How do you eat an elephant? The good old answer is – one piece at a time. But, the business world won’t wait that long, and the elephant would become inedible soon. You might want to kill a smaller elephant and throw an invite to every known man and beast. Mass mailers sent in advance would help, and it won’t hurt to have a cold storage.

Do not be alarmed! We are not giving you lessons in eating meat. But, helping you foray into the unknown and conquer it. Running a business is difficult any day, but more so when it is in an unknown niche.

Here are a few life lessons to create a successful brand in a niche you know nothing about:

Lack of knowledge shouldn’t mean lack of interest

One has to start afresh in any new field, but a lack of knowledge shouldn’t mean a lack of interest. Don’t touch something that you don’t find interesting. Eventually, you would be required to learn a lot about it.

Have no shame

The best part about being small is that you don’t have a reputation to defend or a fragile ego. A few rejections won’t hurt as much, in fact, you might end up building a reputation for resilience, the hallmark of a true startup. The legendary Dhirubhai Ambani once said “I am willing to salute anyone” – this kind of humility and fearlessness is something that the established players would normally lack. Fortunately or unfortunately, in life, love, and business, the shameless usually succeed.

Think outside the box

Lack of knowledge can be incredibly liberating, one can come up with insights which the experts or old timers might miss because of too much knowledge. Steve Jobs revolutionized the music industry not because he was an expert, but because he was an outsider. He could see dispassionately that the revenue model so dear to the music companies was dying quickly, something the pros refused to consider.

Learn from your mistakes

Since you would be a newcomer, you are expected to make mistakes. There is no harm in making mistakes. However, learn from them and move on.

Get hands on

You need to know things, not only theoretically, but practically too. Communicate regularly with your employees and stay in touch with your customers to always stay in the thick of things. But, most of all, learn to do things on your own so that you know what really goes on.

Hire experts

You might hate to admit, but the experts do come in handy, especially in the technical and legal areas of business, something you just don’t want to lead by ‘intuitive understanding’.

Use technology

The David and Goliath conflict was settled with the use of the sling. In the modern world, technology is the sling that startups can use to kill a much bigger opponent.

Talking of David, it was his attitude that actually killed Goliath, a sling was just the means. We would end this article with this thought. While others thought, “Goliath is so big, I can’t beat him”. David thought, “Goliath is so big, I can’t miss him”.

Happy Hunting!!!

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