New age of entrepreneurship

We live in incredibly exciting times.

So much that words like swashbuckling, radical, paradigm shift, and new age won’t even begin to do any justice to the break-neck speed the world is changing.

In our earlier post on the New Age of Entrepreneurship we wrote about the paradigm shift that we live in now. Only a few years ago, the world we live in was straight, linear, and constricted when it comes to thinking and business opportunities.

There was a time when you’d have Ford’s T-Model car only in black.

Business opportunities were limited to manufacturing, retail, medicine, education, rail roads, oil, and a few more industries.

More than 50 computers — each the size of a full room — would have just as much power as the smartphone you now have in your pocket.

If your business is in the United States, you’d do business in the United States.

Things changed, and how.

The exponential rise of computing power means that we have more content uploaded to Facebook and Youtube in just a few years than the total amount of content created for television throughout history.

You get cell signals on Mount Everest, self-driven cars will roll past your doorway, and the Internet Of Things (IoT) will ensure that your refrigerator talks to your smartphone.

You can now manage an entire team in Taiwan while your business headquarters is in downtown Los Angeles. You can give product demos to a group of interested clients regardless of where they live, and make customers come to you without ever picking up the phone to call them.

As far as entrepreneurship is concerned, you have global opportunities, technology supported by incredible computing power, borderless access to contractual talent, increased connectivity, real-time information, smart systems, big data, and so much more.

A global free market economy has given rise to outsourcing, in-sourcing, offshoring, supply-chaining, and remote working.

Your market potential spans from Brussels to Bangalore. Your products can reach any corner of the world. Your customers could be local but the products are manufactured in China.

Say hello to a bewildering concoction of modern-day technology and business opportunities —  The Internet, email, messenger chatbots, web-conferencing, fiber-optic networks, livechat, social media, instant phone calls, web-sourced real-time data, artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics, and augmented reality.

Today, business opportunities are everywhere. Technology is available for everyone to use, regardless of where you live.

There was never a better time in the entire history of mankind to start, run, manage, and grow your business.

You can start a business in San Francisco while your team is distributed around the world.

The CRM software you use for your business can parse data and take decisions on its own.

With information at your fingertips, you’d know why Product X sold more than Product Y during Black Friday. Your sales team will know more about potential customers even before they go out to meet them. Using big data and analysis, you are in a unique position to understand consumer behavior better than it was ever possible.

Want to figure out what products will sell more during the weeks leading up to Christmas? The information is buried in endless ream of data retailers collect.

Want to advertise? Facebook has data on over 2 billion people helping you precisely target the ideal customer you want to reach out to. Google has a few other billion opportunities to ensure that your ad shows up exactly when your potential customers search for you.

While it’s easy to “start” a business, it’s also more challenging to thrive as a business today.

Your customers will have an opportunity to “check you out” thanks to the content you create and share with your blog posts, social updates, Youtube Videos, Facebook Live sessions, and instagram pictures.

Potential customers don’t come and buy your products because of lack of choices; they come to you now because despite choices, they make informed decisions.

When they do, your business should be able to resonate with their problems, their principles, and their values.

Businesses today have the additional responsibility of not just creating products but also to build and nurture communities; to stay responsive on social media trying to build genuine relationships; and to produce a steady stream of content to win the trust of existing and potential customers.

Despite the change, however, the only kind of businesses that’ll succeed today are those that are able to create value, establish trust, and those that can give before asking for anything in return. “Giving first, asking later” is the new order of the day.

Modern-day entrepreneurship demands moving with the times real fast while being honest, open, community-centric, and value-driven.

Are you ready for the new opportunities in the ever-changing, global economy?