5 Lessons to build a successful business

If you talk to successful entrepreneurs today, you will find that there are five common components of a successful business.

• You have to have passion in what you are doing

  Although some people may be cynical when it comes to passion, so many inventions and advancements came about because of a person’s passion. But passion alone is not enough, you have to act on your passion.

  For example, GoPro CEO Nick Woodman started out with only a $35K loan from his mother and money he raised selling seashell belts. He built his first camera prototypes in his bedroom using his mother’s sewing machine and a drill. He spent so much time focusing on creating an amazing product. As a result, GoPro is now America’s fastest-growing digital imaging company.

• You have to have a purpose for your business

  Regardless of any developments that may be happening around you, you need to stay focused on your core goals rather than focus on making huge profits.

  Unfortunately, this is what happened to Myspace. At its peak, the company was valued at around $20 billion but it was sold for only $35 million. What happened?

  The company hired a new director who put the focus on making money. The focus shifted from the users’ needs and this led to a migration of several Myspace users to Facebook.

  To this day, Facebook is still going strong because Mark Zuckerberg balances the users’ needs and the needs of his business.

• The people who become part of your organization will help bring success or failure into the business

  Every successful company has a team of great people contributing to its overall success. Generally, these people have a high level of satisfaction. They are happy working for the company.

  For example, in 2013, Qualcomm, a San Diego-based global semiconductor company was ranked as the company to have “The Biggest Jump in Employee Happiness.” According to Matt Miller, CareerBliss chief technology officer, “employees ranked their relationship with fellow teammates and co-workers very high” at Qualcomm and that the firm has “experienced a significant increase in company reputation.”

  Miller adds, “The company has seen successful growth in their business, which is shown by the satisfaction of their workforce.”

• You must have a great product

  The best example for this would be Facebook. Before Mark Zuckerberg established Facebook, he had already created other applications that failed.

  He learned from his failure and created something better after listening to criticism.

  When Zuckerberg decided to open Facebook to the public, even his own staff criticised him. But he knew he had a great product. Soon enough, people started joining Facebook at the rate of 50,000 a day.

• Successful businesses generally have two partners who complement each other

  Going into any kind of relationship can be risky and this is especially true in a business partnership. For a business to succeed, you need two people who complement each other – a visionary and a builder.

  One great example of a successful business partnership was that of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, founders of Apple Computer. We all know that Steve Jobs was the strong driving force behind the company – he was the visionary. What many may not know is that Wozniak is a technical genius. In fact, Jobs once said, “Wozniak was the first person I met who knew more about electronics than I did.”

  Success in anything does not come easily. But if you are passionate about something, do some research, know what you can do about your passion and just do what you need to do.

For updates join us at Google+