Many new entrants or start-ups make the mistake of starting by targeting Business-to-business (B2B) transactions without doing a thorough due diligence. My general advice to new entrants, you are better off pursuing business-to-consumer (B2C) market as a start than anything else. In any business, there are three principles worth managing and protecting, and are about the novelty of the offering, ease with which it can be produced by the target market or rivals, and ease with which you could be bypassed (disintermediated) by the target market preferring to build it by themselves than procuring it from you. New entrants should think carefully of these issues before presenting their offers to their corporate prospective customers. By Nimroth Gwetsa, 31 March 2024.

Some things cannot be avoided. However, no major decision should be made hastily, or emotionally. All major decisions affecting life and one’s welfare should be well-considered. Thoughts causing restlessness should be investigated and their underlying cause resolved. Good thoughts are not always clear or look rosy at the start. Doubt of success or whether it is worth it pursuing them is stronger at first. It becomes easier postponing having a deeper introspection about them than finding the energy to get them started. Whereas, those perhaps not worth pursuing are easy to do and it feels natural spending time on them.

I do not know about you, but I do not think adventurers found it easy leaving their comfortable homes to “discover” other parts of the globe. They probably dreaded the thought and experienced increased anxiety whenever the thought of leaving for uncharted territories crossed their minds. They probably felt at ease pursuing routine activities than preparing to venture out. Ultimately, they could no longer resist the bug of adventure and resolved to undertake the treacherous adventure. Great ideas with potential to leave a legacy usually have such characteristics. We find it easier passing time on frivolities than feeling energised to get on with the task. No wonder even Jonah, spoken about in the great Book, dreaded going to Nineveh to complete the task and ended up being swallowed by a giant whale.

He was in the whale’s gutter for three days! See, refusal to pursue that activity causing you sleepless nights and that burning heart sensation can land you, much less your career, in the gutter! Only once you have resolved to getting it done once and for all can you be refreshed and experience lasting peace of mind. Usually, destiny does not wait for anyone because there will always be someone waiting in the wings to seize the opportunity. If you snooze, you lose principle usually applies to most things in life. However, sometimes destiny picks its beneficiaries and will not abandon them until they have completed the task and attained success. Reluctant heroes are few, but they have the same starting story, of the idea not being exciting at first or energising.

Destiny surely prefers reluctant doers than those deliberately undermining their calling. Reluctant doers and beneficiaries of destiny are blessed and pursued because their main issue is a lack of energy to get started, but they do not undermine their calling. They have other things keeping them busy and they find it easier enjoying the benefits that status quo brings than risking it on new ventures. Whereas those undermining their calling are not getting started because they scoff at the idea, trivialise it and would not even bat an eyelid condemning their calling. Scoffers have the same attitude as those taking their current jobs for granted and always moaning and openly expressing their desire to find a new job. That is the difference – one’s reluctance comes out of laziness or fear of trying out new things, whereas the other from not valuing the calling or current blessings. A case of one with little faith versus unbelief.

Your future is sometimes like that, calling you to adventure to enable you to attain bigger things in this life. Your destiny depends on your attitude towards your calling. Now, I believe greater results can be attained when targeting ordinary consumers with offerings of your calling than focusing on big business as your starting premise. History and as outlined also in the good old Book, is littered with examples of the effectiveness of “B2C” over B2B transactions. David attained success fighting for people than when he served Saul, who became jealous of him and wanted to kill him. Jesus has more followers today because of His focus on ordinary people than the ruling Sadducees and Pharisees always threatened by the success of His ministry.

I am not advocating that doing business with other businesses should be avoided. I am merely pointing out that chances of success are greater when the foundation of sustainable success is premised on serving the masses than targeting big business. Of the three principles every business ought to consider, it is easier for big business to “take” your ideas, bypass you and modify their offerings to incorporate your ideas than engaging you. Doing it themselves becomes easier for big business with own development capacity than those relying on services from third parties. The former type of potential clients finds it easier running with ideas from “smaller” fish than engaging them.

The easiest and simplest way such big business with own capacity can “steal” from you than doing business with you is through so-called RFQs, RFIs and RFPs. On the one hand, as a small business, you wish to show you have what it takes to be considered and therefore, share some proprietary details you would ordinarily not do. Caught in a catch twenty-two situation of sharing more than you would have wished versus withholding and perhaps be misconstrued as lacking enough experience or expertise is a serious conundrum facing many a small business. Nevertheless, the cost of doing business sometimes involves losing some things, hence my strong stance that it is better doing business directly with ordinary people, as many are far less interested in building their solutions than the convenience of solving their problems through existing means.

Whatever your calling, whatever is burning your heart, or you are trivialising, take the time to think deeply about them before resolving on your next move.