert technical writer whose written for Microsoft and eBay
• Fully dedicated to your project with a keen eye for detail
• 100% money back guarantee if not satisfied for any reason
• Fast turn around time

In the example above let’s assume I’m a freelancer trying to win a freelance job relating to technical writing. First up I “name dropped” Microsoft and eBay. As an employer this would get me thinking “wow, this guy’s written for Microsoft and eBay. He must be good, I’ll keep reading.”

Next, you’re telling me that you’re a harder worker and you’re SO confident in your work that you’ll give me my money back if I’m not happy. That eliminates all risk for me from the get go.

Finally, you’ve guaranteed me a fast turn around time, which I like because I have 100 other things to worry about and don’t have time to micro manage you.

2. Does your subject line get my attention?
When I post a job for a freelancer, 99 times out of 100 the subject line will be something like “Re: Technical writer position”. If I have 85 emails in my inbox then that wont get my attention.

Be creative with in the subject line of your email and do whatever it takes to get the attention of the person who posted the job. Here are some good examples that have worked on me:

• “You will NOT find a better technical writer than me. Guaranteed.”
• “Delete your post on eLance – read my resume to find out why”
• “I’ve worked with 2 of your closest competitors”
• “I am an expert at using your product and can write your user guide with my eyes closed.”

Compare the subject lines above to this: “Re: Technical writer position”
… and you can see what a huge difference just the subject line can make.

3. Are you a real person?

You’d be surprised how many candidates don’t include contact details in their reply to a freelance position. Just because you work from home it doesn’t mean your only communication methods should be email and IM.

Employers want to know you’re a “real” person, so to get the ball rolling and have a better chance of winning the job, try ending your email with something like this:

“I’m located in Los Angeles, California, and am able to begin working on your job right away. Please feel free to call me on 555 0199 to discuss the project any time. I look forward to hearing from you.”

Even if the person who posted the job is comfortable dealing with you via email, just showing you have an open line of communication can make a world of difference when it comes to winning a freelance job. You’d be surprised by how many offshore freelancers pose as being from North America.

I hope these 3 quick tips have given you a few ideas on what you can do to win more freelance jobs in the future. If you have any questions feel free to leave a comment below!

Answer By Glenn Okun (2008) on Forbes.com: Business plans are the documented results of a venture design process. The process attempts to refine a preliminary business idea and develop a strategy so as to take advantage of current or anticipated conditions in the internal and external environment. Venture analysis represents the processes by which the founder finds facts and generates reasonable estimates, both quantitative and qualitative, that can be utilized as inputs for planning and designing the venture.

The venture design process has five functions:

–Defining the business concept and the opportunity;

–Identifying the risk profile;

–Understanding a venture’s required resource set;

–Creating transactions for securing the required resource set; and

–Assessing the incremental value provided by the acquired resource set.

The business idea represents a starting point in the venture design process. It will be revised upon completion of the first iteration of the design process. The business concept that is created by the venture design process will demonstrate the business’ viability and value.

Viability is defined as break-even on a cash flow basis, based on financial projections that are realistic in their estimation of the performance of the business and the availability of required resources. Value is defined as risk-adjusted financial return on investment.

Risks are forces at work that have the potential to impede a venture’s progress and reduce its value. Risk profile is defined as a comprehensive assessment of the array of the venture’s risks and their interrelationships. The risk profile considers all of the individual risks and their effects on each other. Upon completing the risk profile identification process, the entrepreneur should be able to assign a single risk grade or factor describing the venture’s risk profile.

Want to ask Glenn a question? Go to the Forbes.com Small Business Exchange and select his name from among our cadre of experts.

Required resources are the individual means–financial, human or strategic–that will allow the entrepreneur to advance the venture. The required resource set considers all of the individual resources and ascertains the combination of required resources that is needed. It prioritizes the resources and stages their required timing.

There may be alternative required resource sets. Various required resource sets may only be effective if they are accompanied by a change in the firm’s strategy. For example, a decision to build rather than lease a factory has significant strategic implications. This process also identifies the essential resource set, the set of resources without which the venture cannot proceed.

Transactions are deals or contractual arrangements that secure the required resource set. The deals must be considered in isolation and as a group. Entrepreneurs must pursue the best arrangements for obtaining required resources but cannot conduct their analysis of one deal in isolation from all other resource arrangements.

Founders should evaluate the effect of one proposed transaction on the collective contractual arrangements within the firm in order to understand its potential impact on the firm’s mosaic or existing structure of transactions. For example, a new employment contract with an unusually large bonus and option component relative to historical levels may lead existing employees to renegotiate, changing the firm’s cost structure.

The acquired resource set is only desirable if it creates attractive incremental value compared with the economic state of the firm without the resources in question. Incremental value is calculated net of all deal costs and required returns demanded by the suppliers of the acquired resource set.

The business plan should document the reasoning and conclusions from this process. It should describe a plan of exploitation of the opportunity and mitigation of the risks that have been identified and analyzed in the planning process. And it should persuasively articulate the investment merits of the plan.

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Business Plans is one of the most necessary tools to get your business idea into successful venture. It gives you the track and analysis of your business idea and also it can help you to get financial support when needed.

Source: Forbes

- Sakin

Answer By Glenn Okun (2008) on Forbes.com: Timing the launch of a start-up requires consideration of a number of factors, including general economic conditions. The entrepreneur should assess the target market’s position in its business cycle, the state of the resource markets and the venture’s window of opportunity.

It is essential to understand the industry’s business cycle as well as the economic cycle in order to assess the prospective customers’ financial health and the potential demand for your offering. The current economic landscape provides the broad context in which commerce occurs. Individual industry performance does not necessarily correlate perfectly with overall conditions.

For example, bill collectors and payday lenders tend to outperform during recessions. A product’s benefits may resonate more strongly with customers during tough times, especially if cost savings and efficiency are significant elements of the value proposition. Firms with fuel-efficiency technologies are being deluged with inquiries today.

Start-ups typically require both financial and human resources. Economic difficulties may enhance the availability of some resources. Casualties of a recession may swell the ranks of the talent pool that is open to joining your venture. Investors in start-ups have a long-term orientation that exceeds the current business climate. Capital flows are not only affected by the economy but also by the expected performance of an industry.

Lastly, entrepreneurs must consider competitive conditions in making the timing decision. Market opportunities seldom are static. Competitors will likely identify the prospective customers’ unmet needs and act. One must try to estimate the duration of time over which the start-up can successfully enter the market and seize the opportunity.

The complexities of the entrepreneurial venture dictate that the founder conduct the aforementioned multifaceted analysis in order to select the timing of the launch.

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Remember, always check the right time and opportunity to launch and start your great business ideas. This will help you to capitalize the opportunity faster.

Source: Forbes

- Sakin