K.Fund SME Day: How to start your own business?

 23 November, 2020 

Crisis 2020 has freed the hands of entrepreneurs in their innovative solutions. How to turn the crisis into opportunities, join powerful initiatives, programs, clubs, investors and organizations and gain new skills for professional and personal development — the market experts told at the online event “Small and Medium Entrepreneurs Day”. The event was organized within the framework of the European Entrepreneurship Week by Vasyl Khmelnytsky K.Fund.

During the event, three panel discussions and innovative online networking of entrepreneurs for limited offline conditions were held, where the event participants could present their own projects. The session was moderated by Lidia Pashchuk, President of K.Fund.

At the first session “Start. How to start your own business?” participants shared their own expert experience, necessary for entrepreneurs, and the main mistakes at the “dawn” of their own business. The speakers of the first session were:

• Lidia Pashchuk, President of K.Fund;
• Olena Dobrorodneva, Director of Organizational Development UFuture and Vice President of K.Fund;
• Yulia Pavlenko, Director of the International Operations Department of Ukrposhta JSC, initiator of the E-Export School project.

Lidia Pashchuk, from her own experience of working with startups, identified seven main mistakes of beginners:

• Myopia. Do not look a step forward, but act impulsively, without observation and analytics.
• One effort. Continually working on an idea but not having a clear plan for its implementation.
• Loneliness. Not to have knowledge and experience, and, most importantly, the ability to obtain and apply them independently.
• Become a boss. Without work experience in a large company in the chosen niche, it is unlikely that it will be possible to build even a small but your own business.
• Super secrecy. Hide the idea so as not to jinx it. Nobody pays for what they don’t know about.
• Chaos. Taking on everything in a row — to lose energy, money, partners and time.
• Lack of resources. Not to have partners, investors or donors providing the required financial resources or expertise.

According to the president of the K.Fund, there are also seven factors that influence success: confidence, proactivity, professionalism, idea performance, support from the environment, a clear plan of action and readiness for hyper responsibility. It is how your reality will be created, especially when time itself needs it.

Olena Dobrorodneva spoke about the three primary skills needed to search for business ideas in our time: to be in trend, to understand the problems or dreams of consumers and to think outside the usual. On fulfilling dreams and solving problems by creating business ideas, the top manager gave the following tips:

• An idea always arises on the verge of overcoming old paradigms and realizing a dream.
• Observing people can help you find a dream to come true or a problem to be solved.
• You need to immerse yourself in the problem and in no case pull fictional pain behind your ears. If there is nothing to decide, nobody needs the idea.

Yulia Pavlenko spoke about how Ukrainian entrepreneurs are already realizing their dreams and solving problems by organizing export deliveries.

• Millions of Ukrainians buy on Amazon, Aliexpress and eBay, but only a few can sell. However, the situation is changing. “Ukrposhta” organized the delivery of goods of Ukrainian manufacturers around the world. For example, it has opened a direct supply channel to the United States and uses Ruslan aircraft.
• In the first year of its existence, one Ukrainian production attracted an investor on Kickstarter and received the first pre-order for export worth $ 1 million.
• Not everyone in Ukraine can buy expensive high-quality handmade products, but, for example, in the USA, wooden bookmarks for $ 25 from a Ukrainian woman were in such great demand that she had already managed to sell the company to an investor.
• You don’t have to move to a big city to export to the United States, Israel, or Japan. “Ukrposhta” takes over the delivery; the entrepreneur needs to set up local production.
• Ukrainian quality goods made with love are more attractive for the American.

A full retrospective of the online SME Day event with K.Fund as part of European SME Week 2020 can be watched here. A report with the main insights of the second session is available on the website. The main theses from the third session can be viewed here.