Richard Bran­son

Q. I'm an 18-year-old Sin­ga­pore­an prepar­ing for A-lev­els. I want to be­come an en­tre­pre­neur; to im­prove lives, serve the pub­lic and ex­plore new hori­zons. How­ev­er, the ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem in my coun­try doesn't re­al­ly ex­pose stu­dents to en­tre­pre­neur­ship.

I've read a few books, in­clud­ing Like a Vir­gin, but I'm not quite sure how to kick-start my ca­reer. What re­sources do I need? What steps should I take?

My par­ents named me af­ter you, and I hope that some­day I can reach your lev­el of suc­cess or maybe even sur­pass it!

Bran­son Lee, Sin­ga­pore

Bran­son, first I'd like to thank your par­ents for the great ho­n­our. My own chil­dren named their ba­bies re­cent­ly, so I was re­mind­ed of what a big de­ci­sion it can be! I was com­plete­ly bowled over when I read your let­ter and found that I have a name­sake.

Con­sid­er­ing their flat­ter­ing choice, I will as­sume that your par­ents have a pas­sion for en­tre­pre­neur­ship. In the long run, their sup­port and ad­vice will be one of your great­est as­sets as you em­bark on this ad­ven­ture of be­com­ing an en­tre­pre­neur.

This is far more valu­able than any class­room train­ing –en­tre­pre­neurs are born, not cre­at­ed in schools, and those who go on to make a liv­ing from it sim­ply re­ly on the skills that they have al­ways had. Back in your play­ground days, did you ever swap your sand­wich for a bet­ter one? Have you ever sold some­thing to a friend and made a prof­it? If so, you've got the en­tre­pre­neur­ial spir­it.

I hope "Like a Vir­gin" whet­ted your ap­petite to get out in­to the re­al world, be­cause that's where you'll do most of your learn­ing. Ul­ti­mate­ly, there's on­ly one way to start your ca­reer, and that's by start­ing a busi­ness. If you find your­self hes­i­tat­ing, re­mem­ber my mot­to: Screw it, just do it.

Now that you're ready to get start­ed, keep these six sim­ple tips in mind:

1. Think about what dri­ves you

When you're con­sid­er­ing which idea to turn in­to a busi­ness, think about the sub­jects and prob­lems that in­ter­est you most. Is there an in­dus­try you love? A tal­ent you have? A cause that you are 110 per cent be­hind? Don't start a busi­ness just be­cause you think it'll turn a prof­it; if you're not in love with the idea, you won't move moun­tains to make it hap­pen.

2. Start at your doorstep

Now that you have de­cid­ed on the area you'd like to fo­cus on, look around your­self in Sin­ga­pore. What is the mar­ket miss­ing that it des­per­ate­ly needs? Which ser­vices do you and your friends use that are lack­lus­ter and could be huge­ly im­proved? Think about how your busi­ness could help your street, your neigh­bour­hood and your city. From there, you might some­day ex­pand to big­ger mar­kets.

3. Shake things up

As you de­sign your prod­uct or ser­vice, re­mem­ber your re­solve to serve the pub­lic; busi­ness is about im­prov­ing oth­er peo­ple's lives. Hope­ful­ly, once you've done that, more mon­ey comes in than goes out.

From Vir­gin Records and Vir­gin At­lantic to Vir­gin Mon­ey and Vir­gin Ac­tive, our team has al­ways launched busi­ness­es out of a gen­uine de­sire to dis­rupt the sta­tus quo and im­prove things for cus­tomers.

Our busi­ness­es have suc­ceed­ed be­cause we are fo­cused on shak­ing up sec­tors where poor ser­vice was the norm. We want peo­ple to have a seam­less bank­ing ex­pe­ri­ence. We want to make work­ing out and stay­ing healthy en­joy­able. We want to make long-haul air­line flights oc­ca­sions to re­mem­ber, rather than ones to en­dure!

4. Lis­ten to ad­vice, not to naysay­ers

When you're just start­ing out, you should ask those with ex­pe­ri­ence in your field for ad­vice, es­pe­cial­ly your par­ents. But be care­ful not to con­fuse dis­cour­ag­ing com­ments for good ad­vice. Lots of peo­ple will tell you that your idea won't work, or that it has been done be­fore. When I start­ed out, I lost count of the peo­ple who told me that I wouldn't suc­ceed.

It's im­por­tant to re­mem­ber that ideas are rarely unique; what mat­ters is ex­e­cu­tion. How can you do some­thing bet­ter than any­one else? How can you fol­low through in a way that your com­peti­tors don't?

5. Stay fo­cused–and mo­ti­vat­ed

You need to dream big and have lofty goals - but in your first year, con­cen­trate on es­tab­lish­ing your busi­ness and sur­viv­ing. Keep your eyes on the prize and on day-to-day op­er­a­tions, set­ting small tar­gets for each day, then each week, each month, each quar­ter and each year. Write them down and then tick them off. You will be amazed at how much sat­is­fac­tion you get from this.

6. Love what you do

What­ev­er you're do­ing in busi­ness, it should be fun. That has al­ways been a pri­or­i­ty at Vir­gin, and it's a vi­tal com­po­nent of our suc­cess. I love what we do, our em­ploy­ees love what we do, and so our cus­tomers love what we do, too.

(Richard Bran­son is the founder of the Vir­gin Group and com­pa­nies such as Vir­gin At­lantic, Vir­gin Amer­i­ca, Vir­gin Mo­bile and Vir­gin Ac­tive. He main­tains a blog at www.vir­gin.com/richard-bran­son/blog. You can fol­low him on Twit­ter at twit­ter.com/richard­bran­son. To learn more about the Vir­gin Group: www.vir­gin.com.)

(Ques­tions from read­ers will be an­swered in fu­ture columns. Please send them to Richard­Bran­son@ny­times.com. Please in­clude your name, coun­try, email ad­dress and the name of the web­site or pub­li­ca­tion where you read the col­umn.)

@2015 Richard Bran­son. Dis­trib­uted by the New York Times Syn­di­cate