Look at any high-performing business and you’re likely to notice some patterns. More often than not, a successful business has a good product, provides great service and even has an incredible team.

But while there are many factors that influence the success of a business, success often comes down to a particular mindset and approach to business and life.

Having an entrepreneurial mindset can often be the difference between long-term success and struggling to turn your idea into reality.

In this guide, we’ll show you the keys to developing an entrepreneurial mindset, and more importantly, an entrepreneurial spirit, to increase your chances of success by learning from some of the best entrepreneurs.

What is the entrepreneurial mindset?

An entrepreneurial mindset is an attitude that allows you to think long term and to push through all the obstacles and challenges that come with starting a business. It means being open-minded, critical and resilient when times get tough. It means looking for solutions rather than problems. Best of all, you don’t need to go to Harvard Business School to develop it.

Starting a business is incredibly hard. Many businesses fail. Entrepreneurs need to be comfortable with failure and be able to overcome self-doubt. Not all the bold plans we make will turn out to be million-dollar ideas.

Why do people become entrepreneurs?

What type of entrepreneur are you? Every entrepreneur has a different starting story. But there are three common reasons why people leave a salaried job to start their own business.

Freedom and flexibility

What type of entrepreneur are you? Every entrepreneur has a different starting story. But there are three common reasons why people leave a salaried job to start their own business.

Many aspiring entrepreneurs see creating a business as freedom: their gateway to working their own hours, saying no to an annoying boss, and having the flexibility to work on projects they enjoy. You don’t always get that in a full-time job.

Goals and ambitions

Look at successful entrepreneurs and you’ll see they have a fire in their belly. Each person has goals and ambitions they want to achieve—anything from earning six figures a year to changing the world. Their business is often the vehicle that helps them get there. 

It’s this personal satisfaction (or lack thereof) that nudges people into entrepreneurship. Ash Read, founder of Living Cozy, says he became an entrepreneur “to prove to myself I could build something from zero. After working for established brands, I needed to show I could do it on my own.” Self education matters.

Welljourn’s founder Becky Brown says, “For years, I was completely fine working full-time and earning a steady paycheck, but eventually, I realized that I had to strive for more in order to achieve personal happiness and inner satisfaction. 

Inventions

Not all entrepreneurs respond with “I want to own a business!” when asked what they’d like to do in the future. In fact, some people think of themselves as the complete opposite—yet still end up creating successful businesses (or appearing on Shark Tank).

Take Kirby Kendall, the founder of SafetyChew, who kept an inventor’s notebook filled with crazy things as a child: “My goal was to invent something and have a company license it, and I just sit back and cash the checks.”

Nature vs. nurture: are we born entrepreneurs?

Not all business owners consider themselves to be entrepreneurs. Maybe they fell into it, creating something they wanted the world to see and a business was the only way to do that.

But some small business owners believe they’re born with entrepreneurial thinking, like Jodie Kieliszewski, founder of Bee Lovely Botanicals. Her family has a history of entrepreneurship, with both Jodie’s parents, grandparents, and sister starting businesses: “I believe that the entrepreneurial mindset is more the type of thing that someone is born with, but obviously it is a skill that can be sharpened or dulled with use.

“We were raised to spot opportunities and resources to make things better. For me, I feel like it’s just something in my DNA, but in order to be successful, I need to practice and sharpen it as a skill.”

Anyone can learn the art and skill of sales, marketing, and promotion—all of which are crucial to a business. Not everyone can succeed as an entrepreneur. People either have or do not have that innate desire to succeed and the mindset to sacrifice, be uncomfortable, and make tough decisions on a daily basis. The likelihood of success depends on the character and makeup of an individual versus someone who simply has skills but lacks intrinsic fire in their belly.Magda Khalifa, founder of Triangle Fragrance

Whether you’re on either side of the nature versus nurture debate, not everyone has an equal start in the entrepreneurship race. Many of us are given the upper hand by the circumstances we’re born into. People find it easier to become an entrepreneur if they have the background, upbringing, formal education, opportunities, and financial freedom to do so. 

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor also found certain elements “directly [influence] the existence of entrepreneurial opportunities.” The biggest driver? Cultural and social norms, indicating those who’ve grown up in a circle of other entrepreneurs are likely to become one themselves.

All of this isn’t to say you can’t develop an entrepreneurial mindset if you’re not coming from a background of privilege. It definitely is possible—it just takes a little more work.

I think you definitely have to have a certain type of personality to be a good entrepreneur. You have to be highly self-motivated, driven, persistent, and a bit of an overachiever. However, there are several skills that you can develop that will help you, including learning the ins and outs of how to build a business, understanding opportunity costs, developing relationships, and keeping up with industry trends.Ashley Cummings, freelance writer

How to develop an entrepreneurial mindset?

Not everyone is born with the natural drive to run a business, but anyone can become a business owner with the right mindset.

Here’s how to develop the most important entrepreneurial skills.

Build resilience.

Not all business ideas will end up succeeding. Business failure is part of any entrepreneur’s life. There are tons of elements in both marketing and business plans that determine whether an idea becomes a successful venture. 

That’s why keeping the will and determination to make your new business venture a success is crucial. Resilience—the ability to recover from less-than-ideal situations—is the difference between people who have an entrepreneurial mindset and those who don’t. 

“Entrepreneurs see losing as not only a part of the process, but essential to it,” says Yuvi Alpert, founder and creative director at Noémie. “For them, the only way to streamline a business to make it as productive as possible is by understanding where the problems are, which requires experiencing loss.

“By having this mindset, a successful entrepreneur can get past the fear that holds many aspiring business people back, and opens their minds up to all possibilities.”

An entrepreneurial mindset is having the ability to make the most out of opportunities that come your way. You know how to overcome and learn from setbacks, as well as how to excel in a variety of settings.Jean Gregoire, CEO of Lovebox

Building resilience and adaptability as an entrepreneur is something you can only do with practice. Roll your sleeves up and follow your business plan. Produce the best version of a product. Do everything you can to spread the word. But know that plans aren’t foolproof; even the most watertight business plans can go wrong. That’s where your problem-solving skills are sharpened. 

Where others see problems and challenges and then complain, entrepreneurs see opportunities and think of solutions.Aaron Powell, founder and CEO of Bunch Bikes

​​Question everything.

People with an entrepreneurial mindset are curious. They don’t take things at face value; they question why things happen so they can set themselves up for entrepreneurial success.

“The entrepreneurial mindset is all about questioning the world around you and working creatively to improve that world,” says Ethan Goldstein, CEO of Curist. “Constantly asking questions about why things are done the way they are and then positing and executing on new ways to accomplish a goal.”

Ethan recommends developing this mindset by questioning the world around you:

• Weigh the pros versus the cons. Say you’re looking for help to manufacture your new curling iron. Instead of getting quotes from one manufacturer, weigh the pros and cons of local versus international vendors. US manufacturers might be able to ship your product quicker than a European manufacturer, for example—but you’ll pay for that with higher production costs.
• Know when to be aggressive versus restrained. This is especially true with marketing and advertising. The world is your oyster; social media platforms are ready to take your money in exchange for lending their audience. “Does our audience use this platform?” and “Could we get this advertising slot cheaper elsewhere?” are just two of the questions running through the brain of someone with an entrepreneurial mindset.
• Learn when to go with your gut versus examining data. Business executives are more likely to rely on their intuition than the general public. Entrepreneurs who had a gut feeling that TikTok would become popular, for example, are winning today because they started using the platform early.

“I think some of the important internal skills include how to emotionally and mentally run a startup,” Ethan says. Most importantly, that includes “how to manage and plan for the constant uncertainty of running a startup and the potential for anxiety therein, balancing ongoing failure and success.”

Get out of your comfort zone.

Great things rarely happen in your comfort zone. When starting a new venture, it’s this drive to try new things that helps people to turn shower thoughts into successful brands. They have the confidence to try things others haven’t.

Take Rick Elmore, founder and CEO of Simply Noted, who started his career as a football player: “Throughout my sports and entrepreneurial career, I have always pushed myself outside of my comfort zone in order to become better at what I do. This includes learning about and building from scratch the technology that is the basis of my business.

“It can be an uncomfortable process,” Rick says, “but in the end, this strategy results in finding new perspectives, discovering new solutions, and meeting new people who can bring new opportunities.” 

No matter how uncomfortable it may feel, develop an entrepreneurial mindset by trying new things. A new social media platform on the market? Spend a few hours each week to see how things pan out. A hunch that your product could be made cheaper by using different materials? Have a small production run and see if quality suffers. 

The beauty of a comfort zone is that the more you push it, the wider it gets. Entrepreneurs often look back at big decisions that felt scary at the time, only to recognize they’re now doing things they could only dream of. Their comfort zone expanded as their business did.

Entrepreneurs are creators, problem solvers, and innovators. They see possibilities where others see limitations. To be an entrepreneur, you must be willing to take risks and do what it takes to make your vision a reality.Darren Litt, co-founder of Hiya Health

Take responsibility for mistakes.

Unfortunately, not all of the business decisions you make will pay off. That won’t always be your fault. Vendors can fall through on their promises, shipping carriers lose parcels in transit, you name it. 

Alongside resilience and the drive to solve problems, taking responsibility for those mistakes is what sets entrepreneurs apart. 

“To me, the factor that truly defines an entrepreneurial mindset is the refusal to make or accept excuses,” says Mitchell H. Stern, founder of Side Hustle Tips. “Taking ultimate responsibility for everything that happens under the roof of a business is what separates real entrepreneurs from the amateurs, because it’s not an easy thing to do. It’s much easier to blame and castigate others when things go wrong, but it’s also a recipe for disaster.”

Mitchell says, “When I came to the realization that everything was my fault, I developed a new sense of empowerment that enabled me to apply a more proactive approach to all of my business operations. The results were immediate and lasting, and it’s a lesson I continue to preach to this day.”

Individuals with an entrepreneurial mindset are able to adjust quickly and adapt when circumstances change, are highly intuitive, and rarely shy away from following their gut instincts. They are also decisive, and hold themselves accountable for the outcomes of their actions.Patrick Crane, CEO of Love Sew

Strive for constant improvement.

Gymshark, Harper Wilde, Allbirds—they’re three huge businesses that got their success within the past decade. They have one thing in common: the desire to create the best quality products in their industry.

Take Gymshark, for example. Part of its success comes from its commitment to always produce the best quality apparel. One of its core values is progression: “To remain at the forefront of both, we need to be fearlessly progressive and consistently future-conscious.”

“Having an entrepreneurial mindset means that you have a natural [affinity] to learn and make your trade better,” says Marie Jones, the founder of Organic Aromas. 

“You can have many skills and lack the all-consuming passion to break the barriers. Today, the company makes seven figures worldwide, and I believe it’s because of the relentless mindset that always seeks to do more and to do better.”

Surround yourself with other entrepreneurs.

Earlier, we mentioned that research shows people are more likely to become entrepreneurs if they’re surrounded by them. It’s easier to spot business opportunities when you’ve been raised by other people who do. 

Put this into practice by surrounding yourself with other people with the entrepreneurial mindset. This doesn’t have to be your circle of friends. You can make friends with other business owners through:

• Local business events. The US Chamber of Commerce hosts regular networking events for small business owners. You’ll also find independent events on sites like Meetup and Eventbrite.
• Conferences. Scan the Conference Index to find events and tradeshows happening in your industry. Make an effort to network with people while you’re there.
• Online forums. Connect with global entrepreneurs through Slack communities, Facebook groups, and Reddit’s /r/entrepreneur forum.

Not found your million-dollar idea yet but want to get first-hand experience? Find an entrepreneur you admire and ask to shadow them. Having them as your mentor will help you understand their mindset and thought processes. When inspiration does strike, you’ll have the new skills to turn it into a successful business.

“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know” is a motto many entrepreneurs credit their success to. Not only will the entrepreneurial mindset of others rub off onto you, but you’ll have a network of friends willing to help you out when things get tough.

Aligning with like-minded peers allows you to share tricks, tips, and even leads. If that’s not enough, leveraging the influence of other reputable businesses will boost your clout and can help position you as an expert.Sigute Zitikyte, Personal Branding Coach, and former Senior Partnerships Manager at Shopify

The first step to developing the right mindset is deciding to become an entrepreneur.

Some people find the foray into entrepreneurship easier than others. Privilege, your upbringing, and being surrounded by entrepreneurs from a young age all influence your likelihood of business success.

Don’t use that as an excuse to wipe “Become an entrepreneur” off your bucket list. You can develop the same entrepreneurial mindset some people say they’re born with by second-guessing everything, getting out of your comfort zone, and always striving for improvement. 

“The entrepreneurial mindset is first and foremost about self-belief and confidence,” ViscoSoft’s CEO Gabriel Dungan summarizes. “No matter what industry your business falls under, having confidence in both yourself and your company is integral to success and overall longevity.”

Don’t let your excuses and fears stop you from giving entrepreneurship a try.

Wrapping up

We at ShopShipShake have been working with businesses like yours with fulfilling experiences. We offer one-stop services, including an efficient supply chain, over 10 thousand of China’s suppliers, over 1,000,000 SKU and more. With a successful track record of over 100,000 clients, we are sure to deliver your orders requirements.

Let’s get in touch to build, sustain, and grow your businesses! If you would like to know more details about us, please contact us:  blog.shopshipshake.com. If you are interested in cooperating with us. Please register on: https://bit.ly/3Cfdu4w

This article partly refers to:  https://www.shopify.com/uk/blog/entrepreneurial-mindset

We’re sure that you’ve made decisions regarding your personal New Year’s resolutions, but have you taken the time to contemplate what resolutions are best suited for your business in 2023?

The new year is settling in and with a new year comes new goals. We’re sure that you’ve made decisions regarding your personal New Year’s resolutions, but have you taken the time to contemplate what resolutions are best suited for your business in 2023? The last few years have been a whirlwind, especially for businesses that felt the pressure to turn to digital due to the pandemic. Those that set business resolutions for the last few years are likely to have shifted their views and altered their goals along the way to meet the demands of the 2022 online consumer. In 2023, it’s time for businesses to intensify this online strategy by setting themselves up for success with carefully constructed New Year’s resolutions. Not sure where to start? Lucky for you, we’ve got a few pointers that will help you out.

1. Set realistic goals

As a general foundation for your New Year’s resolutions, your business needs to set realistic goals. There is no harm in setting a few ambitious goals because this is a great way to motivate employees; however, sometimes it’s effective to be a bit more realistic. Instead of setting ridiculously over-the-top goals, try to find a middle ground – something that pushes your team to perform but is still manageable and achievable. If you are struggling to think of goals, ask yourself what you can and hope to accomplish in the year that follows, and develop goals around that. These reasonable achievements can also be spread out over each quarter to ensure continuous progress while also making goal tracking easier. The purpose of these goals is to give your business direction and, to ensure that you are on track, it is essential to monitor them. This brings us to point number 2 …

2. Improve organisational processes

We’re not just talking about general improvements, we’re talking about the appropriate use of automation to enhance your internal processes. Taking the recent global digital changes into account; in 2023, it’s important for business owners to consider cyber solutions when mulling over their resolutions. Reduce the risks of manual errors with digital solutions by removing the need for paper-based procedures. Technology simplifies business operations by providing an automated means of managing inventory, monitoring targets, and even conducting secure onboarding. Implementing software such as Identity Verification Services (IVS) and Bank Account Verification Services (AVS) will provide businesses with a secure and efficient approach to client relations. These two digital solutions offer a quick way for businesses to authenticate client identities and banking details, ensuring that the business remains KYC compliant while also reducing its risk of fraud exposure.

3. Boost your fraud defences

The growth of your business in the next year relies on the achievement of the goals that you set for yourself now. When you create this room for growth, you also expose your business to a higher risk of fraud. This means that you need to set an additional New Year’s resolution to strengthen your fraud defences. As we indicated above, introducing digital solutions like IVS and AVS into your business is a fantastic preventative measure against acts of fraud. Not only does this software provide an instant and effective way to verify the personal details of your customers, but it also reduces the opportunity for fraudsters to slip through the cracks and make their way into your business system. Using this software, you can confidently onboard the right customers.

4. Onboard the right customers

Onboarding customers and onboarding the right customers are two very different actions. It’s easy to allow a customer to sign a contract or purchase an item on credit, but it’s not as easy to ensure that your customer is reliable – unless you have safeguarded your business with effective security measures. If onboarding the right customers is your goal, then seeking out services such as credit checks and bank statement services is a must. These digital solutions give businesses the opportunity to look into their clients’ payment patterns to identify whether or not they are likely to make payments each month. Implementing digital bank statement services will allow your business to receive statements directly from the bank in an instant. This direct service reduces the risk of document fraud and improves the customer vetting process while allowing businesses to remain POPI compliant. Credit Score services can also be used to vet customers and ensure that they maintain good accounts with your business. Using bureau data, these services give businesses the resources to effectively manage their fraud risks by assessing customer credentials and deterring fraudsters.

5. Stop doing what’s not working, and move on!

Finally, we want you to have a look at all of your past resolutions and general business activities, specifically paying attention to everything that didn’t work. Maybe it was your manual processes, or maybe your digital processes weren’t as sophisticated as they could have been. Either way, you need to take a look at those downfalls and think of a way to improve on them. As an example, if you have successfully onboarded customers, but are struggling with successful debit order collections, it’s time to move on from your regular debit order process and implement Strike Date Optimisation (SDO). This unique service provides businesses with the three dates that clients are most likely to have funds in their accounts. This minimises the risk of failed collections and improves regular debiting processes in just a few simple steps.

While some may not see the value of a New Year’s resolution, choosing the right one can make all the difference. Slowly execute your resolutions over the course of this year to refine your business operations by improving customer experiences and enhancing your security.

Are digital solutions a part of your New Year’s resolution?

Wrapping up

We at ShopShipShake have been working with businesses like yours with fulfilling experiences. We offer one-stop services, including an efficient supply chain, over 10 thousand of China’s suppliers, over 1,000,000 SKU and more. With a successful track record of over 100,000 clients, we are sure to deliver your orders requirements.

Let’s get in touch to build, sustain, and grow your businesses! If you would like to know more details about us, please contact us:  blog.shopshipshake.com. If you are interested in cooperating with us. Please register on: https://bit.ly/3Cfdu4w

This article partly refers to: https://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/836/234955.html

TED is a series of conferences that present “Ideas Worth Spreading” that has garnered recognition around the world. 

A large number of Nobel Prize winners have presented at TED, including Elon Musk, Jane Goodall, and Larry Page. Many of the presentations, known as TED Talks, present ideas that are particularly valuable to entrepreneurs. 

Need a bit of inspiration? Discover 14 TED Talks for becoming a successful entrepreneur. 

14 Most Inspiring TED Talks for Entrepreneurs

1. Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action

People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it. Simon Sinek is an author, motivational speaker, and strategic communications professor at Columbia University. Sinek has a simple but powerful model for inspirational leadership that starts with his famous “golden circle of motivation” and the question “Why?” 

If you like Simon Sinek’s TED Talk, you should also check out his popular blog, Re:Focus, which is regularly updated with fascinating articles that will help entrepreneurs build businesses. Also check out his book Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action.

2. Elizabeth Gilbert: Success, failure and the drive to keep creating

Elizabeth Gilbert is the author of Eat, Pray, Love. In her TED Talk, she explains that both great success and failure are seen as the same in our minds and vault us into an area of discomfort. However, she then tells us the solution is to find your home.

“Your home is that thing to which you can dedicate your energies to such singular devotion that the ultimate results become inconsequential.”

Meaning, success, and failure will all throw you for a loop. But if you focus on what you love, you won’t lose your way. What that means for small business owners and business leaders is that you can weather the storms of success and failure by getting back to the thing you love—the reason you started your business in the first place—and find your home.

3. Seth Godin: How to get your ideas to spread

Be remarkable. Safe is risky. Being very good is one of the worst things you can do. Everyone has heard the expression “The best thing since sliced bread,” but did you know that for 15 years after sliced bread was invented, it wasn’t popular? The success of sliced bread, like the success of anything, was less about the product and more about whether or not you could get your idea to spread.

Marketing expert and author Seth Godin spells out why, when it comes to getting our attention, bad or bizarre ideas are more successful than boring ones. Godin has published almost a dozen bestselling books, some of the most popular being: 

• Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable
• All Marketers Are Liars
• Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?
• Poke the Box

4. Brené Brown: The power of vulnerability

Dr. Brené Brown is a professor, lecturer, author, researcher, and podcast host. In her TEDx Talk, she explains that in her years of research, she has found the courage to be vulnerable and knowing that you are enough are the keys to happiness and being successful.

Vulnerability is seen as a weakness in the business world, but Brown explains that vulnerability is the “birthplace of joy, of creativity, of belonging, of love.” If you want to check out more of what Dr. Brown has to say about how vulnerability can make you successful, you can read her book, Daring Greatly.

5. Bill Gross: The single biggest reason why start-ups succeed

Bill Gross is the founder of Idealab, a well-known incubator of new inventions, ideas, and businesses. According to Gross, the single factor that has the most effect on whether a startup succeeds is timing. It accounted for a 42% difference between success and failure in the startups Idealab helped get off the ground. 

Gross cites a great example of this when he mentions a video streaming company Idealab supported, called Z.com. It was a great idea, and had excellent funding and a great business model, but in 1999, the time the company launched, it was still too hard to watch videos online. Z.com went out of business in 2003. In 2005, after Adobe Flash allowed the world to watch videos online more easily, YouTube appeared. 

6. Amy Cuddy: Your body language may shape who you are

Fake it until you become it. That’s the lesson social psychologist Amy Cuddy imparts to the audience of her TED Talk. Through lab experiments and her own life experience, Cuddy explains how power posing can physiologically change your mind, your behavior, and your life. 

Cuddy says that body language doesn’t just change the way that others see you—it also changes how you see yourself. Her research shows that if you use a power pose for two minutes before a stressful job interview or presentation, it can change the testosterone and cortisol levels in your brain and make you perform better. 

If you’d like to learn more about how your body language can change your life, you can read her book, Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges.

7. Bel Pesce: 5 ways to kill your dreams 

Link: https://embed.ted.com/talks/lang/en/bel_pesce_5_ways_to_kill_your_dreams

Bel Pesce is a Brazilian entrepreneur, author, and lecturer. After graduating from MIT and a successful run in Silicon Valley, Pesce returned to Brazil so she could help people become better entrepreneurs. In her TED Talk, she goes over the five things that successful people do not think or do. 

She explains things like the idea of overnight success—“Your overnight success story is always a result of everything you’ve done in your life through that moment.”—and that the journey to your dream is as important as the dream itself: “Achieving a dream is a momentary sensation, and your life is not. The only way to really achieve all of your dreams is to fully enjoy every step of your journey.” 

8. David S. Rose: How to pitch to a VC

David S. Rose is a serial entrepreneur and investor, so he’s been on both sides of the table during pitch meetings. His TED Talk is about how you can create effective VC pitch packages to venture capitalists so you can get funding for your own businesses. 

Rose gets straight to the point and goes through practical and logistical details that should be included in every VC pitch package. He covers:

• How many seconds you have to catch an investor’s attention
• The 10 characteristics you need to showcase in your pitch
• How long your pitch should be
• How you should structure your pitch
• The tools you should get for your presentation (i.e., what software should you use, remotes, etc.)

If you’d like to learn more about how you can be a more effective presenter in investment meetings, you can pick up his book, Angel Investing.

9. Regina Hartley: Why the best hire might not have the perfect resume 

The perfect résumé doesn’t mean that a candidate is perfect for the job. Regina Hartley expresses this point by presenting the résumé of a candidate who was given up for adoption, had dyslexia, never finished college, job hopped for a while, and then went to live in India for a year. Who was the candidate? Steve Jobs. 

Hartley is a human resources expert and presents her ideas of the silver spoon candidate and the scrapper in her TED Talk. Through her research and experience, she highlights the idea of post-traumatic growth and how it makes scrappers put forth better work. And that in the end, whatever is on their résumé, if you give them the opportunity, people with passion and grit will amaze you.

10. Shawn Achor: The happy secret to better work

In this TED Talk, Shawn Achor humorously explains that you can train your brain to be more positive. He shares the importance of positive thinking to your success and happiness. Citing various research, he shows your brain, when positive, is 31% more productive than when it is not. 

Achor is a psychologist and CEO of Good Think Inc. If you want to learn more about the power of positive thinking and how you can train your brain, check out his books Big Potential: How Transforming the Pursuit of Success Raises Our Achievement, Happiness, and Well-Being,and The Happiness Advantage.

11. Julissa Prado: 3 rules to help you build a successful business

Julisa Prado quit her corporate job and founded Rizos Curls—one of the first Latina-owned hair care brands aimed at celebrating natural hair. In this TED Talk, she goes over her three rules for building a successful business.

Her strategies center around using your small business stature as a strength, knowing who you are, and trusting yourself. Prado uses a great anecdote about how Rizos Curls entered a major retailer for the first time. 

As a self-owned, self-funded small business, she decided to break some rules when marketing the launch. Instead of using traditional business wisdom and investing a huge amount of marketing dollars, she hired a mariachi band, rode to the store on a horse, and put the whole thing on TikTok for less than $1,000.

12. Tracy Young: How vulnerability makes you a better leader

In this TED Talk, Tracy Young shares how her inability to be her full self stunted her own personal growth, as well as the growth of her company. She openly shares her experiences as a woman CEO and how she felt pressure to hide her womanhood. Young even recounts how she had a miscarriage at the office and simply went back to work right after, pretending that nothing happened, because she didn’t want to be seen as weak or vulnerable.

Then, Young explains how when she dared to be her full self and asked her team for help, it changed everything. The entire team pulled together and they were able to increase their revenue growth and get them from a startup to a medium-sized business. And it also changed the culture of the company for the better. 

13. Leticia Gasca: Don’t fail fast—fail mindfully

“In premodern Italy, failed business owners with outstanding debts were taken totally naked to the public square, where they had to bang their butts against a special stone while a crowd jeered at them.” This is the visual Leticia Gasca gives at the beginning of her TED Talk. She uses it to explain that excessive punishment for failures stifles innovation and business creation. 

Gasca is the co-founder of the movement Fuckup Nights and the Executive Director of Failure Institute. Her premise is that the business mantra should change from “fail fast” to “fail mindfully.” 

She explains that:

• You shouldn’t be ashamed of your failures. Failure is essential to growth. 
• You should be aware of the impact and consequences of the failure of your business. Remember you have employees that are now out of a job, and suppliers and investors who may have been depending on you.
• You should learn from your failures. 
• You should know that you are responsible for sharing these lessons with the world. 

14. Sangu Delle: There’s no shame in taking care of your mental health

Sangu Delle is an entrepreneur and clean water activist from Ghana. The message of his TED Talk is simple: take care of your mental health. Delle talks through his journey of dealing with his own bias that men shouldn’t worry about their mental health. He discusses how he learned to deal with anxiety in a world that doesn’t value emotions. 

What is TED Talks FAQ

What is the purpose of TED talks?

The purpose of TED talks is to spread ideas. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design, and the talks seek to promote and share knowledge and inspire action on a wide variety of topics. TED talks are usually informative, thought-provoking, and inspiring.

What are TED talks mainly about?

TED talks mainly focus on ideas worth spreading in the areas of technology, entertainment, and design (TED). They cover a wide range of topics, from science to business to global issues. TED talks are meant to inform, inspire, and motivate audiences with powerful stories and innovative thinking.

What does TED stand for?

TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design.

What is a TED and how does it work?

TED is an acronym for Technology, Entertainment, and Design. It is a nonprofit organization that has become famous for its conference series, TED Talks. TED Talks are short, powerful talks of 18 minutes or less, which are given by leading experts in the fields of technology, entertainment, and design. The talks are shared online and are available to anyone, free of charge. TED Talks are designed to inspire and inform, and have become a popular source of knowledge and motivation for people around the world.

Wrapping up

We at ShopShipShake have been working with businesses like yours with fulfilling experiences. We offer one-stop services, including an efficient supply chain, over 10 thousand of China’s suppliers, over 1,000,000 SKU and more. With a successful track record of over 100,000 clients, we are sure to deliver your orders requirements.

Let’s get in touch to build, sustain, and grow your businesses! If you would like to know more details about us, please contact us:  blog.shopshipshake.com. If you are interested in cooperating with us. Please register on: https://bit.ly/3Cfdu4w

This article partly refers to: https://www.shopify.com/blog/6553665-12-must-watch-ted-talks-for-entrepreneurs

The last few years have seen a sustained growth in the adoption of e-commerce. This has brought about a lot of changes in the industry – and there are many more to come.

Frederik Zietsman, chief executive officer, of Takealot.com.

Heightened consumer expectations – on all fronts

People don’t distinguish between different digital experiences, which means they expect the same experience no matter where they are spending their hard-earned rands. As more players enter the digital economy, e-commerce providers must step up to meet expectations that have undergone seismic changes. Across all touchpoints and digital channels, customers expect proactive service, personalised interactions, and seamless, seamless experiences.

This will extend to shipping too. With the maturation of e-commerce, customers will expect better, cheaper, faster and more transparent delivery, something we already see playing out. They seek a rapid response, especially considering that next-day delivery has now been expedited to next-hour delivery in some cases – think grocery delivery providers. This greater demand is positive for industry players who can meet expectations as it will drive innovation and ultimately, higher adoption.

People also expect to discover products more easily, and this is where hyper-personalisation innovation comes into play.

Shoppers want to feel special, personally catered to, seen and heard, and recognised and rewarded. Personalisation has elevated the shopping experience – and the customer expectation.

While the South African market is still finding its niche in creating custom and targeted experiences through the use of data, analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and automation, heightened customer experience is a pivotal trend going forward and simply cannot be ignored.

Broader product categories

When e-commerce first entered the country, the market predominantly sold consumer electronics and books. But over time, as businesses have matured, consumers are looking for a far broader range of categories including appliances, consumable categories, lifestyle products, and clothing, among others.

It is estimated that 86% of shoppers say product selection/variety is important to them when deciding which brand or retailer to buy from. Since the market is so crowded with other retailers, it is crucial that those who want to stay ahead of the curve carry an assortment of products that broaden categories so that they’re optimised to compete with other businesses.

As for the popularity of certain product categories, it is also important to monitor what buying trends are emerging as a result of lifestyle influences. Take for example load shedding. As uncertainty around capacity and stages increase, so are more people shopping for items to combat that uncertainty. Consumers are flocking to purchase backup batteries, inverters, UPS devices and generators, with one retailer reporting a 27% jump in sales over the 2022 period.

Retailers must increasingly broaden their categories to cater to the demands of a market looking for on-point variety in 2023.

Recession proof?

As macroeconomic pressure continues into next year, together with low consumer confidence and less discretionary income, people will be looking for value across categories. For retailers, this will see a trend of customers buying down into second or third-tier brands in an attempt to stretch their spend without having to make large lifestyle changes. If they can get the same product from a different brand at a lower price, they will.

Globally, e-commerce has been viewed as a recession-proof channel, as the majority of growth comes from consumers switching channels. And while I think this is true to an extent, we will continue to see the effects of more frugal spending. This means affordability will be one of the most important factors that consumers consider when deciding which products to buy, and which brands to stay loyal to.

Buy now pay later arrangements as well as other alternative payment mechanisms will also likely become more prominent in response to consumer needs.

Rather than see this as a threat to business, e-commerce should see this trend as an invitation to remain relevant. We should be asking ourselves: how do we continue to add value to our customers and retain their business?

Enabling smaller businesses

Something that is fundamental to the continued existence of e-commerce is that we continue to play our part as enablers of small businesses. This is a strong global trend and reflects one of the greatest strengths of e-commerce: democratising access to markets. This enablement will only grow over time and become something society expects from the market as consumers become more conscious of the impact of their purchasing decisions.

In a South African context, this trend is not one to simply watch.

Enabling small business enables our economy, which directly impacts our country’s growth potential.

Responsible retailers must jump firmly onto this bandwagon to continue to strengthen our economy in 2023.

Growth of ecosystem

South African e-commerce and its support structures are still in their infancy and remain underdeveloped. I believe this is set to change with the accelerated development of these ecosystems. By that, I’m referring to practical things such as delivery capability, with more platforms emerging that aggregate this service to expedite delivery.

We’ll also see more ‘super-apps’ starting to emerge. This will see banking apps take on more retail functions and vice versa as the division between verticals blur and fragment. Whether these app functions will be able to scale and allow for a good customer experience remains to be seen.

Social commerce, and live shopping, is also set to grow in prominence, in line with international trends. This is set to become an exponential growth channel as more people tune into live streams to learn more about products and take advantage of specials.

Growing a customer-centric ecosystem that is innovative, consistent, blended, and offers compelling experiences across multiple channels and touchpoints is no easy task given the extraordinary complexity of the retail space. But with that said, it is a must-do for 2023. Customers demand nothing less, and will happily move on to those who lead it.

Wrapping up

We at ShopShipShake have been working with businesses like yours with fulfilling experiences. We offer one-stop services, including an efficient supply chain, over 10 thousand of China’s suppliers, over 1,000,000 SKU and more. With a successful track record of over 100,000 clients, we are sure to deliver your orders requirements.

Let’s get in touch to build, sustain, and grow your businesses! If you would like to know more details about us, please contact us:  blog.shopshipshake.com. If you are interested in cooperating with us. Please register on: https://bit.ly/3Cfdu4w

This article partly refers to: https://www.bizcommunity.com/Article/196/731/234774.html

We’ve all got our hobbies—pastimes we dedicate some of our spare time to because we find them fun or fulfilling.

While we don’t typically get into hobbies to make money online, some of them can become a side hustle or thriving business that generates a stream of income. Depending on how you direct your talents and interests, you can get anything from free stuff, to extra spending money, to a full income from your online business—all by doing something you might’ve done anyway.Click here to start selling online now with Shopify

We’ve compiled a list of 12 common lucrative hobbies that make money, whether it’s freelancing, becoming an affiliate, building an audience, or starting a business.

12 profitable hobbies that make money

1. Writing

Writing and publishing online has the potential to offer you a lot of practical value outside of being a mere hobby. You can use it to further your career and establish yourself as an expert on a topic. You can build a platform for sharing your ideas. Or you can rent out your skills.

One of the most obvious ways to make money writing is to sell it as a service—freelance writing on sites like Upwork or Fiverr or reaching out directly to blogs for paid gigs. Great bloggers with niche expertise are usually in demand, and even a few clients can turn your writing hobby into a full-time business.

Even better, if you have the discipline and know how to write a good blog post, you can create your own business as a blogger by picking a niche and building an audience over time.

Whether you care about tech or travel or cooking, our guide to starting a blog that you can turn into a business will walk you through what you need to know.

For more inspiration, check out how:

• Best Self Co. used blogging to sell its productivity tools.
• Wait But Why built a business around Tim Urban’s humorous and insightful content.

2. Illustration and design

Like writing, illustration and graphic design are creative money-making hobbies you can do at home on a freelance contract basis. Fiverr, in particular, features many newer artists with a variety of illustration styles. Clients post projects for which they need to hire these skills, whether it’s marketing projects or custom portraits or anything in between.

If you want more control, you can put your art on products—from t-shirts to posters to canvases—and sell those instead. It’s important to understand that to turn your art or graphic design into a product, you’ll need to cater to a specific market or build a unique brand. The former is usually easier.

Hatecopy is an excellent example of a business that was started by an artist putting their work onto things people can buy.

And you don’t need to front the money for inventory either. Print-on-demand services offer a low-risk way to take advantage of your graphic design hobby. You’ll just need to create mockups of your products to list online.

Once you make sales and know what designs have the most demand, you can consider investing in your own inventory.

3. Music

Next up for profitable hobbies that make money? Sell music. You can turn this hobby into a business in a few different ways.

For starters, there’s the traditional approach to making and selling music—recording your own songs or albums and selling them on your own website or hosting them on a platform like SoundCloud.

You can also create different types of sounds that aren’t full-fledged songs or albums, things like beats or samples. Beats are short hooks composed from different sounds and meant to be a background for a musician, while samples are a portion of a sound recording to reuse elsewhere.

You can list beats on third-party sites that work similarly to stock photo sites. Essentially, people purchase your music to use in their own content. These are typically shorter in length and rely more on instrumentals and less on lyrics. There are a variety of sites where you can list your beats, like Airbit and BeatStars. Airbit paid out $32 million in 2019 to its artists, while BeatStars sellers made an estimated $40 million—double what they earned in 2018.

Samples by Vanity is an online business that sells samples for artists to remix and splice together to create their own music.

You can make your audio exclusive or non-exclusive. There’s more money to be made when you sell exclusive rights, but you need to produce high-quality work, like SoundOracle. His excellent work has earned him quite the reputation—and his sounds have been featured in more than 20 Grammy Award–winning songs. He sells his beats with both exclusive and non-exclusive rights.

4. Cooking

Food has become an art form worthy of taking elaborate pictures and spending the time to perfect the craft. It’s not only amateur chefs who are involved, but people with adventurous palettes looking to explore new tastes.

Cooking is one of the money-making hobbies that you can share with the world in a variety of ways, from starting a blog, YouTube channel, or Instagram account , to diving head first into a business with your own food or cooking products. Some even take their favorite hobby on the road with a food truck business.

According to Google, 59% of 25-to-34-year-olds take their mobile devices into the kitchen, using resources on the internet to find and practice new recipes. If you’re willing to teach online, there’s definitely a market of DIY chefs looking for content (as well as products) you can create to serve them.

5. Gardening

Gardening has seen a spike in popularity as people spend more time at home. It’s a hobby that can make you happier, healthier, and perhaps even richer. Millennials spent $13 billion on plants in 2020 alone.

As with many of the other hobbies that make money on this list, there are multiple ways to make your gardening hobby profitable. If you’re an avid indoor gardener, you can earn money selling mature indoor plants from your own home. Leaf & Clay sells succulents, either for a one-time purchase or on a subscription basis.

Alternatively, you can also sell products and accessories to help your customers connect with their own gardening hobbies. Technology seller ēdn introduced an indoor garden to their product line, enabling customers to grow herbs and other plants in a compact space with artificial light.

Finally, you can make good money as a gardening influencer or teacher by setting up your own channel on social media, with tips and resources for the tens of thousands of users searching for good gardening content.

6. Photography

If you own a high-quality camera and know how to use it, you’ve got a few ways to turn photography into one of your hobbies that make money on the side.

While you can certainly turn your fun hobby into a career or side job as a freelance photographer, this can restrict you to shooting local events and gigs.

For a more scalable side hustle, sell your shots as stock photos or prints. You can also use your photography skills to grow a massive Instagram following and monetize it. You need to pick a niche to serve or a “lifestyle” you want to capture in your photos.

Fun fact: Professional photography accounts are the second-most lucrative on Instagram in terms of how much brands are willing to pay for a sponsored post. And you don’t need hundreds of thousands of followers either.

7. DIY crafts

Crafting is another on our list of profitable hobbies that make money. If you enjoy working with your hands, there are plenty of things to make and sell: candles, bath bombs, jewelry, soap, and more. This is a $40-billion industry waiting for your next idea.

“Handmade” communicates a certain quality, care, and uniqueness that department store alternatives often don’t offer. You can test the market for your products by selling them on a smaller scale to friends and family, at flea markets, or on Etsy, and think about scaling into a full-fledged business as you rack up customers.

If the idea of crafting the goods yourself isn’t striking a chord, you can also make money selling kits that allow customers to flex their own maker muscles at home. Create DIY kits for fun projects, like FlowerMoxie‘s DIY bridal bouquets. Or, tap into the home improvement industry—between 2018 and 2019, home improvement spending increased 17%.

8. Comedy

Are you good at making people laugh? Do you know what the hottest memes are right now? Why not take that sense of humor and use it to build an audience on the internet? Comedy is one of the more creative ways to make money on this list.

You can probably think of several Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter accounts that amassed large audiences simply by curating memes and viral videos or tapping into a niche of humor that no one else was serving. Who knew all those hours of scrolling and social media management would be one of the hobbies that make money?

Once you have an audience, you can partner with brands to do sponsored posts or turn your best running jokes into t-shirts and other products.

9. Coffee

Selling coffee online is a great way to turn a common hobby into a business idea that generates extra money.

Globally, people drink more than 400 billion cups of coffee every year, fueling an industry worth $60 billion annually. And as coffee drinkers have become accustomed to brewing their caffeine fix at home, it’s a prime time to capitalize on this opportunity. If coffee is one of your own passions, it could be next on your list of lucrative hobbies.

Whether you enjoy the hunt for the perfect bean, creating a perfectly frothed cappuccino, or just sitting down to your morning cup with a book, coffee drinkers can take this business idea in a number of directions.

Globe-trotting creatives Jeff Campagna and Tania LaCaria found that coffee mixed well with one of their other passions: motorcycle travel. They opened up their own bike garage, Steeltown Garage Co., complete with coffee shop and merch for sale, and they’re cultivating a whole community through their hobby-based business.

10. Pets

Many of us love taking care of our pets, watching funny videos of animals online, and giving back by fostering or donating to animal-related charitable causes. But your love of pets can also be a profitable hobby that enables you to earn money in your spare time.

Transforming your pet hobby into a pet business can take a variety of forms. With Supakit, for instance, owners Leili Farzaneh and Kevin White turned a personal pet story into their own shop selling cat accessories.

If you have a unique pet story or extensive experience taking care of animals, you can turn your expertise into extra cash by starting a YouTube channel or social media presence devoted to pet-related content, including an online course or funny videos.

Alternatively, you can concentrate your money-making hobby closer to home by starting a pet-sitting or dog-walking business. Depending on where you live, even a local pet-sitting business can generate a surprising amount of extra money.

The possibilities are quite literally endless here—you just need a hobby and some imagination to get the ideas rolling for your own membership-based business.

11. Brewing beer

Homebrewing, or making your own beer at home, is next on our list of hobbies that make money. More than a million Americans have brewed beer at home, and it’s trending upward. In 2018 alone, the global homebrew market was worth an estimated $12 million.

While brewing beer at home is legal across all fifty states, homebrewers can’t sell beer directly to consumers without registering as a business entity and obtaining the proper licenses and approvals from federal, state, and local authorities. However, if you love sampling or making craft brews, there are a variety of ways you can turn your love of beer into a money making hobby. 

Brooklyn Brew Shop, for instance, sells homebrew kits and accessories so its customers can enjoy the hobby themselves.

If you have experience making unique or award-winning beers, you can set up your own online store selling supplies and recipes to adventurous homebrewers, create an online course, or create your own YouTube channel discussing the finer points of the craft.

Finally, homebrewing is a technical hobby with lots of equipment requiring careful setup and maintenance. You can make extra money from your hobby by building and selling brewing and kegging setups, or tutoring budding brewers directly (in person or virtually).

12. Gaming

You might be skeptical about the notion of gaming being one of the hobbies you can make money with from home. But if there’s a pattern in this list, it’s that if you can get people to pay attention to you, you can potentially turn it into a profit.

In this case, it’s the rise of the “Let’s Play” video format that has enabled us to make money online playing video games, in particular live-streaming on Twitch. Just like learning how to make money on YouTube, you can monetize gaming by sharing ad revenue.

Additionally, there’s also the potential to get one-time and subscription donations from a large community of viewers. This means the amount you earn through live streaming will vary greatly, but that it’s relatively easy to start at least making extra income.

While the amount of commitment you need to make a significant income might turn gaming into work for you, you can still have fun with it if you choose to stream a game you love, are good at it, and bring your personality to the table.

Gaming is a fast-growing industry with a lot of passion behind it. If you’re an avid gamer who understands the needs of the market, you already have an advantage as an entrepreneur in this space.

You can consider building a business of your own to cater to the needs and interests of gamers, like how:

• PC Gaming Race speaks to the superiority of PC gamers.
• Corey Ferreira sold gaming glasses inspired by his own gaming needs.

How to make money from a hobby

To start a business based off your hobby, you’ll need to take the following steps:

1. Validate your business idea: Do some market research to make sure there’s demand for your offering.
2. Find a business name: Give your business a unique identity.
3. Make a plan: A business plan will keep you on track to meet your goals.
4. Understand business finances: Set up business accounts, funding sources, and other money matters.
5. Develop your product or service: This is where you turn your hobby-inspired offering into something customers are willing to pay for, whether it’s a physical or digital product, a consulting service, an online course, or a membership.
6. Pick a business structure: Legitimize your business and protect your personal assets.
7. Research licenses and regulations: Ensure you’re conducting business lawfully.
8. Select your software systems: Build your website, set up accounting software, and get the rest of your tech stack up and running.
9. Find a business location: Determine where you can operate your business, whether it be from home or somewhere else.
10. Plan workload and team size: Bootstrap or hire help, depending on your plans.
11. Launch your business: Let the world know!

When will I make money from a hobby?

Turning your favorite hobby into a side hustle or full time job has its perks: you’ll be your own boss, on your own schedule, and set your own prices, all while doing work that you love. Nevertheless, it’s important to have realistic expectations about the time and work that will entail—most of which is less fun than the hobby itself.

To start, you’ll need to build a marketing strategy to let the world know about your side hustle turned online business. That strategy may begin on social media, a freelance marketplace, or a full-fledged Shopify store.

When you start making sales, you’ll need to keep track of the cash coming in and the money going out. This makes tax time easier, simplifies the process in case of an audit, and protects your personal assets. Additionally, tracking your revenue and expenses helps you ensure your money-making hobby turns profitable. It’s a good idea to get set up with an accounting software to manage your books.

Even with all of these preparations and more, achieving financial independence or a full-time income from your favorite hobby will likely take months or even years.

Make money from your hobbies today

I enjoy writing, so I started a side hustle as a freelance writer to earn extra cash in school. I also like to dabble in dance, so I started an online store dropshipping LED shoes for dancers.

In many cases, when it comes to discovering a profitable hobby, it’s the things we do for free and for fun that hint at the kinds of businesses we can pursue using our own passion and interest as fuel.

So if you have the urge to start something but don’t know where to start, ask yourself what you’re good at or already know about.

What do you already do in your spare time that could turn into something more?

Wrapping up

We at ShopShipShake have been working with businesses like yours with fulfilling experiences.

We offer one-stop services, including an efficient supply chain, over 10 thousand of China’s suppliers, over 1,000,000 SKU and more. With a successful track record of over 100,000 South African clients, we are sure to deliver your orders requirements. Let’s get in touch to build, sustain, and grow your businesses!

If you would like to know more details about us, please contact with us:  blog.shopshipshake.com

If you are interested in cooperating with us. Please register on: https://bit.ly/3Cfdu4w

Article reference: https://www.shopify.com/blog/make-money-from-your-hobbies