02/04/2024
"My Startup Journey: Lessons Learned and Key Tips for Entrepreneurs"
After graduating from with a B.Tech in IT,
I had plans to start my restaurant and IT company. I immediately started an IT service startup that provided services like website and app development to B2B businesses.
We experienced good revenue in the initial months. simultaneously, in the same year 2014, I started a restaurant with a cloud kitchen concept.
However, it failed within 6 months of operation, and I realized the immense challenges of the restaurant business.
Unlike my IT service startup, running a restaurant required constant presence.
We decided to shut down our restaurant operations due to several reasons:
1. Bad Location
2. Cash flow problems
3. Inventory loss and theft
4. High rent costs
5. Inconsistent taste maintenance for 6 months
6. Accounting challenges:
We had problems with accounting because we didn't use software initially due to high costs. we had an attitude that we would design our own POS system instead of buying expensive software from another company. (its like हम भी बना लेंगे POS).
You can watch our cloud kitchen video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JIfVZm9WUI&t=10s.
After facing these and more difficulties, I realized that running a restaurant is one of the hardest businesses in the world. and then I made the difficult decision to shut down both the IT service and restaurant startups.
Drawing from my IT background and my experience of failure in the restaurant industry, I founded (www.tmbill.com).
TMBill's mission is to help millions of restaurants worldwide through technology,
with our tagline being 'Serve the great food and leave technology to us.'
Over the last 10 years, TMBill has helped more than 11,000 restaurants across 21 countries.
My key messages to budding entrepreneurs are:
#1. Fail Fast and Bounce Back
#2. Always concentrate on one industry during the initial stages of your entrepreneurship journey. Don't try to do too many things at once. It's better to concentrate on one thing and do it well.
#3. To succeed in business, use money from customers, not investors.
#4. Market your startup 365 days per year. this is a game of distribution not only product.
#5. Startups ≠ Instant Success.
It’s a long-term game, not a get-rich-quick scheme. Play it only if you genuinely want to solve a problem otherwise you will be disappointed.
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