Happy Women’s Day

“Failure is an important part of your growth and developing resilience. Don’t be afraid to fail.”
These are the words of Michelle Obama, famously known to be one of the fiercest women’s rights advocates in the world and also the former first lady of the US. On this day dedicated to women, celebrating their success, empowerment, and their fight for equality, we’d like to acknowledge and encourage all the women around the world with the stories of these women entrepreneurs who fought against the unjust system favored towards men, and were not afraid to fail. J.K. Rowling is arguably the most famous writer in the history of women novelists and before our beloved Harry Potter made it to the big screen. It would be a shame not to take this opportunity to honor the struggles and accomplishments of first-ever female entrepreneur Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, founder of Biocon. She founded Biocon in 1978, in an up and coming India which was still set considerably back in its ways which makes her success ever so commendable. Arianna Huffington, Sophia Amoruso, Martha Stewart, Indu Jain, Sabina Chopra, Richa Kar are some of the other women entrepreneurs of the world that have had immense success despite their struggles in this unjust world. Entrepreneurship cell of ADGITM would like to wish all the women a very happy Women’s Day and applauds their achievements and strength through the struggles of this misogynistic world.

Written by Derick Dsouza, Edited by Nandita Gupta

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Self-Doubt

As every coin has two sides, the same happens with self-doubt, it has both positive and negative impacts. Success comes from experience and experience comes from failures so never be afraid of failures. Instead of counting all the reasons it won’t work, start looking for the purposes it will. Embrace the inner entrepreneur in you and give it your best. Focus on yourself, not others. Regardless of the industry in which you are operating, one thing is inevitable that there will be people who are more successful than you. Surround yourself with the right people. A man is beckoned by the type of company that he keeps, and it is even more true for entrepreneurs. If family and friends both are against you, but if have your plans ready, you know what are you doing then take a stand for yourself. Sometimes self-doubt and failure keep away people from starting theirs on ideas. Still, once you become fearless, life becomes limitless.

Written by E-cell ADGITM, Edited by Divyam Madhok

Marketing Strategy

Marketing can be considered the crux of productivity or growth of any entrepreneurial venture. Meaningful marketing can make any company or product a winner instantly, hence having a good marketing strategy is of utmost importance. Outsourcing this task to professional marketers is always an excellent option, and it is advised to consider a good investment in marketing while coming up with a budget. A good marketing agency will provide you with maximum returns on your investment, with efficient and targeted marketing. Furthermore, they ensure the engagement of their audience which leads to exponential growth through word of mouth marketing alone. For start-ups and small companies that cannot afford to heavily invest into marketing yet, it is advised to take on social media and introduce the world to your product and share your views on it, you could also hire a social media manager to do the same. Creating video tutorials, using search engine optimization (SEO), using Facebook ads are also to be considered. You could also blog about your company and product, your journey, struggles and your reason for starting this venture. You should also consider sponsoring events within your niche.

Cash Flow Management

Money, like emotions, is something you must control to keep your life on the right track. For an entrepreneur, money management is something that must be at the tip of the finger. It is a very important skill for the development of small start-ups into successful businesses. There are many ways to keep the cash flow on fleek. Focus on the goal and the milestones, not the money, it will end up following you when you reach your goal. Another important factor is to keep a cash reserve. Every startup suffers some shortfalls. It is best to be prepared for this beforehand. Spending only on absolute essentials is an important technique. It eliminates the costs that are not essential and thus reduces the loss rate. Another thing to have in mind is keeping a check on the hiring. It’s always better to hire top talent, as a highly-skilled worker can tackle the work of two or more mediocre workers. And the last and the most important way is to make use of the best technology in the market. Back up your files and data to the cloud and make the work space paperless. This not only saves the planet but also keeps the data secure. These steps ensure that money management is done properly with minimal losses.

Business Growth

Scaling one’s business is hard. It takes considerable effort. In the beginning, it means wearing different hats. It all starts with a risk, learning from failures, and not committing the same mistakes again and again. 95% of people in the world don’t fail because they don’t think big; they fail because they feel small and can achieve it. Also, try to engage conversations with someone who is successful and is in the same field as you, doing this reduces the chances of failure. An entrepreneur has the art of seeing what is invisible to others. A business person should always acknowledge his/her employees as satisfied employees lead to happy customers, which leads to more profit. It is one of the best strategies that a business person can make to satisfy customers. One doesn’t build a business, one develops the people, and then people build the business. It all starts with just one idea, write down the positive and negative impacts about the idea, discuss with the person who is successful in the specific field, and then make a move. The businessman needs to stay in contact with the customers to gain valuable feedback with regards to the products and services. This feedback proves invaluable to improve the quality of the products. One shall keep an account of the business rivals. Doing so makes strategic planning even more beneficial.

Budget 2020

Government’s desperate attempts at reviving the Indian economy are quite evidently displayed in the union budget announced for the Fiscal year 2020 by Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman yet according to the opposition it is an attempt to conceal the realities of a floundering economy and which may fail big if not executed perfectly. As of right now, the population seems to have divided opinions regarding the budget with implementations that could only be deemed convoluted.

1. The taxpayer decides: The newly declared tax slab includes a lesser tax percentage if you forego all your tax exemptions. The tax percentage is nil for annual income till 5lakh and starts at 10% for taxpayers with income 5 to 7.5 Lakhs and so on. This is a complex decision that requires taxpayers to weigh their options.

2. LIC to go public: Government plans to sell a partial stake in state-owned Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), country’s largest insurer and institutional investor through an IPO. This is seen as a controversial move as LIC is a profitable company even in a declining economy and the decision to disinvest in it is not quite understood.

3. Insurance cover raised: It has been proposed to increase the limit of insurance cover in case of bank failure on deposits from ₹1 Lakh to ₹5 Lakh.

4. Infrastructural spending: One of the steps proposed to kickstart the Indian economy, is building 5 new smart cities in a public-private partnership. Furthermore, Sitharaman allocates ₹1.7 trillion for transport infrastructure, which includes ideas of building more Tejas type fast trains, setting up of 9,000 km of the economic corridor.

5. Sovereign investment to be tax-free: In an attempt to attract more investment foreign investors, the sovereign wealth managers Sitharaman has proposed 100% tax exemptions by them. them. This is a positive move that could invoke some growth in the economy.

Capital

Building capital is a never-ending struggle for entrepreneurs, new, budding and established ones alike. New and budding ones require the capital to start their venture and to put themselves on the map while established ones require it more for growth and maintaining their progress. There are several ways to raise funds for your venture but it would be highly recommended to finance it yourself (bootstrapping) or as much of it as possible. Traditional bank loans, family, friends, Kickstarter campaigns (crowdfunding) are just some of the ways to go about overcoming this struggle. It would be suggested to look into government programs as well, as there are several schemes available to support entrepreneurs and businessmen. Another way to finance your venture is to find your angel; to go about this you must first prepare a captivating presentation, a business plan, and a list of potential angel investors. Financial capital is important for growth but so is social capital. It would be suggested to have multiple active social media pages, engage your friends and followers, establish your product, sponsor events, build trust and get creative. Invest in your core demographic and if your product is up to trend word-of-mouth alone will help you grow exponentially.

Choosing what to sell

Being an entrepreneur is all about choosing the right product to sell at the very right time. But only a limited number of entrepreneurs have this farsightedness to choose those niches. If an entrepreneur isn’t good at choosing niches, the advice is to let a marketing firm choose the niche if one has the capital to invest or else recruit a freelance researcher with some experience in the field wherein one is trying to gain a foothold let that be social media consulting, PR and marketing, software and cloud services or any other field one feels passionate about. Both marketing firm and freelance researcher are consummate at suggesting niches. They will conduct a market research and will conclude by handing over the swot analysis report: strength, weakness, opportunities and threats analysis report with suggested niches, backed by potential profit margins. SWOT analysis is a simple yet powerful tool. It can make an ordinary-looking start up a huge success in the near future. This might sound like letting someone else decide for others. However, it is just taking advise from the delegates and then analyzing those suggestions and then decide what to choose and what not to. Hiring the delegates for this particular task can save a lot of time, money and hassles later.

Happy Republic Day

Post Independence, India has faced its a fair share of ups and downs but that is natural for a newly freed nation. One entity that has always ensured that no particular individual or community faces injustice or lack of civil rights, is our Constitution. E-cell ADGITM commemorates the conception of the constitution and urges all fellow Indians to maintain faith in the ideals our forefathers believed in. Jai Hind

Time Management

Time is more valuable than money. You can get more money, but you cannot get more time. Time is a crucial entity in the lives of all professions, be it a doctor or an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur has to jump between tasks, hop on calls, attend events and be extra careful about each decision made for the business. Managing time is an invaluable skill and is extremely rewarding in the long run. Breaking down activities into simpler problems and then attending them makes the process faster, simpler and more engaging. Creating a prioritization system helps in the management of both time and resources. This practice gains momentum later in time for long term activities. No matter how efficient you are, there is always room for some improvement. For an entrepreneur, learning is a process that never ends. It’s always a wise decision to sharpen one’s axe regularly. While sharping the axe, it’s also important to take regular breaks to refresh the mind’s buffer and let the new ideas to flow in. Time is a critical factor for all professions and its management is a skill that must be inculcated for the growth of the individual and the society.