Knowledge in Innovations

What are some things that good entrepreneurs know that others don't?

There’s a secret behind every good entrepreneur, a characteristic that sets them apart from everyone else. Some people think an entrepreneur needs to have amazing business management skills, but this is what makes a good manager, not necessarily a good entrepreneur. Some people think an entrepreneur needs to have amazing technical skills, but this is what makes a good engineer, not necessarily a good entrepreneur. Some people think an entrepreneur needs to have amazing innovation skills, but this makes a good creative thinker, not necessarily a good entrepreneur. So, to answer your question, what are some things that good entrepreneur know that others don’t? Entrepreneurs know how to create customers. They know how to build a business model around a product or service and take it to the market. He is Jack Ma, Founder of the Alibaba Group and one of the richest person on the Planet with the net worth of 39.2 Billion Dollars. In an interview, he shared what is his key to success. He said he is not the Best person but his work is to bring the best people at his company and make them work together. He said there is always a little gap in the attitude of two best people and a successful entrepreneur is who that fills the gap and make them work together. Now, Let’s come on the actual question “What are some things that good entrepreneurs know that others don't?” A good entrepreneur knows how to hire the best people for their startup. He knows how to make them work together. He knows that if he is not the best then he will have to hire the best. He knows Individuals don’t build great companies, teams do.

How do I turn an idea into a startup?

You will want to validate your idea and demand first before building anything. You don't want to build something that people don't need. I know of several companies that are trying to make it easier for women to buy jeans online, for example. It's an interesting problem, but what puzzles me is the size of their market. I don't think it's big enough to sustain even one of these companies. How many jeans do they need to sell to get $5 million in annual revenue? On the other hand, men's made to measure is a predictable market that is healthy. By the time I realize I want MTM shirts, price becomes secondary and I would want several of them. We have some experts in that area here on Quora: What is the difference between made to measure and bespoke? How many people in the US do you think would want to buy custom tailored clothing from a no-name designer? It's a matter of trust and marketing. I like dresses by Oscar de la Renta and Versace, for example. I also like Gottex swimwear and a handful of other brands. Most other designers don't catch my eye. Are you a fashion designer first who creates outfits from scratch either bespoke or MTM, a wardrobe stylist who coordinates outfits you buy from wholesalers (this is not common and could be an interesting business, very easy to start), or are you a seller first of wholesale outfits with an alteration department? I'll give you an idea for a virtual wardrobe styling and image consulting service: customers upload pictures of their clothes. You would play virtual dressup to come up with the best combinations possible out of their existing clothes. It's really not that difficult if you know the color theory and stay current on fashion trends. Computers can easily analyze colors and software can be written to pre-match colors based on their position in the color space. The trick is to ensure the pictures are taken with the same camera under same lighting (very important for relative color accuracy). That would be your secret sauce because you would be able to suggest non-obvious combinations that magically match great. You send them a composite image. You charge some money for the service, with first 10 combinations free. You will solve the problem every woman has: "What should I wear today?". Men also have that problem and tend to have ill-fitting clothes too. It'll be fun and you can start a trading section between your customers (this I think I have heard of), since you already have all the pictures. Something similar might exist. I haven't done market research in your space because I am busy with my own startups. I don't know if that exists, and I don't know if you are qualified, and I don't know if the demand is truly there, but I think the fashion industry is headed in that direction. It would cost you $0 to get started. I might build this, since I like the idea, it is easy to build a prototype, and I know plenty of starving wardrobe stylists who are qualified.   So here is what I would do to validate the idea of custom tailored clothing: Identify the persona of your target customer. Are you dressing men or women? Are you dressing them formally or casually? Is this perhaps a nightlife attire brand? What is the age range? Once you have a vague idea whom you are dressing, start talking to people who would be your buyers. Don't be concerned that someone will steal your idea, so just ask them what they think. You will want to learn sales techniques to ask various open-ended questions to switch from pitching to closing. One such question is "I am working on _________. Who do you think will find it useful?". Personally, I am a little more aggressive than that, but my product is functional enough to be in beta, so my question is "Whom do you know that would want to use my product today?". If you have a fit, you will hear "I would use it" or "how can I sign up?". Vague answers like "many people will use it" are useless. Specific referrals like "you should talk to Mary, here is her number" are somewhat useful. Ask your prospects what problems they wish this product solved but it doesn't now. This is a very powerful question that can lead you to a more actionable idea. Sign up for an account on Email Marketing and Email List Manager | MailChimp and add everyone you talk to who wants to stay informed to that list. That is your "pre-launch" mailing list. It's free for 2000 people. You can have many free accounts. :) Should they express desire to become buyers: When you get to the point that people want to buy from you, start a store on Etsy - Your place to buy and sell all things handmade, vintage, and supplies. A friend does significant business on that platform. Her specialty is interesting dresses. Etsy will get you the "foot traffic" to your virtual store that you likely will not get on your own. Build up the business on Etsy and begin to establish your own platform. The key is to continuously grow the mailing list of customers. Finally, I will tell you a little bit about my qualifications to answer this. I helped my former wife operate a nightlife clothing boutique on eBay. We got killed by direct sales from China to US. Their retail price was below our wholesale price. We had an interesting brand. She had to find a different niche that had pent up demand and limited supply. She now designs and sells her own products wholesale directly. Please don't invest money into this until you either validate this concept or come up with an even better one. One exception: get some business cards made.

What is the most innovative start-up that you have seen?

Magic Leap - The Secretive $6 Billion Startup Changing Computing Forever. Magic Leap is an American startup company that is working on a head-mounted virtual retinal display, called Magic Leap One, which superimposes 3D computer-generated imagery over real-world objects, by "projecting a digital light field into the user's eye", involving technologies potentially suited to applications in augmented reality and computer vision. It is attempting to construct a light-field chip using silicon photonics. The company raised more than $1.8 billion from tech giants like Google, Alibaba and other investors too before rivalling their technology. Magic Leap has operated in extreme secrecy since it was founded in 2011. Only a few people got to see its technology, even fewer knew how it worked, and all of them were buried under so many nondisclosure agreements that they could barely admit the company existed. Magic leap announced its first product is now available for purchase. But the average computer user isn't about to rush out and buy it. The Magic Leap One Creator Edition is being marketed to "developers and creators" at a retail price of $2,295. It's available online only in select cities. The package comes with software and a headset that lets users add layers of computer-generated images and applications to the world around them. It also includes a web browser and a social platform to connect with other Magic Leap users. The result: common programs like email and videos "float" in the real world in front of the user.

What are the most common mistakes first time entrepreneurs make?

This is like magic. Thank you.  Finally a question made for me. I don't even need a belt to fit this question around my waist.  First, I have some credentials. I've failed at 17 businesses. I've succeeded at a few. But failed at most.  I've also run a $125 million venture capital firm and I'm currently invested in about 30 companies, many of which I advise or on the board, etc.  Oh, one thing before I answer the question: the companies that NEVER call me are always the ones that are doing the best.  I made lots of mistakes as a first time entrepreneur. In every possible way. And I see a lot of those mistakes repeated in companies I'm invested in. I keep telling myself to remember these. Maybe this answer will be a good way for me to remember.  Note: these are MISTAKES. So they are like double negatives.  A) START YOUR BUSINESS WHEN YOU ARE BROKE Don't start a company if you're broke. This is not the same as "having no money".  If you are fine staying on the floor of a friend's house and living on nothing then you are not quite broke. You have food and shelter.  But if you have kids and a wife and a mortgage, etc (the other extreme) don't go broke and start a business.  When I started my first business, I stayed at my full time job for 18 MONTHS before I left to become CEO of my startup full-time.  We had 12 employees by then and almost as many clients. In other words, I knew I could replace my salary and still pay my employees for at least six months even if everything went down hill.  Which leads me to.... B) IF YOU ONLY HAVE MONEY TO LAST YOU SIX MONTHS THEN YOU ARE ALREADY OUT OF BUSINESS I was on the board of a company once and when I read the monthly financials I realized the burn (the monthly loss in cash) was such that we would run out of money in six months.  I called the other board members. They hadn't even looked at the financials.  I called the CEO. He said, "but we have six months!"  This is really really important: if you have six months, IT IS ALREADY SIX MONTHS FROM NOW.  What that means is: no matter what you do: you will not be able to raise the money, do the legal, find the customers, do the work, get paid, or whatever you need to do - in six months time.  You are the walking dead and you don't know it.  Here's what we did. I called an emergency board meeting. We explained the situation to the CEO. He refused to believe it.  I called him separately and gave him ten different examples. He finally got it.  We fired a lot of people to reduce the burn. Somehow it didn't reduce enough.  We hired a bank. We went to all the usual players. Everyone said no about buying us. They all were waiting for us to die. And then they would scrape us up for nothing.  Finally, someone bought us for a good amount 2x what we put in a few months ago. I don't know why did it. I just thank god they did.  The CEO, who didn't even realize he was going to go broke, made $6 million and moved to another country.  We officially sold the company the day before the company was going to run out of money. Six months after that first phone call to the day.  C)  SMOKE CRACK We have a cognitive bias to think that our own ideas are great ideas. It's hard to admit that they won't work.  Profits are the purifier of a business. That's the best way you can tell you have a good idea. If people give you SO MUCH money that you have money left over.  Revenues are the next bests thing after profits.  And users are the next best thing after that.  If you are having trouble with any of the above three and this situation lasts more than a few months then you are smoking crack. You have to come up with a better idea.  This doesn't apply to biotech or scientific companies that need to raise a lot of money. But it applies to every other business.  D) UNDER PROMISE AND OVER DELIVER Yes, this is a MISTAKE first-time entrepreneurs make.  Your competition is over-promising.  Here's what you can go wrong if you under-promise and over-deliver.  First off, anyone who over-promises is going to win the business. They might do a bad job but possession is 9/10 the law. They have the client and they can do things to fix the relationship.  Second, you might under promise and UNDER deliver. Then you're just a bad vendor and they will eventually switch to someone else.  What's the solution?  One thing: Over promise....and over deliver. Now you're amazing. And the client is there forever.  E) DON'T COMMUNICATE Here's the magic rule: talk to a new customer every day for 100 days. It doesn't matter what you talk about.  Just call them and say, "how's it going?"  Some customers might look at this and say, "I don't want to hear from my vendor for 100 days in a rule."  They are lying. They do. And they don't know it.  This is often called, "following up". As soon as you meet a potential customer, have an entire system in place to follow up. As soon as you deliver a proposal, follow up, as soon as you deliver a product, follow up. Even when you are in the middle of completing a project, follow up.  FOLLOW UP You call and just say, "I always want to make sure I'm doing my best for you. Is all ok?" And then listen. And then say good-bye so you don't waste their time.  Do that and you have a client for life. Trust me trust me trust me.  F) HIRING PEOPLE Most startups don't need to hire that many people. Like, don't hire a secretary. Or a head of HR.  Or even a head of sales. If you're the CEO, then you are the head of sales, the project manager, the secretary, and the head of HR.  Wait, in each case, until you absolutely overwhelmed before you start hiring people.  Once you hire someone there is a world of S**& that you have to deal with. Personalities, fights, politics, disagreements, gossip, etc.  And, the most basic - they might do a bad job. A worse job than you would do because you are the OWNER and they are not.  By the way, being overwhelmed is a good thing. It means you have revenues, profits, or users.  Then you are allowed to hire people.  The best business I've ever started is when there was only one other person besides me. We started our first product for $2000. We sold eight months later for $10,000,000.  We outsourced almost the entire business (by the way, the one bad thing about this is that Google wouldn't buy us because of this). It's not as good as it sounds. I'm an idiot and lost a good chunk of the money later.  But at least I didn't hire anyone.  G) CLEAR ROLES A lot of partnerships fail because there are no clear roles defined. Like, the two partners are "co-CEOs" so nobody knows who to talk to.  This is BS.  There have to be clear rules. I have a lot of examples. I'll give one I'm dealing with right now. These are the roles of the founders:  one person is a scientist - he makes the product.  one person is an accountant - he does the books one person is a good business guy and has been involved in startups - he makes the deals and finds partnerships one person is good at raising money - he raises money and  I forget who is CEO. One of them. It doesn't matter. Each is the final world on what he is good at.  You can even divide up equity equally according to categories like this (and so some people might fit into more than one category so they get more equity):  - made product - raised money - made sales - manages people - had the idea That's a sample. Not every business is structured so neatly but many are.  When I was in a business where we did not have clear rules over who made the final decision, it was a mess.  We ended up selling that company but now NONE of the original partners speak to each other anymore. We got lucky we sold that one.  H) DON'T TEST If you have a product idea, and you love it, and all your friends tell you its great, don't forget to test.  Let's say your product is "protein water" - clear water that has zero calories and 30 grams of protein. BAM! Seems like an amazing idea.  Put a Facebook ad up, with the design of the water bottle and say, "30g PROTEIN WATER".  Simply see if people click.  If noboody clicks, then you have a bad idea. If a lot of people click, then it's a great idea.  This is one example.  But this is a very important side-rule that most people don't believe:  GOOD ENTREPRENEURS ARE RISK-ADVERSE Before you risk, test. Before you leave your job, have customers. Before you hire people, have money in the bank. Before you even create you product, test it.  Smart people test. Smart people don't take risks.  I) WORRYING ABOUT STUFF YOU DON'T HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT Too many people think they have to hire lawyers and accountants and make a logo before they even start their company.  Don't do BS stuff. Start your company, make your product, see if people want it, repeat.  That's it.  One company I don't think I even incorporated until they day before I sold it.  Don't have too many meetings. Don't debate forever your list of values. Or your marketing slogan.  If you make something people want, then the sale is easy, and you have a company. Period. No matter what your slogan is.  So many people ask: but should we be an "S" Corp in Delaware. I don't care. It has nothing to do with how much money you will make.  Believe in your product. Believe in helping your customers. Believe you can do it cheaply and always over-deliver and (repeating) HELP.  Be risk-averse. Hold onto your money. I can throw some stuff in here about don't get bad investors but that's really a different topic.  If you avoid all the mistakes above, then you will have a good shot at having a good business.  Trust me on this. I've seen a thousand businesses. You will have a good one if you follow the above ideas (or I should say, avoid the above mistakes).  Oh, one more.  ----- There's a lot of other things that can go wrong, but this is the top.  For instance, did you know its important to have a great relationship with your landlord? How come? Because he has to approve if you sell your company. Because suddenly he has a new tenant.  But this is a small thing.  There are many small things. Running a business is hard. These are the top 10 out of 100 (or 1000) mistakes I have seen.  Good luck. And, seriously, don't do what I would do.

ELECTRONIC TOLL COLLECTION SYSTEM

Today, due to the increase in the vehicles, there is a lot of gathering of the traffic at the toll booths. The main reason for this traffic at the toll booths is due to the manual working of the toll tax collection at the booths. Each vehicle on an average needs to stop at the toll booth for about a minute for the payment of the toll tax. In order to decrease this traffic we decided to work on the construction of a project which reduces the manual work and hence increases the vehicle speed passing by the toll booth. Also we decided to develop a project which allows the vehicles just to pass through the booth without stopping as a result reducing the traffic gathering at the toll collecting booths.

SOLAR TRACKING SYSTEM

Capturing and transforming the sun’s energy into electricity using photovoltaic collection technology has been an ongoing research topic since the early 1960’s. In more recent years, the demand has grown significantly for solar electric power generating systems thus causing the production to rise as well. With the demand for such technology higher efficiency and cost effectiveness has also become a requirement; simply put, higher output power generation is being required with a lower price tag. This demand has paved the way for research groups worldwide to invest time and energy into developing more advanced technologies to suit the needs of the ever growing clean energy industry.