5 misconceptions about starting up

5 misconceptions about starting up.

1. You need a lot of capital to start a business. Nope. There are indeed some businesses that may need a high capital investment upfront. But, almost always, you only need a little capital *to start*. You can always build an MVP with a small amount of money. This is especially true for Software businesses because if you are a programmer, then you can write the first version of the product yourself. If you are not a programmer, then you can either 1.) get a technical cofounder or 2.) use no-code tools.

2. You need job experience before starting a business. Nope. I was a college fresher when I started Cogno AI and today, we have 200+ large enterprise clients. So long as your learnability is high, you don't need prior experience. Prior job experience does help, but it is not a prerequisite for starting up. There are countless other examples of college entrepreneurs who made it big.

3. You need to have a network before starting a business. Nope. Network definitely helps a lot to get access to enterprise customers or investors. But you don't need to have one in order to start a business. Today, there are so many startup incubators that help you with mentorship, guidance and help you with access to investors. All you need to do is to dilute a small percentage of your company.

4. You need to have domain expertise in the area where you are starting up. While it definitely helps to know the domain well, it is not at all mandatory. For instance, we started Cogno in the Financial Services space with ZERO prior knowledge of the space. Our first 5 clients were the State Bank of India, SBI Life, SBI Mutual Fund, ICICI Bank and Kotak Mahindra Bank.

5. You don't need a cofounder for starting up. While there are cases of a single founder doing well, it is highly recommended that you get a cofounder so that you can discuss ideas, keep a check on each other, help each other during tough times and build a team that has a complementary skillset.

Important note: All the above points have exceptions. There are no thumb rules in business. The above points are guidelines to help you increase the probability of success as has been seen in multiple cases. The above points do not guarantee any form of success and the reverse is also true - not following the above points doesn't mean that your startup will fail.

I have shared a lot of my learnings about Business and Entrepreneurship on my YouTube Channel. Please check it here: https://youtube.com/@aman.goeliitb