Turn your Idea into a Business: Technopak MD Harminder Sahni offers advice

Mr Sahni has been working with Technopak since 1996 and is, currently, Managing Director. Over the last 11 years, he has been involved in various corporate strategies and business creation assignments across fashion, retail and consumer goods. He has interacted with many entrepreneurs Along with leading practices at Technopak, Harminder is responsible for strategic partnerships like KSA and Fitch He is a B.Tech from TIT&S, Bhiwani, and an MBA from IMS Indore.

Excerpts from his address:
Making a start:
When an entrepreneur gets ready to make a start, he must think about these three simple points:

Ask yourself: What do you want to do? Think about the idea that you want to pursue. Does it appeal to you intuitively?
Make your choice: While you may have many ideas, you have to choose what appeals to you most. Are you comfortable doing that and will you enjoy it or not?
Commitment & passion: Your success depends on how much commitment and passion you have for your business.

Conceptualization: It is the next step after getting the basic idea. Idea can start from just a concept like, say, foods and then you can conceptualize more details. Idea is broad and generic but concept has more specifics. Like the food business can be conceptualized into fresh food, premium food, gourmet food and so on.

Basic filters for going from idea to concept:
There are some basic filters, which every aspiring entrepreneur needs to understand and use to evaluate ideas. There are no right or wrong choices; the choice is more dependent on what an entrepreneur aspires for.

Low Margin vs High Margin
Low Volume vs High Volume
Clustered vs Widespread
Mass vs Class
Personalized vs Packaged
People Business vs Process Business

For instance, one entrepreneur may have a mindset to deal with people, and may choose a high-touch business like restaurants, while another entrepreneur may prefer to set up an IT process. Its all about knowing your personal preferences and making a choice.
Seven Questions need to be answered:
These questions will help a budding entrepreneur analyze and understand the dynamics of prospective businesses better.

Who is the customer?
What is the decision process?
How compelling is the new product or service for the target customer?
How will the product be priced?
How will the venture reach out to the entire identified customer base?
How much does it cost to acquire a customer?
How much does it cost to retain a customer?

Principles of the start-up:

Do not wait for a team: In an entrepreneurship, a person should not think of who all will join him from the start. An entrepreneur should be self-dependent. He has to take the initiative and make a start. Team building can follow.
Get operational quickly: Try to get operational as early as possible. An early start helps fine-tune the product better with customer feedback.
Focus on cash: Cash should be the focus -- and not profits or market share in the initial stages of a company
Create a credit worthy business from the start: This means complete all paper work and legal formalities from the start.

Three Cs of Entrepreneurship:

Capital: You have to have capital to invest in your business. Its difficult to raise funding at the idea stage.
Courage: Entrepreneurs will face several challenges; courage and conviction will come handy.
Confidence: Confidence in your idea will help you through the tough times.

The Law of 123:

Entrepreneurs typically build their ventures three times.
The first business idea comes from an opportunity, rather than from passion or analysis. The opportunity drives an entrepreneur to get started.
Second businesses are generally built on the first one, but are bigger in scale.

But its the third business that is the result of the personal passion of an entrepreneur. This is the dream venture that entrepreneurs always wanted to do but cant due to capital or other issues.