One Step Ahead: Innovate and Reinvent Yourself

By Ashok N Ghadge

The book ONE STEP AHEAD' byShriAshokisatorchbearer for students and prospective young entrepreneurs. It enlightens the readers about everything needed to begin a start-up and the attitude changesrequired." -DhananjayKumarDixit, FormerAGM,CE, ReserveBankofIndia, Mumbai.

• Language: English
• Publisher: One Point Six Technologies Pvt Ltd
• Release date: Jan 3, 2020
• ISBN: 9789389759211

Ashok N Ghadge

Mr. Ashok is a trainer and business development coach who is specifically focused on how to helpthe business develop and achieve their goals. His goal is to help people achieve their goals and live the life of their dreams.Mr.Ashok is a Leadership Trainer, Marketing Manager, and an inspirational speaker. His approach to training is learner’s approach and he believes to transform live one needs to bring change in their behaviour patterns.Mr.Ashok has been in the marketing industry for three decades and has seen a lot of organizations rise and fall in the market. As a part of one of his assignments he got an opportunity to train new sales executives on product range, both technically and commercially and also to unfold their hidden talents.

Book preview

Chapter One

Why Start-ups have

become popular

Today most youngsters and people, in general, are more likely not to like the regular nine to five jobs, with half an hour lunch break and a few tea breaks in between and prefer newer approach to how they work. Which mean they prefer to work on their own timings and actually be very productive than having their bosses set up their hours.

Unfortunately, the work culture is not there yet, it still hasn’t caught up with this kind of work ethics and the only way that anyone can work according to their own hours to maximise their growth potential is by starting a company.

Entrepreneurs are the dreamers, fuelled by the pioneering spirit and a strong desire to lead, innovate and reinvent

Another major reason that is why we see so many start-ups today is because the university fees are on a rise steadily. The amount of money required for anyone to get a good degree is phenomenally high and we are seeing a lot of students drop out of universities with the idea that they can save time and profit more of they can start their own companies by putting their university fees into startup.

Also with the revolution of industries, today, it is cheaper than ever to own an internet connection and a personal device or multiple personal devices. With these we see a lot of people realise because of the Lean Start-up moment that you can build your own business online for a very minimal charge and form it slowly into an actual company. It was the time that the world finally saw the power of the internet which led to the .com crises and now even with a more mature market we still see many social media companies being ridiculously estimated by the market.

With the passing years people suddenly learnt that technology was not simply limited to engineering and academics which is what truly started the rise of the start-ups. People saw that they could do it all by themselves and what’s more is that they could sell it as a service as well. With the problems and busts that are happening in the industry and the market, people no longer feel comfortable doing a nine to five job with any company because of jobs and investments disappearing from the companies like it had happened previously in Silicon valley Satyam Computers, Kingfisher airlines, Jet airways or even Government Enterprises like BSNL.

Another major start was when multiple people thought they could make big money by investing small amounts in multiple smaller start-ups. There were a number of successes with some smart people being there at the right time, in the right place with money and being able to hustle and grind. This leads to the craze kick in where everyone believed if a young college boy or a dropout could do it, so could they.

Examples of Start-up Owner

There are many successfull entrepreneurs out there today and there are many successful startup stories of all the accidental entrepreneurs and all the people who have made a change. But sometimes you do not understand where to start and sometimes you will make some big or small mistakes.Learning from mistakes is the stepping stone to success. Everyone makes them and nobody is spared from making them.

Jeff Bezos, Founder + CEO of Amazon

Amazon may be a household name today, but getting there wasn’t easy. Bezos made some colossal mistakes getting the company off the ground (and even more after the company launched).

Like many start-ups founders, Bezos was go, go, go. Unfortunately, the prioritization of scaling quickly led to some costly oversights. Soon after launching, a few savvy consumers discovered how to take advantage of a technical glitch that allowed them to purchase a negative number of books that resulted in free credits.

Bezos made another classic mistake when the company began selling toys. He completely overestimated demand for the Christmas season, haphazardly purchasing and storing more than 100 million toys in the company’s warehouse. Afterwards, Amazon ended up giving away 50 million toys due to space constraints. Though the path to Amazon’s success was not easy, Bezos successfully pushed through numerous setbacks and went on to grow one of the most successful companies of the modern era.

Evan Williams, Co-founder of Twitter

Before co-founding Twitter, back in 2005, Evan Williams was involved with a podcasting platform called Odeo. He started out as an angel investor in the start-up, before taking on a principle role alongside Odeo co-founder Noah Glass.

The start-up went as far as raising a Series A before closing its doors after the release of iTunes. Seeing they would not be able to compete with Apple, the guys turned their attention toward a side project that went on to become Twitter.

The Twitter story illustrates that the greatest successes can often come after the greatest obstacles, so long as you keep innovating.

Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn

Before there was LinkedIn, there was Social Net:

An online dating and social networking site that launched in 1997. Social Net, the brainchild of young Reid Hoffman, was created with the intention of providing users with opportunities for professional networking, roommate matching, and dating.

It appears the platform failed because the public wasn’t ready for it, and because Hoffman was a little scattered in terms of defining its ultimate purpose. Nonetheless, Hoffman completely credits the failed experience to his ultimate success with