A picture is worth a thousand words. If you want to quickly learn how to start a business, there’s no better learning tool than infographics. In this blog post I would like to guide you by hand to journey into the land of entrepreneurship using infographics as a way to help you start-up with the right mindset and expectations.
Anna Vital of Funders and Founders once said that infographics help you learn 50 times faster. I don’t know where she got that fact, but I have to agree with her: Infographics have helped me to learn about anything faster.
With regard to entrepreneurship, there are plenty of infographics around, helping you to understand various topics – startups, management, marketing, taxation and so on. However, with regard to starting up, there’s not many quality ones around. No worries – I’ve done the legwork for you.
Here are 5 of the best startup/entrepreneurship infographics that will definitely give you benefits worth more than just 5 minutes of your time. Here they go:
1. Are you up for a challenge?
Starting up, especially when you need to bootstrap everything, requires you to wear many “hats” – production, accounting, marketing/promotion, and so on. In order to be successful, let’s say that entrepreneur must be multi-faceted. You need to be able to do many things to get your startup launched off the ground.
This inforgraphic by Attendly can give you an idea on what you should be able to do as a founder. Geared toward tech startup, the infographic mentions about development skills. You can actually replace that with expertise required to start a business in your niche – e.g. graphic design skills if you want to start a graphic design company or woodworking skills if you want to start woodworking-related business… and so on.
Source: Attendly
Writing a novel? Hmm… I might need to do that 🙂
2. What kind of entrepreneur are you?
This one is classic: I’ve read about it from Entrepreneur Magazine (I forgot the edition, unfortunately) but BizSugar has crafted and published a good infographic that pretty much sum up everything you need to know about your entrepreneurship style.
It’s important for you to know your style, because it will pretty much determine what kind of startup the most suitable for you. There are too many business failure stories I have read, watch and heard giving you “it turned out that this line of business is not for me” or similar reason. It’s better to start on the right footing, don’t you think?
Source: BizSugar
What’s your style? I’m “The Pajamapreneur” and I’m proud of what I am (and yes, LinkedIn is super-cool, indeed!)
3. How to know your startup idea doesn’t suck
Ah – ideas. In an entrepreneur’s mind, there are ideas popping whenever, wherever we go. Even going to the public toilet can give you that “eureka moment.” But then, you need to realize that not all ideas are feasible enough to be turned into real business.
There are some simple (and affordable) ways to acid-test your ideas – Funders and Founders’ Anna Vital has done a great job crafting this infographic to enlighten you:
Source: Funders and Founders
I never personally do any of the above to test my ideas, but I have actually done something similar to “dine with an influential blogger” – I pitch my ideas on social media and see how people respond to them.
4. How to turn your passion into a startup
Many, if not most, startups are driven either by talent or passion. But you need to keep in mind that although you are very talented, it doesn’t mean that you will build a successful business capitalising on your talent.
To help giving you an idea of what to do and expect when you are turning your idea into reality, I recommend you this rather simplistic infographic published by Make It Cheaper; it shows you the step-by-step required to launch a business.
Source: Make It Cheaper
5. How many times you should fail before you find success
Failing sucks. But it’s often inevitable. In fact, you do need to fail – numerous times – in order to grow your business. Just like what Reid Hoffman, the Founder of LinkedIn, has said, “If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.” Failures are opportunities, indeed.
So, are you ready to fail? I’m not sure you will answer “yes”, though… but what if I put it this way: In order to be successful, you need to fail first – will you embrace failures? Still have your doubts? This infographic can give you an idea on how often you (should) fail before you finally discover success.
Source: Funders and Founders
My favourite: Colonel Sanders was turned down 1,009 when he tried selling his friend chicken recipe before he struck gold with his KFC. Failing 1,000+ times is not a small feat – it takes a good measure of resilience and perseverance (and stubbornness) to be able to do it.
Takeaway
As you can see from the 5 infographics above, there are some questions you need to answer yourself even before you really launch a business. Learn from them so you can start right and plan well – but not too long, though… because whether you like it or not, taking action is the only way to know whether your business is a success or failure.
Entrepreneurship is a journey – enjoy your walk; expect some stumbles here and there, but no worries – just walk; and before you know it, you are finally arrive – or ready embark on yet another entrepreneurial journey – your choice. It’s YOUR journey.
