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Starting a Business Needs Three Important Ingredients for Success

starting a business
Starting a business is just like gardening. There are three key ingredients to ensure the success of a new startup business.

To Plant a Seed Today is to Believe in Tomorrow.

Audrey Hepburn Tweet

Starting a Business is Like Planting a Seed

starting a business

An important lesson I learned in my business is that starting a business is like planting a seed.

You want to ensure that your seed (your idea) is planted with the right conditions. For a seed to germinate and grow into a strong and thriving plant, three critical ingredients are required. – sunlight, water, and fertile soil.

Too much sunlight or no sunlight at all could kill your seedling.

Too much water or too little water could also kill your plant.

Infertile soil conditions could also destroy your plant – for example, if the soil is too hard or too rocky. 

All of these scenarios, all of these mistakes, could destroy your seedling even before it begins to grow.

In the same way, when starting a business, picking a niche, or choosing a business idea you have to avoid certain critical and costly mistakes.

You see, if you don’t know what to do you’d end up making a lot of mistakes; costly mistakes, not only in terms of money but also in terms of your time, your mental health, and even physical health.

You lose momentum as I did and you feel like giving up and going back to your dead-end job. It’s not a nice feeling at all.

 

The Three 'Must have' Ingredients for Starting a Business

There are 3 ‘must have’ ingredients for a business idea to become a success.

Without these three ingredients, the niche you pick will be unprofitable and your business will be a failure from the get-go.

If you’re missing even 1 of these ‘must have’ ingredients you would have failed even before getting started.

Some startups focus on just one ingredient. Some have two if they’re lucky.

But very few have all three. No wonder 90% of startups fail (according to Forbes).

Just as a plant needs three key ingredients for survival (sun, water and soil), a successful business idea must also have the right conditions for success – a Subject, an Object, and a Project. 

object-subject-project - MARKET ACTIVATION

Ingredient #1 - Subject - Who is Your Market?

You need to know and understand who is the subject of your business – your market.

You need to understand how your market thinks, feels and behaves.

There are three aspects of the market you need to investigate in formulating your business idea:

  1. Which geographic market are you targeting (country, region, state, city, etc.)
  2. What are their demographic make-up (age, gender, income, marital status, etc.)
  3. What are their psychographics (interests, behavioral patterns, spending habits, psychological dispositions, and sentiments).

 

I hate to sound cliché, but knowledge is power.

Knowing your market (your subject) is the most powerful weapon you can have in your marketing arsenal.

If you have lots of money to spend on marketing but don’t know your subject, you could be throwing your money down the drain.

Look at Mike Bloomberg for example. In the 2020 US Elections, he spent nearly US $500,000,000.00 (half a billion dollars) on his campaign but lost all the same. He didn’t understand who his ‘subject’ and as such, did not win them over.

However, even if you have a small marketing budget and you know who your customers are, then your marketing money will be well spent.

In this Market Activation training, I’ll show you some really inexpensive and even free ways to get to know your market really well, grab their attention, and get them to fall in love with YOU instead of your competitors.

Ingredient #2 - Object - What Need Are you Satisfying?

The Object in the Object-Subject-Project equation is very important.

The Object is the main reason you’re in business in the first place. You are in business to solve a problem; to cater to a need of your market; to address a pain point.

You must determine upfront, exactly what need you’re catering to. Satisfying the customer’s need is the ‘seed’ that will grow into a profitable business.

You need to figure out how to satisfy your market’s needs in a unique way. Understand the nuances or subtle elements of your customers’ needs that your competitors might not be aware of.

  • Learn about the 7 Types of Needs and how each one could fit into your business.
  • Discover how to pick a need to form the foundation of your business idea.
  • Discover how to find the subtle nuances that could put you on the path of success.
  • Discover how to turn this need into a ‘Superior Differentiated Idea‘ 

Ingredient #3 - Project - What Solution are you Bringing to Market?

project - products - market activation

Determine exactly how you’re going to satisfy your customer’s need. What solution, product or service are you going to deploy? How will you make it stand out from the competition? How will you use. The information gathered in Ingredient 1 and 2 to create a winning product and optimize your profits.

The Object-Subject-Project Formula

Here’s the general structure of your business idea using the three ingredients:

My business idea is:

To solve (object) for (subject) by providing (project).

Most businesses focus on the project. For example, “I’m going to sell chairs on Amazon”. That’s NOT a business idea. That’s just the project. 

Some may say, “I’m going to sell chairs on Amazon to office workers”. That’s better but still not a properly formulated business idea.

The complete format should be something like this: “I’m going to sell ergonomically designed chairs on Amazon to office workers who suffer from lower back pain. 

The above example incorporates all three ingredients:

Project: Ergonomically designed chairs on Amazon.

Subject: Office Workers

Object: Lower Back Pain

In the Market Activation training, I’m going to dig deeper into each of the three ingredients and show you how to set up your business for success.

For the Object component, I’ll show you 7 Types of Needs to look out for and determine which one fits best in your business.

Under Project, you’ll discover how to develop unique superhero solutions and marketing messaging to satisfy the needs of your customers.

For the Subject component, the most important ingredient, you’ll discover how to grab the attention of your prospects and make them fall in love with you over your competitors. 

Never, Ever Worry About Your Business Failing Because of Choosing the Wrong Niche or Idea

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3 Responses

  1. Well said, you are so right. In order for a bussiness to have success you need these ingredints. Its like backing a cake, if one ingredient is missing the cake will not be a success. Thanks so much for sharing!!

    Reply

  2. You have broken down in a simple way what it takes to succeed in any endeavor. I love your metaphor for planting seeds. We must plan and nourish on a consistent basis with proper and efficient care to see the blossoming of our businesses. Most of the work is in the planning phase, as once our audience has been defined with a true understanding of their pains and needs, we can then offer our valuable products and services with confidence. There is no guesswork at this point. Thanks so much for these valuable reminders and excellent metaphor. All the Best.

    Reply

  3. Hi Kevon,

    You are right, every successful business was started by solving a problem.

    I like your planting a seed analogy, but I picture it more like a snowball. Once you get that snowball rolling, it just continues to grow.

    If you can keep it rolling, it will get so big that it will be difficult to stop!

    This is the position we all seek when building a business.

    Thanks for the contribution!
    John

    Reply

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