Decoding Entrepreneurship: From Pain Points to Profit | Jyoti Bharadwaj | TEDxDFBEDU
Summary
TLDRIn this insightful talk, the speaker, Ji Bage, founder of the unsweetened beverage brand 'tfit', shares her entrepreneurial journey and challenges. She emphasizes the importance of identifying a genuine opportunity or purpose, the role of personal life choices, particularly marriage, in business success, and the value of mentorship. Bage advises against seeking funds too early, urging instead to build a product with a clear market fit. She stresses the long-term nature of entrepreneurship, the need to listen to customers, and the importance of maintaining a brand's core values even as it scales.
Takeaways
- 😀 The speaker, Jibage, emphasizes the hardships of entrepreneurship, including long hours, low pay, and the burden of responsibility.
- 🤔 Entrepreneurship is not for everyone, and it's important to understand the personal sacrifices and challenges involved.
- 🔍 There are two types of founders: opportunity spotters and problem solvers, with the latter often having a higher chance of enduring the tough journey due to their strong purpose.
- 🏠 Jibage's personal story of founding T highlights the importance of addressing a personal pain point and the desire to create a healthier option in the market.
- 💡 The importance of creating a niche and sticking to it is underscored, as it helps in building brand identity and consumer loyalty, especially when resources are limited.
- 👫 The choice of life partner is crucial for entrepreneurs, as support at home can significantly impact the success of the business venture.
- 🚫 Raising funds too early can be detrimental; instead, focus on building a product and achieving product-market fit with initial customers.
- 📈 The value of mentorship from those slightly ahead in the entrepreneurial journey, as they can provide relevant and recent insights into common challenges.
- 🎯 Commitment to the long-term vision is essential; entrepreneurship is a marathon, not a sprint, and requires perseverance through tough times.
- 💼 Practical business knowledge, such as understanding cash flow and operations, is more valuable than theoretical knowledge from an MBA.
- 🔄 Entrepreneurs must be adaptable and listen to customer feedback, as the business may evolve into something different from the initial idea, based on customer needs and preferences.
- 💌 Maintaining the brand's core values and identity is vital even as the business scales, to ensure consistency in the customer experience and brand perception.
Q & A
What was the speaker's role at Housing.com?
-The speaker was the business head at Housing.com, not a product manager as might have been assumed.
What is the name of the brand the speaker runs?
-The speaker runs an unsweetened beverage brand called 'T'.
Why did the speaker start the brand 'T'?
-The speaker started 'T' because they come from a diabetic household and struggled to find a good enough beverage that was not packed with sugar.
What is the speaker's view on the hours and pay of starting a startup?
-The speaker believes that the hours for a startup are brutal, and the pay is poor for a long time until the business becomes successful.
What are the two kinds of founders the speaker identifies?
-The speaker identifies two kinds of founders: those who spot an opportunity in the market and those who have faced a pain point and decide to solve it themselves.
Why does the speaker believe the second kind of founders are more likely to survive the journey of running a business?
-The speaker believes the second kind of founders are more likely to survive because their larger purpose in starting the business keeps them going during tough times.
What advice does the speaker give about raising funds for a startup?
-The speaker advises against raising funds too soon and suggests building a product and achieving product-market fit with some traction before seeking investment.
What is the importance of choosing the right spouse according to the speaker?
-The speaker emphasizes that choosing the right spouse is critical for an entrepreneur because it can significantly impact the success of their business journey.
What is the speaker's perspective on the role of mentors in an entrepreneur's journey?
-The speaker suggests that mentors who are a little ahead in the business journey are more beneficial than those who are too far ahead or not in the same field.
What does the speaker suggest is the most important aspect of building a business?
-The speaker suggests that understanding how money moves in the business, including cash flow and operations, is crucial for building a successful business.
How does the speaker describe the importance of staying true to the brand's DNA as it scales?
-The speaker stresses the importance of maintaining the brand's DNA and signature, such as handwritten letters with orders, even as the business grows to preserve its identity.
What is the speaker's advice on listening to customers for business direction?
-The speaker advises entrepreneurs to regularly communicate with their first 500 customers to understand their needs and adjust the business accordingly.
What does the speaker mean when they say 'you are not building the business you think you're in'?
-The speaker means that entrepreneurs should be prepared to adapt their business to what the customers want, rather than being rigidly attached to their initial vision.
Outlines
🚀 Entrepreneurship: Passion and the Pain Points
The speaker, Ji Bage, introduces herself as the founder of a brand called 'def' and a mother of two. She addresses an MBA class, inquiring about their entrepreneurial aspirations and candidly discusses the harsh realities of entrepreneurship, such as long hours, poor pay, and the immense responsibility that comes with it. Ji differentiates between two types of founders: opportunity spotters and those driven by personal pain points. She emphasizes the importance of having a larger purpose to sustain through tough times in business, sharing her own story of founding 'T' due to the lack of healthy beverage options in the market, highlighting the significance of creating a niche and sticking to it.
🤝 Building a Legacy: The Role of Relationships and Mentorship
Ji Bage stresses the importance of understanding that entrepreneurship is a long-term commitment and not a short sprint. She advises against seeking funds too early, instead advocating for building a prototype with personal resources and gaining initial traction with customers to validate the product-market fit. Ji also discusses the critical role of mentorship, recommending finding mentors who are slightly ahead in the entrepreneurial journey to provide relevant guidance. She warns against the temptation of raising funds without a clear plan and emphasizes the importance of personal life decisions, particularly choosing the right life partner, as it can significantly impact one's entrepreneurial journey.
🛠 The Entrepreneurial Journey: Learning and Adapting
The speaker shares insights on the long-term nature of building a business, stating that success is not achieved in just a few years and that having a backup plan can be detrimental to creating a lasting legacy. Ji emphasizes the importance of being fully committed to the entrepreneurial journey, learning through experience, and understanding the practical aspects of business such as cash flow and inventory management. She also highlights the value of staying connected with customers, as their feedback can significantly influence the direction of the business, using her own experience with 'tfit' to illustrate how customer preferences shaped the product offerings.
🌟 Preserving Brand Identity: The Essence of Entrepreneurship
In the final paragraph, Ji Bage discusses the evolution of a business and the importance of maintaining the brand's core identity despite changes in the business model. She advises entrepreneurs to listen to their first 500 customers and adapt to their needs while staying true to the brand's original vision. Ji shares her personal experience of how customer feedback led to changes in product size and the introduction of new product lines. She concludes by emphasizing the importance of keeping the brand's DNA intact as it scales, using the example of her company's continued practice of sending handwritten letters to customers as a reflection of their brand identity.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Entrepreneur
💡Opportunity
💡Pain Point
💡Bootstrapped
💡Product Market Fit
💡Niche
💡Mentorship
💡Legacy Brands
💡Fundraising
💡Customer Feedback
💡Brand DNA
Highlights
Introduction of speaker Ji Bage as the business head at Housing.com and founder of an unsweetened beverage brand called T.
The candid admission of the brutal hours and poor pay involved in starting a business.
The importance of having a larger purpose to keep going during tough times in business.
Two types of founders: opportunity spotters and pain-point solvers.
Personal story of Ji Bage starting T due to a need for healthier beverage options in a diabetic household.
The vision of T to be as accessible as a can of cola for customers to have real choice.
Challenges of creating a brand from scratch in the consumer packaged goods industry.
The decision to stay true to the unsweetened niche despite market temptations.
The significance of building a prototype and getting the first few customers for validation.
The importance of choosing the right mentor who is slightly ahead in the entrepreneurial journey.
The long-term commitment required for entrepreneurship and its impact on personal life decisions.
The advice against raising funds too early and the focus on creating product-market fit first.
The value of understanding cash flow and operational aspects of business from personal experience.
The evolution of a business based on customer feedback rather than the founder's initial vision.
The example of changing bottle sizes for T based on customer preferences.
The importance of maintaining brand DNA and signature practices even as the business scales.
The five key takeaways for decoding entrepreneurship: purpose, personal life decisions, product-market fit, long-term commitment, and customer-centric business evolution.
Transcripts
[Music]
so before thank you for the lovely
introduction although I can't quote to
save my life I was the business head at
housing.com and not a product manager um
so my name is ji bage I run in gu first
unsweeten BB brand called def I'm also a
mother to two young boys and uh I see
that this is an MBA class right
how many of you want to become
entrepreneurs when you
graduate honest admission how many of
you have thought that I should do
something of my my own I should have my
own
startup okay so no same person in their
sound logical mind should ever want to
start up because the hours are brutal
the pay is crap sorry for the what
you're poor for a really really really
long time uh until you hit it big if you
hit it big and the buck stops with
you which is not always a good thing if
something goes wrong and which goes
wrong on an everyday basis there 10
things going wrong and everything comes
and stops with you it's not a fun job
yet so many of us want to become
entrepreneur URS why do we want to
become
[Music]
entrepreneurs so I'll record this today
with you and do participate actively
okay so my understanding says that there
are two kinds of Founders or two kinds
of people who who kind of get into
business one who spots an opportunity
who says this looks like a wi space in
the market I feel like this is where I
can make money and then they jump in
they
execute they kill it they make a lot of
money they get out the second kind of
Founders are the ones who have faced a
pain point for a while um like probably
babish sharal Viola maybe he was really
struggling to get a cab for a really
long time um and so they have not been
able to find a good solution for a
problem that's been bugging them for a
long time and then they say fine I will
do it myself those are the kind of
Founders who in my
understanding
survive the difficult arduous journey of
running a business because when times
are low and 90% of the times are tough
times in running a business your larger
purpose on why you started this is what
keeps you going I'll give you a little
example from my own journey I started T
because I come from a diabetic household
I could never find a good enough
beverage or I just stayed away from a
beverage a whenever I would go to a
supermarket I would just stay away from
the bage knowing fully well that there
are drinks only in three categories that
are going to be there either there will
be a host of poas or there will be a
host of energy drinks or quote unquote
fruit based beverages all of them
equally jampacked with
sugar uh it's when I went to Japan that
I UND OD that not only is it possible to
create perfectly flavorful beverage it's
also in order to create a healthy
Society you have to make good products
available as easily you have to make
them accessible as easily as a bad
product is so today if somebody says
what's your dream for tfit like what's
that big moonshot it's not that I want
to be a unicorn it's not that the brand
has to be in 500 uh locations I just
want it to be placed everywhere a can of
KOA is because that's when real choice
is given to the customers that's a
little bit about how I started um it's
not been an easy ride um especially in
cpg uh in consumer package Goods
industry it's very difficult to create a
brand from scratch while you're
bootstrapped but staying true to your
story creating a niche for yourself um
really really helps in our case uh we
stuck by the N of unsweetened we had so
many Temptations to do a mango bed
beverage especially after Shar can if we
had done a mango waste beverage we would
probably see sales of 10x 20x but we
continue to stick with our Niche that we
by choice want to be an unsweetened
beverage brand you will never have sugar
or a kind of a sweetener in our
beverages so creating a niche and
playing the niche helps you to create
stickiness in consumer mind especially
when you're starting out because you
don't have a lot of money to kind of
burn on marketing getting large Holdings
do doing a lot of ATL so this repeated
um sharing of your purpose really helps
etch your brand story in your
customers's
mind second I feel the most critical
thing it's a long game right uh it's
very hard to create Legacy brands in 2
years 3 years 4 years 5 years time so
when you step into it you know that this
is going to be for the Long Haul which
means and nobody want tell you this but
the most important thing for you to
figure out in your personal life is who
will you
marry it's very important for boys but
it is critical for girls if you want to
run a business it's it's going to be
tough so it's very important that the
person you marries you marry is uh on
with your idea he he supports you he
does not get in your way and uh more
than fundraising more than going to a
great business school more than any of
these determinants what will determine
how you will end up will be the person
you marry so please Choose Wisely please
marry wisely um once your personal life
is a little bit uh settled or it's under
control you can really get after the
dream because you have the uh Vision you
have the space you have the focus to
really work on it right once you have an
idea the most U low hanging Temptation
today is to raise
funds that's not a great advice most
businesses die from raising funds too
soon and not knowing what to do with it
than not having enough funds with them
so I would say if you have an idea you
should create something with an idea I
get so I go to these student meetups
quite often and I hear all the time man
I have this great idea should I go raise
an angel investment that's not a great
time at least that's not how I have come
to understand how to build a business if
you have a great idea it tank amounts to
nothing you should
build to a certain scale with that idea
maybe get your first 100 customers maybe
get get your first 10 customers like
finding someone to pay to part with the
money for what it is that you have built
I think that's the single biggest
validation for you as a founder and the
kind of confidence it will give you when
you move forward with your idea with
your product with your vision nothing
else can be that so my suggestion to
anybody who wants to start up is your
first first few customers will really
change the game for
you that will help you understand
product Market fit whether the product
that you launched at the price point
that you launched in the flavors that
you launched did you do a good job of it
or not it's called Product Market fit
and without a decent product Market fit
it's very hard to scale a business even
if you raise funds
you will end up learning nothing you
will end up burning a lot of marketing
money so once you have an idea build a
prototype however weak it is however
jugaru uh it is but it's imperative that
you build a prototype with your own
money with your own skill in the game
with your own time second I would say
get a few mentors and by mentors I don't
mean uh so again this I get a lot can
you introduce me to Mr Ana M or Mr Aman
Gupta those are not the kind of mentors
you want you want mentors who are a
little bit ahead in the journey so let's
say if you're starting out you want
someone to Mentor you who has just
completed successfully 12 months in the
market because he or she has faced the
problems you are facing very recently
someone who has who's a bill who's
running a billion dollar Enterprise has
lost touch with where you are at they
can not be a good
uh help for you with the problems that
you're facing they're too small and too
insignificant for for a for the the kind
of Mentor that you want to go after so
get meaningful mentorship from people
who are just a little bit ahead uh in
the game and that can really really
change what you think was possible right
that can really open up all the Avenues
or the channels that you were not able
to see and Big Time mentors don't have
the time for that so be good on paper
that okay this person is on my board and
this person is a mentor but it
translates to nothing so please get a
good
Mentor third I would
say it's a long game so if you are in it
saying 2 3 years I will do this I'll see
if it works if it doesn't I have a plan
B I'll get back to consulting or
whatever it is you will probably get
back to Consulting is how I have come to
understand about life if you're in it be
in it like if you have a backup or if
you're just toying with the idea then
it's very hard to toy with an idea long
enough for it to be a meaningful Legacy
business it's the chances are very very
small that you will be able to create a
lasting business because you were toying
with the idea and you said if if it
works great if it doesn't I'll get back
to my dad's business or consulting or
whatever other options there are so if
you are in it you stay in it you will
figure out uh if it's not option A it'll
be option b if it's not option C it will
be option D there's so much that you
will learn while you on the job no
amount of NBA can prepare you like all
the concepts that you study I did my NBA
from in School of Business
Hyderabad very little of what I studied
in class actually is useful in business
what's useful in business is
relationships in business what's useful
in business is to understand how cash
moves in the business like uh how much
money should be should you put in the
inventory what should be your payment
cycle what's your receivable cycle so a
lot of understanding you will get if you
closely work on your business yourself
um you know then it's important for you
to understand how money moves in the
entire value chain for you to know where
you will be able to make money where you
will be able to do cost savings and how
business will reach profitability and it
doesn't happen unless you're doing a lot
of the Ops yourself initially so very
little of what uh you study in MBA I
don't know if there are professors
sitting here but uh is what you will
eventually uh use in
business the last thing that I would
want to say is if you're building a
[Music]
business you will very rarely end up
with the business that you started with
and uh a lot of us kind of head butt and
we are very married to the idea that
this is what I wanted to build uh and so
this is what I'm going to
build but most times you are not
building the business You're Building
you're building the business that the
customer wants you to build so it's
imperative that you speak to the first
500 customers and you speak to them very
regularly you try and understand what is
it that clicks about your brand with
them right it may be that they hate your
first product it may be that they hate
your packaging I'll give you an example
when I started tfit I was doing 500 mL
bottles like the idea was it's a very
light beverage uh we wanted to replace
all sugary beverages through the day so
we wanted a big enough packing that
someone could carry it through the day
with them but what I did miss was that
nobody would try out a beverage which
was 500 ml to begin with so my repeats
were very high with the 500 mL product
but my trials were really low because
nobody wanted to park that much money
for a product that they have never tried
before right so so then we listen to our
customers we reduced the bottle size to
300 ML and we suddenly saw the spike in
trials in sales in new customers in
funnel and uh many examples like this um
so so we currently do instant uh Team
premixes the idea didn't come from me
the ideas came from the customers that
they would love to have the unsweetened
experience when they travel and they
can't carry these big bottles abroad or
the liquid bottles so why don't we do
sashes we did some hit and run hidden
trial with the sashes we sent out some
samples and loved it and then we went
into production so and that's not the
business I that's the first five
businesses I thought when I started P
that I would be doing sessions but you
have to keep your ears really close to
the ground and the customer will tell
you what business you were really in and
uh so that's one advice I still talk to
my uh customers every Saturday half an
hour 45 minutes I make calls I still
want to know if the DNA that we started
with have are we losing that somewhere
um or is it the same experience that
they get because as it
brand you are not what you keep talking
about what your brand is you are what
when you leave the room what other
people talk about that's what brand is
right and so it's important to as you
grow then kind of have that DNA and not
lose that in pursuit of growth so we
take tremendous amount of pride that in
every order that we send out and we send
out thousands now like when I started I
was shipping orders I was backing orders
with an intern from my spare room in my
home we used to send out these
handwritten
letters my order size is gone 100 folds
since then we still do handwritten
letters now we have a team of people who
writes those letters by hand but we have
not given that up because that's just
who we are like that's our DNA that's
our signature and we hope to be able to
continue to do that as we scale so there
are some things as a brand that you will
hold very closely to your heart and it's
important to not not lose that in
pursuit of scale that's what defines a
brand as a brand so decoding
entrepreneurships I will sum it up a
little bit one know you why is this an
opportunity that you're after is this a
purpose that's really close to your
heart second decide very carefully on
the person that you would want to marry
um because that will really determine
how your entrepreneurial journey is
going to be third don't go after funds
before you have a product create a
product create a product Market fit have
some semblance of traction that yes I've
made something that somebody is willing
to pay money for know that it will be a
long difficult game most days will be
tough most days where things will not go
your
way but it will turn out fine you will
gain scale if you keep your ears close
to the ground you are not the business
that you think you're in you are in the
business that your customer tells you
you're in so these are the five points I
had um as far as I understand how to
decode entrepreneurship thank you so
much for your time I hope it
this
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