Story: Sushma, the Toy Maker
Sushma is a mother of two young kids. She saw some parents giving their children mobile phones to play with while others gave plastic toys. Both of these are bad for the kids and the environment.
She wanted her children to enjoy playing with toys which were good for their brain and did not cause health problems. She came up with the idea of making wooden toys, which are not only fun to play with, but also help kids learn as they play with them.
She made a few toys and started sending pictures to her friends and family. They were excited to buy these new types of toys from her. But Her best friend told her that the toy she had bought had sharp edges and had hurt her child.
Sushma immediately changed the design to soft edges. Very few people bought her products. She made huge efforts to persuade her customers to buy her toys, specifying the excellent qualities of her products. She did not give up and tried to understand the buying pattern of parents as customers.
Soon, she realised that people prefer to buy toys for their kids from established and permanent shops. She made efforts to partner with different toy shops to sell her products. She also created a web site to sell her products online.
After 2 years, the demand for her toys increased and soon she was selling her toys not only in India, but also in other parts of the world.
Qualities of successful Entrepreneur
An entrepreneur needs to have the following set of qualities:
- Patience: Entrepreneurship is not a one-day job. Success may not be achieved quickly and therefore, it is important for an entrepreneur to be patient in running the business.
- Positivity: When a person starts a business, he/she may face lots of difficulties and failure. An entrepreneur has to think positively even when he/she takes a big risk. There may be losses at times but even then an entrepreneur should stay positive and continue to work hard towards their goal.
- Hardworking and Never Giving Up: An entrepreneur needs to work hard till it becomes successful. It is necessary for an entrepreneur to continuously work hard towards his/her own and company’s goals.
- Confident and Well informed: An entrepreneur needs to be very confident and take decisions about their business. He/She must be well informed about the business and environment that may helps to take decisions confidently.
- Open to Trial and Error: Entrepreneur needs to be open to new ideas and try them without fear of failure. She/he will have to use trial and error and experiment with different ideas till the business becomes successful.
- Creativity and Innovation: An entrepreneur should be able to see a problem from different perspectives and come up with original and creative solutions. They should also be able to recognise an opportunity in a problem and find an innovative solution.
A good entrepreneur treats every situation as a business opportunity for the benifit of an organisation. - Ability to take Risk: There is no assurance of profit to the entrepreneur. Starting the business involves huge amount of risk and failure.
- Visionary Approach: An entrepreneur has to be a visionary. Without a vision for the success of the business, he/she would be just working without reaching the point of success.
- Leadership: Leadership is an essential component which an entrepreneur must have. A leader is required in any organisation to handle everything and manage all the tasks properly.