Everything You Need To Know About Becoming A Digital Entrepreneur

Published on
January 31, 2021
digital entrepreneur

How To Become A Digital Entrepreneur

From the late '90s where only a handful of tycoons were conquering the world with ideas and innovations that were hitherto unheard of, to the present day and age where entrepreneurs and businesses are born by the minute, we have indeed come a long way. It doesn't take a genius to know that technology is, and continues to be, a leading factor in breaking the business world's shackles. From inventing something new to making a positive difference in the way things work, the face of entrepreneurship has undergone a dramatic transformation. Thanks to the Internet's many facets. This shift has warranted an obvious change in the definition of the modern business person. They are an opportunist, an explorer, a communicator, and above all, a technologist. Today's entrepreneur is a disruptive digital visionary. And we're here to talk about how you can become one, too!

Before launching into a guide on becoming a successful digital entrepreneur, let us first understand who qualifies as one. Digital entrepreneurship is a new business model that enriches the conventional meaning of entrepreneurship by adding technology as an essential, often primary, participant. It usually consists of a central business construct of specific products or services and some digital layer that enables it. The digital platform may be a downloadable software, a web application, a mobile application or one or more combinations of these. For instance, we have designed Bech to be an integrated one-stop-shop for all your business management needs including catalogue creation, data management, customer communication and tracking, financial operations, etc. It’s a Made in India online store builder app that strives to serve the community that it was built by and built for!

Thus, a digital entrepreneur can be anybody who applies technology to transform or power their core business operations or solutions. Anyone who runs their business or a significant chunk of it online can be considered a digital entrepreneur. A social media manager, an online tutor, a hairstylist finding and engaging with their clients virtually, or even a tailor who communicates and accepts payments online can be called a digital entrepreneur! We get inducted into the digital entrepreneur community when we run our business online and stray away from complete dependence on brick and mortar stores. 

What makes being a digital entrepreneur such a lucrative career path, or a lifestyle choice rather? It boils down to a few main benefits as highlighted below:

  1. Frees you of rigid office structures by allowing you the flexibility to work remotely, from anywhere in the world like a real digital nomad!
  2. Opens up a lot more opportunities and avenues for you to realise your dreams and business ideas.
  3. Enables you to take your company to the market faster, understand how it is performing and keep upgrading your business iteratively.
  4. Empowers you to master the marketing and communication aspects, by letting you engage with customers via several digital media channels, platforms, networks, portals, etc.
  5. Teaches you to adapt to various situations, rise above your circumstances and find creative solutions that can cater to your customers. Start-ups coming to the fore during the unforeseen lockdown scenario in India and worldwide is an apt example of this!

If we have managed to convince you to embrace this system of working and become a digital entrepreneur, then let's move on to breaking down the basic elements that lay the groundwork for your tech-enabled future! 

In short, what do you need to be a successful digital entrepreneur? Of course, there is no one-size-fits-all answer, and every business or venture is different from the other. However, we have listed some guidelines and tried and tested formulas, skills and tools that you need to leverage, to emerge victorious in your digital pursuits!

  • Business plan: Building a solid business plan is pretty much the first thing to do once you've passed the Eureka moment and concocted a brilliant scheme or idea! It's no different for digital businesses! Your plan must act like a framework or a blueprint if you will. It must inform all decisions right from what retail business model to follow (B2B, B2C, etc.) to scaling your operations to taking it across international borders. The strategy devised could also address questions like how many product lines or categories of services to offer, whether you have a single vendor or multiple vendors for procuring raw materials, or logistics in case of a delivery or drop-shipping model.
  • Company structure and registration - Time to register your business and make things official! Thanks to technology, the registration process has been made much more straightforward in India, and one can do it from the comfort of their home. Before that, you must decide a suitable structure or model for your company. This means recognising what kind of entity you own - a One Person Company, Sole Proprietorship, Joint-Venture, Private Limited Company, NGO, etc. If you want to get a clear picture of the registration requirements and conditions, we suggest going through this. You also need a Trademark registration.

Another closely related legality is the GST number, something you almost certainly need to have if you wish to conduct business in India. There are several guidelines to be followed as a prerequisite for GST registration, depending on whether you're a small, medium or large business, whether you operate across states and territories, your annual turnover, etc.

Building a robust online store and presence

E-commerce is in no way the only thing digital entrepreneurship is about, but it is a massive piece of the pie. A piece that you can have by establishing a strong commercial presence online, in the form of a store. The good part is that your online store can be a website, a mobile app, a complete catalogue on marketplaces like Amazon, or even one shared on Whatsapp! This depends on what kind of business you're planning to run. In Bech online store app for instance, we packaged the features and benefits, keeping in mind different types of entrepreneurs, from fruit sellers to fashion designers. Our 'Catalog' and 'Online Store' options allow anybody to easily add their products, services, collections, share them via WhatsApp and sell digitally. Want to know how can you build an online store without any major investment? Read our blog on how to start an online store in India.

Understanding who your customers are

You can do everything right, but if you are not spot on about who your end-users or customers are, where they are, what they do and what they like, you would inevitably be limiting the potential of your business! It is necessary to know your buyers, create sample personas to get into their shoes and evaluate their journey from finding out about your product to advocating it. This way, you can build your solutions around their requirements and make your customers happy and their experience smooth. A thumb rule of thriving in your business is maintaining an updated database of your customers. With Bech's customer management feature, you can add them to your database with their number, and track their transaction history, offer them personalised discounts, Udhaar(customer credit option) and multiple secure payment options. We have also designed receipts with the idea that every customer deserves a hassle-free check-out experience, something that sellers can achieve by digitising invoices and sharing them on the go.

Automation

Automation has become a business necessity, a building block to ensure that your day-to-day activities go about smoothly. You could use one or more automation methods or tools to do away with cumbersome, repetitive, manual tasks. When we made Bech available to the diverse Indian entrepreneurial community, we wanted to take away their pain of maintaining ledgers, notebooks and other physical records, by digitising their data with our free POS system and helping them manage their business virtually. Using tools to automate mundane tasks would help you realise that a lot of your time is now available for you to spend focusing on core business functions!

There you have it, a guide on becoming an autonomous, empowered digital entrepreneur! Invest your time and efforts in configuring an arsenal of skills and tools that will take your business places and help you yield the best results in your tech-forward endeavours! Also if you are looking to create a free online store in India then Bech online store builder is here to help you. You can download the app from the links given below and kickstart your own journey as a digital entrepreneur!

For Android Users - Google Play Store

For IOS Users - App Store


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