We want to kick off a podcast series on 21st Century leadership, management & entrepreneurship that we hope you’ll find useful. For this very premier podcast, we thought we’d share how Jan Bartscht and I, co-founders of Leadapreneur, a leadership consultancy aimed at transforming traditional learning & development systems, both went from having 10k Euros to over 100k euros within our first year of existence in a new country. I warn you, this podcast has very bad banter, but hopefully some inspiring insights! Just over a year ago, Jan and I finished our MSc and MBA, got getting married and 2 weeks later moved to Malaysia to set up our startup with €10k in our savings account. We hardly knew anyone and quite frankly had a fairly basic understanding of the country. BUT we were passionately driven by the idea of establishing our startup in this emerging market to pursue our dream of transforming the higher education system. Why we chose Malaysia is explained in the podcast above ;-) Within a year, we generated over €100k in revenue, and to celebrate this we decided to share our perspective on what the 3 most important elements are on successfully starting a business in a new country in Year 1 via this first podcast and this blog.
2. BE LEAN. a. Yep. Keep your cash flow to a minimum until you’re earning money in the bank. The only way to do this is to save, save, save. You can’t spend money where you don’t need it and when you’re not earning it. Renting an office is the obvious example and a trap that many entrepreneurs fall into. Don’t spend your limited resources on something you don’t actually need unless you’re ready for it. Instead, enjoy that FREEDOM you’ve always dreamed of! The freedom to work anywhere you want, whenever you want, is one of the things we love about doing what we do. Every day is exciting at the casual hipster coffee shop, the resourceful clients' offices, or at your cosy home! The bottom line is remain lean by not spending money where you don’t need it. To figure out what you can spend your precious capital on, ask yourself: do I need or want this?
1 Comment
Zassala Nicolau
5/2/2015 08:48:02
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