Some people believe entrepreneurs are born. Others believe that anyone can be an entrepreneur if they develop the right skill set. We believe in the latter. Anyone can have an innovative idea and start a business. Making it a successful business is a whole other matter. 

There are certain personal limitations and challenges you need to get over to become a successful entrepreneur. You need to be confident enough to face rejection, you need to communicate well, you need to be flexible, you need to manage relationships and so on. Here are a few challenges and entrepreneurship lessons that will teach you to think like an entrepreneur.

7 Common Challenges That Will Teach You To Think Like An Entrepreneur

1. The Give-Me-A-Discount Challenge
2. The Insta Challenge
3. The Ask Challenge
4. The Workout Challenge
5. Cook Without A Recipe
6. Design A Family Crest
7. Talk To Strangers

1. The Give-Me-A-Discount Challenge

Think of an activity you do every day – it could be getting a coffee from the corner café, a breakfast muffin or even groceries. Challenge yourself to ask for a discount the next time you visit the store. It isn’t about being unable to afford it. The activity is just about doing something that makes you uncomfortable. Performing this challenge at your regular store/café makes it even more effective.

You may or may not get a discount. What you will get for sure is a little more confidence. This challenge will also help you get over the fear of rejection and learn to be more persuasive or think or different ways to approach the same task. It’s a skill that will be handy when you’re talking to investors.  

2. The Insta Challenge

The inability to express an idea clearly is one of the common entrepreneur challenges. Entrepreneurs need to be able to express themselves as they will always be the face and voice of the company.

An easy way to learn how to be more expressive is to challenge yourself to talk about yourself on social media. Challenge yourself to post a picture on Instagram every day with a caption that talks about why it matters to you. Do this for a month and you’ll find it gradually becomes easier.

3. The Ask Challenge

While we’re talking about social media, here’s another challenge for young entrepreneurs. Take a problem you’re facing – big or small and talk about it online and ask for help. You’ll be surprised at the number of people who are happy to share ideas with you.  

The Ask Challenge is about finding solutions and more importantly, controlling your ego and making yourself open to learning from everyone. You might even find a mentor this way.

4. The Workout Challenge

Here’s a challenge that will help you develop an entrepreneur’s way of thinking and get fit. Pick an exercise; push-ups, crunches, jumping jacks…. And challenge yourself to do 100 of them every day. You don’t have to do them all at one time- you can spread them out through the day. If 100 sounds easy, double it.

You will definitely get fitter. Along with that, you will train your mind to be disciplined. You’re answerable to no one but yourself. This discipline and self-motivation will be very important when you’re running a small business.

5. Cook Without A Recipe

Setting up a business and cooking has several similarities. Everyone has access to the same ingredients but not everyone can make something good out of it. This is partly because successful entrepreneurs know how to adapt to different situations and be flexible when their plans don’t work out.

To acquire this skill, try cooking before you set up a business. Don’t follow a recipe. Just take a few ingredients and try to figure out a new recipe to make something delicious out of it. You might realize you don’t have a particular ingredient – think about what you can substitute for it. Remember, it’s all about learning to be flexible.

6. Design A Family Crest

Every business must have a set of core values. As the business owner, defining these values will be majorly your responsibility. Rather than being something trendy, your brand’s values should be things that are important to you.

Everyone wants to be honest, hard-working and customer oriented. But are these the most important values? Try designing a crest for yourself. This must reflect your value system. Since you have limited space to work with, you will be able to filter through all your ideas and identify what matters most.

7. Talk To Strangers

Challenge yourself to go to a restaurant or a café alone and strike up a conversation with a stranger. Give yourself the aim of having at least a 2–3-minute conversation. Not only will you probably learn something new, but you will also gain confidence and improve your communication skills.

As you do this activity more frequently, you’ll also find yourself getting better at building relationships. Remember, as an entrepreneur, you need to manage relationships on all fronts – with your customers, your team, your investors, etc. 

What’s Next?

These activities and challenges will help you develop an entrepreneur’s mindset. You’ll develop skills that will help you overcome common problems faced by entrepreneurs. Once you’re ready to start your business, it’s time to make a plan. Gone are the days of starting a business from your bedroom or your garage. You need a professional space with the right environment.

Coworking spaces are the ideal platform. If you’re in Delhi, Noida or Gurgaon, check out the coworking spaces managed by The Office Pass (TOP). These shared offices are fully furnished, equipped with hi-speed Wi-Fi and office infrastructure and frequented by many budding entrepreneurs like yourself. To know more, reach out to us at 08999 828282.

BOOK A COWORKING TOUR

When you’re setting up a business, every day brings a new challenge. While you may compare notes with other entrepreneurs, your ‘baby’ is unique and so are the challenges you face. Know who was in a similar situation – your mom! 

Bringing up a child can be compared to starting your own business in many ways. Every mother wants to give her child a solid foundation and set them up for success. Along the way, moms pick up many skills that every entrepreneur can learn. In more ways than one, your mom is your first mentor. Here are 5 entrepreneurship lessons from mother.

5 Valuable Entrepreneurship Lessons We Can Learn From Moms

1. Time Management
2. Persistence And Patience
3. Negotiation
4. Communication
5. Stress Management

1. Time Management

Time management is one of the basic entrepreneurship lessons to learn from mom. You need to know how to prioritize tasks, how to delegate and how much time to give each task. 

Whether it’s putting meals on the table or making sure the kids are ready for school, moms have a unique knack for getting everything done on time. This holds true for working moms as well as stay-at-home moms. For moms, every task is measured in the time it takes. Getting to school isn’t measured in kilometers but rather in minutes. 

See how she plans for a dinner party to learn how to break down complex tasks. Similarly, when she told you to lay the table for meals, it was about teaching you responsibility and delegating work to ensure that meals were on time. 

2. Persistence And Patience

If you’re thinking about entrepreneurship, patience and determination are key skills to have. There will be many hurdles and you need to stay true to your path. 

When you look at your mom, you’ll see that she never gives up on her family. As a parent, she will work with children patiently to teach them important skills and go over the lesson as many times as required. When things go wrong, she won’t let them become her undoing. Instead, she’ll find a way to overcome it. 

If you ever feel like your goals are too far away and consider giving up on your dream, look at your mom. She kept doing her best for you even when you didn’t see it.

3. Negotiation

Learning how to negotiate is one of the most important business lessons in learning how to become entrepreneur. You’ll have to negotiate contracts, salaries, prices, and so on.

While bringing up children, mothers become excellent negotiators. Remember how she said you could watch your favorite cartoon only after you did your homework? Or how she offered you ice cream if you finished all your veggies? 

Your mother knew how to identify what she could use as bargaining chips and how to leverage it in a way to make sure she got things done and you were ok with it. This is a skill you will need at every stage of your entrepreneurship journey. To build strong relationships with partners, you need to be able to have discussions where both parties are happy with the outcome.

4. Communication

Every entrepreneur must be a good communicator. You need to be able to talk to employees and get work done as well as talk to customers and vendors.

Mothers have exceptional communication skills. The tone of their voice will tell you the urgency with which a task needs to be completed. At the same time, they are very good listeners. 

Only a mother can make sense of a toddler’s garbled sounds. There’s a reason why you want to talk to your mom when you’re having a bad day – you know she’ll listen and understand. 

Your mom can teach you how to give clear instructions as well as listen empathetically. Like she had to distinguish between cries for attention and cries for food, you’ll need to be able to listen to your employees and understand what they need.

5. Stress Management

One of the features of entrepreneurship is that you will find yourself thinking about your venture almost all the time. It’s not like a regular job where you can go home and switch your mind off work.

It’s the same way your mom could never take time off from being a parent. Once a parent, always a parent. Hence, she had to learn how to deal with constant pressure from every direction and stay calm through (most of) it. Whether she was stressed with something at work or at home, she found a way to deal with it and still do her best for her children.

As an entrepreneur, you need to learn how to manage stress and keep a level head at all times. There’s no one with more experience at this than your mom. 

In Conclusion

Being an entrepreneur is of course  exciting but it surely comes with its fair share of challenges. Having a mentor to guide you along the way can help. Mothers have innumerable lessons to teach and will be one of your most important mentors. Finding other mentors becomes easier when you’re working from a coworking space. You can work alongside more experienced entrepreneurs, managers, etc and take their help to grow your business. 

The Office Pass (TOP) is one such co-working space to consider. Our locations in South Delhi, Noida and Gurgaon are used by many budding and established entrepreneurs, freelancers and remote workers. One of these people may be just the mentor you need. To know more, reach out to us at 08999 828282.

BOOK A COWORKING TOUR

If your business doesn’t have an Instagram account, you’re not tapping into the potential of these social media tools for entrepreneurs. A picture is worth a thousand words and Instagram is all about pictures. However, it is not just for sharing holiday photographs. 

Instagram is one of the most cost-effective ways to reach out to your audience. If you’re still on the fence wondering what Instagram can do for your business, keep reading. Here are the top 6 benefits you stand to experience by optimizing your Instagram feed.

6 Reasons Why Instagram Is Every Entrepreneur’s Most Powerful Tool

1. Makes The Brand Relatable
2. Increases Visibility
3. Helps You Build A Network
4. Offers Opportunities For Direct Sales
5. Puts Your Brand At Par With Established Brands
6. Helps You Engage With Customers

1. Makes The Brand Relatable

Nobody trusts a faceless brand. As an entrepreneur, your Instagram account is a way to introduce the company and its product range as well as the people behind it. Talking about your team and posting photographs or videos of a day in the office gives your brand a human face. This makes it easier for customers to relate to the company and builds trust in it. 

After all, in a world where it is becoming difficult to differentiate between chats with humans and bots, we crave the human connection. 

Insta Tip: Humanize your brand with live Q&A posts and stories.

2. Increases Visibility

Increased visibility is one of the biggest Instagram benefits for entrepreneurs. Without spending too much, you get to promote your brand to your target audience. There are two aspects to this. 

Firstly, the quality of your imagery can make people want to click on your posts and find out more about you. 

Secondly, you can use hashtags to separate your company from everyone else. 

Create interesting hashtags and encourage your followers to use them in their posts too. You could also piggyback on existing popular hashtags. 

Insta Tip: Add your city name as a hashtag to tap into the local customer base.

3. Helps You Build A Network

Social media tools like Instagram are a great way to build a strong network. By 2025, Instagram is expected to have 1.44 billion monthly active users. 

Source: Statista

Every post you publish has the potential to put you in touch with a large customer base as well as other entrepreneurs. You no longer have to rely on chance to bump into other entrepreneurs – you can visit their profiles and message them directly to start a conversation. 

Interestingly, established entrepreneurs are often happy to mentor budding entrepreneurs. You can also find collaborators for your next project on Instagram.

Insta Tip: Geotagging your posts when you’re travelling is a great way to connect with new people in the city.

4. Offers Opportunities For Direct Sales

As a business, your sales numbers are the biggest indicator of your success. Apart from your website and e-Commerce platforms like Amazon, etc., you can also push your products on social media platforms like Instagram. 

One of the benefits of Instagram for entrepreneurs is that you can sell products directly from this platform. 72% of Instagram users say that they have purchased products they saw on Instagram.

The Shop tab on Instagram allows potential customers to discover new brands. From there you can either direct customers to your website or put up shoppable posts from where they can make direct purchases. 

Insta Tip: Carousel posts with product closeups and pictures of the product in use are ideal for shoppable posts. 

5. Puts Your Brand At Par With Established Brands

There are over 200 million business accounts on Instagram. This includes businesses that are a few months old as well as those that have been around for years. The beauty of using Instagram for entrepreneurs is that it puts all brands on an equal platform.

You don’t have to worry about not having a big budget for print and video advertisements. All you need is a good sense of aesthetics and the ability to take good photographs and write a catchy caption. 

You can partner with influencers to expand your audience further. Some influencers charge a fee while others will give your brand a shoutout in exchange for products. 

Insta Tip: Encourage people who have shopped from you to post images of the products they ordered and tag you in the posts. 

6. Helps You Engage With Customers

With Instagram, you can publish a post every day if you like. Given that people spend 5 to 6 hoursevery day on their phone and around half an hour on average on Instagram each post you put up is a chance to engage with your customers.

Source: Statista

Publish surveys on your stories and encourage followers to share their opinions with you. Write captions that your followers will want to comment on. The more likes and comments you get, the more visible your brand becomes. 

Insta Tip: Make your captions informative and always remember to include a call to action. 

 In Conclusion

The use of social media for business has been proved time and again. Entrepreneurs with tight budgets can do a lot with Instagram. They can reach out to a wider audience, increase direct sales, get customer input and lots more. 

When it comes to making the most of your budget, along with social media marketing, you also need to find ways to lower your operational costs. 

A simple solution- start working in a coworking office by The Office Pass (TOP). Rather than rent out an office and spend money furnishing it, you can lease desk space and get access to all the infrastructure and productivity tools you require at a much lower cost. 

These coworking spaces are ready to work from the moment you sign a lease. To know more, reach out to us at +91 89998 28282.

BOOK A COWORKING TOUR