The year 2009: Learnings as an Entrepreneur

2009 has been a great year for me and Way2Franchise.com, we went through a ride, a very exciting one, just like the Revenge of The Mummy Ride, I experienced at Universal Studios Park at LA. Thrilling, Exciting and exasperating, little do you realise that it would get over in the flashes of flashes. The roller coaster analogy can be better applied of what we went through in earlier in 2009, one morning we wake up and we feel our idea can change the world, the next day, we feel doomed. 

Some of the brief learnings, just penning it down: 

If you say what you mean and mean what you say, you are probably in the 10% of all people. This is what your clients would appreciate. A candid approach did get a lot of people excited and encouraged them to contribute thoughts and idea. Honesty pays and pays in leaps and bounds

Make an offer, that they cant refuse:  Our online business is all about sales, in fact for most businesses it would be the driving force or the life blood. It is difficult when you are a startup to get new customers interested. We tried out a free 50 Franchisee leads offer. Franchisors are always looking for qualified leads, clients pay as much as Rs. 1000 for every  qualified lead, here is it that you get a value of Rs. 5000. 

Small is still Beautiful is more than a book: We started off with over 18 competitors in our business and each one of them had an average team of 35. Can Small be beautiful, absolutely? Team size has nothing to do with success. A team of 4, thinking unanimously of enhancing the entrepreneur experience can mean a lot than a team much bigger, with deep pockets trying to do everything for everybody. 

Thoughts do become reality: The power of Secret comes alive, when you simply believe it. We believed we can offer a better solution, today, Thank Goodness, Way2Franchise.com and FranchiseExpo.in have catapulted to #2 Position. All of the hard work does pay off. In the past, during my previous stint with Franchising Association of India, I took up ownership and took an active interest, a lot of times, people advised me, is that really your company, but I kept going and now I realise that some of my smallest learnings are paying rich dividends. confirming that no effort ever gets wasted. 

Read More