I think running a business is more like planning, finding more revenue and also managing risk. To make a venture more successful and smoothly, I think the following criteria must be met.

Full Time Business Partners

If you are starting a new venture with a few partners like me, it is better that all business partners to work full time. If not all, it is advisable at least most (majority) of the business partners are working full time.

This is because if, out of ten business partners and there is only one or two business partners are working full time, your business are not going run smoothly as projects are getting delays.

You will find various kinds of excuses like "I'm busy with this" and "I'm busy with that" or "I have forgotten this" and "I have forgotten that" from those who are working part time and these are the things that make your projects move slowly and get delayed.

Work Hard and Positive Attitude

Working hard is very important when starting in a new venture because you may have lack of fund in recruiting more people to work for you. You and your venture partners (or business partners) have to work on almost everything from top to down. You are the boss and you are the employee too at the beginning of the venture.

Other than working hard, you will also need to get rid of your negative attitudes and replace it with a positive mind. This is because whatever you say or think will influence the work you do and also your business partners. Control your though and stay positive.

Mean What You Say and Do What You Mean

You must always mean what you say and do what you mean. You must discipline yourself. Discipline is very important in making your venture to success. You may have seen people who say "I want A, B, C, D ... to be done" but actually done nothing meaningful or let the other do the rest. So always give something achievable, workable and give your own opinion or solution before asking from the others.

Distribution of Works

Distribution of works is very important in running a business because everyone has his/her own strengths and weaknesses on different fields. If one can do all the things by his/her own, he/she will no need to have business partners and he/she can be the only company. Besides, if works are distributed evenly, works can be done simultaneously and works can be done quickly.

Leverage

Leverage your business whenever possible. You can either get a loan from bank; get funding from the government or angle venture investor or from your own pocket money to make your business run. You cannot rely solely on the man powers from you business partners because it will be enough to make the business to grow.

You will need to recruit more man power to increase productivity, that is, to create more products, make more sales and generate more cash flow to your company to make the business run.

Comfortable Workplace

Well, you don't need to find a five-stars-hotel-like workplace but at lease a place that is suitable for your work. Starting to work from your home is a great idea if you are the only one in the house.

If you are staying with someone, you will find soon or later, you will need to find a place for your works. This is because you will need more privacy and less interruption for your works.

Imagine how you will feel when stand behind you and look at your computer screen while you are drafting an email to your client or your brother want to use your room for other purpose while you are rushing for a project?

So get a private workplace whenever possible.

Protect Yourself

Sole proprietorship or partnership will be good enough for starting a venture in small size. When your business grows bigger, you and your venture partners will be facing bigger risk. Do remember that the risk facing by sole proprietorship and partnership is unlimited; you and your partners are liable for every risk you are facing.

When your business grows to a certain level, you will need to protect yourself with a limited liability entity. That is, register a limited liability company. A company is a separate entity from the owner. If a person sues the company, only the assets of the company can be used to pay any legal judgment. The personal assets of the owner are safe. Therefore, protect yourself before it is too late.

Related Post

• Malaysia SME Stimulus Package – Pay RM200 to Get RM200 of Free Google AdWords Advertising Credit

The Universities involved in this partnership with Google are Multimedia University (MMU) and  Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR). Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) also involve in the Malaysia SME stimulus programme.

The first 100 businesses that currently don't have a website will get theirs for free. And the other will need to pay RM200 to get the website package offer. The latest update from Google website for the stimulus package shows that they have reached capacity for the free website offer. So there are no more freebies.

The website package's offers include free hosting on Blogger.com, 5 statics HTML pages (Homepage, Products/Services Gallery, Business Location page with map, About Us page, Contact Us page with form)  and one hour training on how to maintain your own website.

All new businesses new to Google Adwords qualify for RM200 free Google Adwords advertising. Now the question is here: Why one would buy the stimulus package for RM200 and to get a free RM200 free Google Adwords credit when most of the offers in the package can be found free on the Google search engine itself?

Hosting on Blogger.com is actually free. You can easily find tons of static HTML templates on the Internet. And about how to maintain your own website, you can simply "Google" it on the search engines and you will find a lot of valuable  information.

Maybe it is the training worth the money where you can save a lot of hours of research. If you are looking for a website for your business, you may want to take a look at the Malaysia SME Stimulus Package - Build a Website.

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• Starting A Venture – My Little Experience