Starting business before 30 years old is one of my goals. Since I have set this goal, doing home work and being well-prepared will be necessary to help me achieve this goal.
In the beginning, I just wanted to start a business and did something to make the world better, that was it. But more I think about how to build a great company, more I realize I should set some important principles to help me to achieve winning results. That is what successful players do in every area.
So I set some principles before really starting the business. One of the principles I am going to follow is “do business globally”. I will explain why in the following content.
Grow your business
“Life is growth, you grow or you die.” – Phil Knight, Founder of Nike.
So is a company.
When a company stops growing, it means it is dying. Why if a company stops growing means it is dying? Let’s imagine your salary stops increasing from today, but inflation will increase the price of goods and services, which means you are getting poorer and poorer. So if you are a leader in a company, and your company has stopped growing for ages, it should be a warning sign.
Let’s imagine you are running a company in a small country like Singapore, how can you grow your business? Basically, you should enter a niche market first. Then you will try to:
- Grab as much market share as you can.
- Cost down and increase the profit but not losing quality in your services.
Basically, if you are competitive enough, you should become No.1(market share or profit, it depends) in the market within 10 – 20 years. If you can’t be No.1 in the market in such a small country like Singapore, you must have done something wrong. Maybe you should consider changing the strategy, or reflect your core competency then take the next steps.
Shortly speaking, after 10-20 years working like hell, you must be the No.1 in the market. But the day when you become the No.1 in the market, you should consider another problem – how to keep growing.
We assume you have been so close to the ceiling of the market, there are basically 2 ways to keep growing.
- Expand your business to other markets in your own country
- Expand your business to other countries(do business globally)
So, which way should we choose? If you run your business in countries which with more than 100 million people, you can just choose to expand your business to other markets in your own country, or just keep working at the same market because the market should be extremely competitive and you still have lots of works need to do. But if in places like Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan or New Zealand. Maybe it is better to choose to expand business globally because you don’t have enough population to support your business.
Note: While writing the article I read one post, it may help me explain my point of view.
「剛開始創業的時候，只想著要活下來。活下來以後，就開始思考公司未來的發展是什麼。而我們很早就覺得，不能只做台灣市場。」- CEO of adGeek.
Why choose to do business globally?
“Don’t put all your eggs in one basket”
Let’s imagine you are one of the richest people in the world, but you put all your money and assets in your one country. One day, unfortunately, a war begins in your country, and you are over. All your money will become useless because of devaluation and your assets will be destroyed and other valuable things will be taken over by the government then you don’t even be able to fly to other places because you have no money and no assets in any other country.
It may seem nonsense because it is so difficult to have a war today. Just like Albert Einstein said,
“I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.”
No county wants to start a war with others, because it will cause a devastating result.
But let’s try to apply the same logic. We can understand that if we run our business in just one place or country, anything can slow the economy of the country can also affect or even destroy your business.
Summary
Before Masayoshi son(孫正義), the founder of Soft Bank, started his business, he had been spending around one and half year to collect information and analyze which area to enter. He also set several principles to help him make the decision. And he is really successful now.
But I am not saying he succeed just because of those principles. However, principles are ways of successfully dealing with the laws of nature or the laws of life. Those who understand more of them and understand them well know how to interact with the world more effectively than those who know fewer of them or know them less well.
I believe deciding to do business globally will be the right decision since it can force me to think about how to expand the business and decide which area to enter at the begging. This post serves for recording my thought and will be used to prove whether my principle is right or wrong in the future.