
Lessons Learned in My 22-Year Entrepreneurial Journey: Why I Started a Product Management & Business Growth Consultancy
Reflecting on lessons I learnt about building exceptional products and failures.
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Hello everyone, this is my first blog post after launching my consulting website, paramgrowth.com. In this article, I would like to share with you the reason behind starting a consultancy business in product management and business growth. With 22 years of experience, I have learned a lot from my entrepreneurial journey, and I hope to give you some insights from my experiences.
A bit about my experience
I started my career as a CNC programmer in a manufacturing company and worked there for about seven years. Later I became an entrepreneur. I started my first venture as a dealer and retailer of industrial consumables, followed by an online business discovery platform for SMBs, and later founded an eCommerce platform for industrial consumables, delivering products all over India. I had my fair share of successes and failures, and upon reflection, I realized that there were a few things that could have helped me create a bigger impact and achieve more significant business success.
Lessons I learnt
One of the most important things I learned is that it's essential to build a product or service that meets existing demand. Fine-tuning the existing process or addressing customer pain points is an excellent starting point. Trying to create a new market category and expecting fast results is incredibly challenging and requires a lot of patience and capital, and there is no guarantee of success. Therefore, it's crucial to carefully consider the idea you are working on before committing to it.
Another critical factor is validating the idea through potential customer research, market research, and competitive analysis. Failing to conduct proper research can leave you relying on luck, which is never a reliable strategy for success.
In addition to building a product that meets demand and validating the idea, it's also essential to create a solution that offers high value around the customer's "Jobs To Be Done" (JTBD). When it comes to developing features for your product or service, less is often more. Prioritizing features based on data insights and a bit of intuition can go a long way in ensuring the product meets the needs of the target audience.
Finally, product positioning is critical. It's essential to identify the exact customer for whom the product is intended, for example, banks or investment banks or investment banks for NRIs? Choose well. This will help you to decide the right pricing & distribution, right content, right engagement & marketing strategy. Making the right choices here can save you a lot of time, money, and effort in the long run.
By following these strategies, businesses can overcome common challenges, such as low conversion and retention ratios, and high customer acquisition costs. While there may be various other factors for startup failure, building a data-driven product around value and the right positioning can significantly reduce your risk of failure.
Currently, I work with my partner experienced in UI & UX, helping eCommerce, SaaS, and marketplace businesses build exceptional products and grow them faster.