Richard Bran­son

How can I grow US$7–about 18,000 Ugan­dan shillings–in­to a big busi­ness? I need to start with a tiny stall be­side a road or with a home­made cart.

Atwi­jukire Ab­solom, Ugan­da

When you're start­ing up a new busi­ness, it can be easy to get car­ried away as you dream and plan; and with good rea­son, since you're em­bark­ing on a thrilling jour­ney. Atwi­jukire, if you're like most en­tre­pre­neurs, at the mo­ment your idea be­came clear, you got a surge of adren­a­line, and since then your every wak­ing minute has been de­vot­ed to get­ting your plan in mo­tion.

The ques­tion is, can you do it?

A US$7 busi­ness won't turn in­to mul­ti­mil­lion dol­lar en­ter­prise overnight. There's a lot of work to be done, and dur­ing that long jour­ney, qual­i­ties like de­ter­mi­na­tion and gump­tion will be just as vi­tal as en­thu­si­asm and op­ti­mism. Hav­ing an end goal in mind is a great thing; now you have to de­cide on the small­er, more achiev­able steps that help you work to­ward it, and then car­ry them out.

That work should be­gin long be­fore you make your first sale. You need to un­der­stand who your cus­tomers are and what they want. If you're look­ing to set up a stall to sell goods, the mar­ket re­search may be as straight­for­ward as ask­ing peo­ple in your com­mu­ni­ty what they'd like to buy but are hav­ing trou­ble find­ing in lo­cal shops and stalls.