Hi and welcome to the latest episode of the WalkSessions series and today it’s something different, I’ve got my headphones on, so, that’s something new.
As I was reflecting on one of my previous business ventures that I started and failed. So, yes, I’m going to give a condensed story.
It was after my first job in my career I decided to venture into business and I set it up on SMS (Short Message Service) centric business. We mainly used to sell bulk SMS for different clients. It did have some form of success. We did so some good amount of s a message to two clients,
However, after running the business for about six or seven months, it massively collapsed and this was quite a low moment in my life. So, I took off time to re-evaluate why this business venture failed? And the things that came top of my mind included:
1.Not enough research
I and my business partner didn’t do extensive research on the needs of bulk SMS service in Uganda. It was more of an exciting investment. We decided to venture into it since everybody else is doing about the same. So, we decided to dive into Make a buck or two.
2. Wrong partnerships
The second point of failure that I recognized was the partnerships that we got into. Some of them are quite rushed and we did not do a clear background study on some of the partners, we got into business with them.
3. Lack of forecasting
And the third most critical point was our lack of forecast. We did not mm plan out much of how the business would evolve and what kind of repetitive revenue model it would have.
From my story of a failed business, I see keen similarities with why some businesses fail. When when I was hosting different people on The WowFactor Podcast. Some of those points that my guest highlighted were things to do with research, which was also one of my failures. Partnerships were also highlighted by some of the people I interviewed.
Based on the feedback on the podcast, the two most critical points are research and partnerships.
So as you’re doing that as you also venture into your business, you have to put into consideration the factors I have mentioned above, because they were my failures and they could be yours too.
So as you plan for your next business venture, keep that in mind that you have to do your research.
And you have to have a very good background study on your partners and as well, you have to verify if you if your solution is market-ready ready.
So that has been my WalkSession for the day. I hope it has been helpful to you because talking about failures is not easy because you have to go into the state of remembering and someone’s emotions are not nice to entangle in, but as well, they are good to learn from.
