Invest in your creative

 

It seems that the current start-up world is obsessed with funding. Whenever people talk at accelerators or incubators and in start-up meetings is always about funding. Most new entrepreneurs and business people think that the first thing they need to do is obtain money with the naive expectation that this money will fund their start-up activities, they will be able to build a wonderful product, sell thousands of millions of items, make their fortune and pay back all the investors.

However, it just doesn't often work like that. Regretfully, with the copious amounts of investment cash that has been available since about 2012, many start-ups have been lulled into thinking that this is the preferred scenario that they should emulate.

The reality is that many start-up entrepreneurs are not entrepreneurs at all. They are simply starting a new business and, as such, along with thousands of other people who have started businesses for thousands of years they are doing very little that is that special or that much more riskier than any other new business activity. In fact, many are brutally clueless in how to start, build and grow a business. Any investment money that they may have obtained is usually wasted in propping up their rapid learning curve requirement.

The crucial factor is that when starting a new business, it is not the product, service, team or finances that are lacking. It is, in fact, the overly excitable "entrepreneur" who has little knowledge of how to get something out of nothing, negotiate properly, execute amazing marketing, have meaningful customer engagement and, most crucially, make a profit.

Any would-be entrepreneur needs to invest more money, energy, time and resources into their own learning - way before they start asking people for investment into "the dream". The ability to generate new ideas, solve unforeseen problems and get customers is key to startup-success.