What it takes to start and grow a business

Jaluum Luwizza Herberts

Two days ago I was narrating our start up story to some two female friends. I told them how YOUNG TREPS started, what we've gone through, where we are now and where we plan to go.

How I didn't have transport to and from work sometimes. How I had to put on the same shoe for long.

I still recall vividly, how I left my job to come venture into the unknown four years ago with every one calling me out for acting crazy.

Who leaves a stable job to go take a gamble into an unknown world!? Trust me it's so scary but it was something I was ready to go for. I had saved up an equivalent of 8 months salary to help me through the transition period. I had saved up the start up capital I needed for those of you who recall my molokoni story.

Yes I was set and when I crossed the river I burned the boat after me which meant no going back to the other side of the river.

Young Treps started as a business blog with a desk in a shared office. Despite having saved up enough money I didn't want to commit it all at one go and that's the first mistake most people make.

If they have capital of 10M for example like we did they commit it at all at once.This is testing the depth of a river with both legs and trust me it's the last risk you wanna take.

So in our scenario, we invested 2M and kept the 8M. The target was to make sure we loose as little as we could.

We run for about 6 months before there was dire need for capital injection. At this point the idea had taken shape and it was a little bit clear where it was heading. So we added 4M from the balance of 8M and hired extra staff.

The capital re-injected took us for about another 5 months.

So here we were, 6M invested and no client yet but the idea was now taking shape and the pieces were falling into place.

We had made the mistakes we had made and gone over them. Each mistake meant moving closer to perfection because it meant another mistake/huddle out of the way.

A lot of the money we had invested in our first year had gone into marketing, roughly about 60% of it went into marketing with non productive costs like rent and salaries kept to the bare minimum.

It takes time for people to trust you. In the beginning every one is skeptical and you can't blame them because in the start no one has an idea of what your up to.

Not your friends, family let alone clients and with clients it's even worse, trust needs to be built. We all know trust isn't something you build in a day,it's something that grows over time with consistent behaviour.

After a year of consistency and proving we are not some Johnny come in the morning disappear in the night clients started to come in one by one.

At this stage, the weight was on us to make sure who ever was walking in left happy so we put in the work. One client became two, then three then referrals and like the say the rest in history.

Of course four years later we aren't running a one desk operation no more and we have over 8 direct and indirect workers. We have better paying clients and long term engagements that guarantee progression.

One thing I have come to learn over the years and remind our clients every time I have the chance to is that business is a game of patience.

It's about building one brick at a time. It's about being patient and being focused. It's about not listening to the noises around you. It's about knowing your special situation and not comparing yourself with others especially those with a job. Why do I say this?

There's a lot they can have thanks to their jobs and there's very little you can have because of capital constraints. With the cushions of their jobs they can access car loans, mortgages yet as a start up business owner you need to make a hard choice between buying a car,getting a mortgage and paying your workers.

Once you get all this into perspective then your ready to succeed as a business. When you finally succeed then you can have any thing money can get you.

Jaluum Herberts Luwizza is a Speaker, Writer, Columnist and a Business Consultant with YOUNG TREP (www.theyoungtreps.com)  a business management and consultancy firm that helps people start and grow profitable businesses.