No matter how big your ambitions are, start small. No matter what industry you’re in, there’s a niche market to start in. The less money your idea requires, the better your idea will be. The less competition you have, the better. The more consistently and step-by-step you develop your business, the more successful your business will be. You’ll definitely need to build a team. But lack of experience won’t be an obstacle. If you have a good idea, you can implement it on a small scale.
When Mark Zuckerberg started his business in 2004, it served only students of one university. The idea worked, and most students began to actively use the service. Only then did the business expand and include other American universities. And only in the third year of development did all the doors open and Facebook became a global social network, and its founder became the youngest billionaire.
Starting small doesn't mean being narrow-minded. No one is saying that Mark Zuckerberg wasn't interested in anything beyond his college days. He had a pretty clear plan. It's about taking small initial steps, otherwise no one will stop you from thinking big. Moreover, thinking big is desirable. That's why they say in business circles: think globally, act locally. The bigger your vision, the easier it will be to take the right steps. But those steps will be measured and consistent. That's how a big business starts. On an ordinary day. In an ordinary garage.
The story of the richest man in the world
In 1994, Jeff Bezos left his job and began to develop his own business. The Internet era was coming, 30-year-old Jeff was a specialist in the banking and financial sector, but he saw his future elsewhere. He already had a business plan written, he was preparing to open an online store. Online trading was a new phenomenon, there was no competition on the Internet yet, but Jeff still strictly defined his profile. He could trade in everything, but he chose only one group of products to start with: books.
A book lover pays less attention to secondary factors such as packaging, smell, visuals, weight. A reader often wants a rare book that no one else in their city reads. A reader will wait longer and pay a little more for a rare book. And they will almost never need to preview the book. If they decide they want Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, you can buy it directly and have it delivered to them.
Jeff's strategy paid off, he quickly conquered the book market and switched to the next product group. He again did not rush, did not give in to everyone and everything, but focused on a segment related to books, a product that in its characteristics is similar to a book in many ways: these were music CDs. Here, too, much was happening in the same way as in the case of books, a wide selection was needed, the product was easily transported, easily stored, and less perishable. The same applies to video products, which became a target after Amazon. A movie lover, like books and music, is interested in purchasing any of the millions of films made, no video library can accommodate such a choice. Here too, the online store turned out to be the winner.
Gradually, step by step, new products appeared in Amazon's assortment, for which the store was carefully preparing to sell, from small to large, from simple to complex, from cheap to expensive. Ultimately, Amazon became a store where you can buy everything. And Jeff Bezos - a person who can buy everything. As of the summer of 2020, he owns about $ 150 billion in the very business that he started twenty-five years ago by selling his first book from his garage.
The material (including citations) is based on a course on the startup industry taught by Peter Thiel at Stanford University.
