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What does it take to start your own business in 2025? (part 1)

Nicolas von Brandenstein

Starting your own business is an exciting journey that begins with a dream and the desire to make it a reality. As you embark on this entrepreneurial adventure, understanding the significance of soft skills plays a crucial role in navigating the complexities of today’s business landscape. Key competencies such as adaptability, communication, and resilience are essential for dealing with the inevitable challenges that arise.


Are you confident in your ability to adapt on short notice?


By developing these soft skills, you can more effectively pursue your vision, overcome obstacles and seize opportunities with confidence. In this guide, we’ll explore how nurturing these abilities can pave the way for successful business ventures, offering insights and strategies to help you on your path to launching your business venture.


start your own business with...

Heart - Dream and Desire as the Foundation

Every new business starts with a dream, it's the idea that ignites the passion and desire to create something that's meaningful to you. This initial spark is the foundation upon which successful businesses are built. It’s essential for you as an aspiring entrepreneur to clearly define your vision, as this clarity will guide your decisions and actions. Passion for your dream fuels persistence, enabling you to push through the challenges you’ll inevitably face. Cultivating a strong sense of purpose helps maintain focus and motivation over the long term. It’s important to balance this drive with a willingness to adapt and grow as you learn. By staying true to your core vision while being open to change, you can navigate the complexities of starting a business. Ultimately, the vision statement is the dream defined, and together with desire serves as a compass, steering you toward your goals, and laying the groundwork for a new business venture.

Heart - Dream and Desire as the Foundation

Backbone - Fostering the Courage to Persist

If the dream is the heart, then courage is the backbone. It enables you to take risks and pursue your dream despite uncertainties. Starting a business requires stepping into the unknown, which can be daunting. However, fostering the courage to try and then keep at it is vital for overcoming all those challenges. This involves taking calculated risks and learning from failures rather than fearing them. Resilience in starting a business is built through facing setbacks and maintaining the determination to continue. It's important to form a mindset that embraces challenges as opportunities for growth. In addition, by surrounding yourself with a supportive network and seeking mentorship, you can gain the confidence needed to persevere. Encouragement from family, peers and advisors can be invaluable in staying the course, so don't go it alone. Ultimately, courage empowers you to push forward, turning obstacles into stepping stones on the path to success, and ensuring that the initial dream remains achievable.

Backbone - Courage to persist

Mind - Turning Ideas into Reality

To transform an idea into a tangible business, you need to take a strategic approach which starts with thorough research to understand the market landscape and identify potential competitors. This knowledge helps refine your idea, ensuring it meets the target audience's needs. Developing a detailed business plan can sometimes feel painful but is incredibly helpful because it outlines the steps required to bring the idea to life, including financial projections and marketing strategies, but more on that in part 2.

Effective communication is integral to business. From negotiating with suppliers to engaging with customers. Communication skills are important for clearly articulating the vision, persuading stakeholders, and building strong relationships. This includes both verbal and written communication, as well as active listening.

Are you listening?

We should always aim to convey our ideas concisely and in a compelling way, ensuring that the message resonates with diverse audiences. It also involves understanding and addressing the needs of others, which helps to foster trust and allows for good collaboration. Additionally, we must be adept at changing our communication style to suit different contexts and cultures, else we won't effectively reach our audience.

I was recently in a meeting with a client and their team, as they were going over their goals and KPIs for the new year. Despite there being no language barriers, and having worked together for a long time, there was a lot of confusion and misunderstanding. This was largely because the leader was using vague terms about specific things, numerous times assumed everyone knew what he was referring to and that everyone would like the goals and therefore get going on making it happen rather building a connection between the goal and it's related indicators.

Great intentions, ineffective communication.


Earlier I mentioned active listening. Hearing from potential customers and competitors through your research and filtering that information is another important part of communication. Most of us tend to think about communication as what we are saying to our audience which is simply a one-sided monologue. An equally important part of communication is listening well, which works best if we are paying attention and asking good questions.

A simple but good example is, getting feedback from potential customers and industry experts to refine your product or service further.

By honing the art of listening, we can inspire our teams rather than simply instruct, successfully negotiate with a client rather than tell them your price, and create a positive brand image.

'Communication - Turning Ideas into Reality

Are these soft skills innate or acquired?

Agility - Importance of Adaptability

Adaptability is a vital soft skill for budding businesses, particularly in a constantly changing environment (which by my estimation is every industry). Those of us who embrace adaptability remain open to innovation without loosing sight of our original vision, allowing us to respond to customer feedback and industry trends effectively. This involves a willingness to learn and evolve, ensuring that your business remains relevant and competitive. It's important to cultivate a mindset that views change as inevitable and rather than anticipating setbacks as a result of change, turn it into an opportunity.

How can you become more agile?

You can enhance your adaptability through continuous learning and by being receptive to new ideas and differing perspectives.

How did other people in a similar situation handle it?

One method I've used often is a good old SWOT analysis. The idea is to assess the situation and identify each of the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats, then find a way to turn a possible threat into an opportunity by breaking it down and looking into alternatives.

Train your brain to tell you this:

"Ok, that's not going to work after all, let's try a different approach."

By fostering adaptability, you are better equipped to navigate the unpredictable nature of business, turning potential disruptions into opportunities for growth.

Agility - Importance of Adaptability

Stamina - Cultivating Resilience

Resilience is the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties - "Don't give up!"

It's such an important trait for us when facing inevitable setbacks and failures. Cultivating resilience involves developing a mindset that the hardship before you can be overcome.

If your desire to fulfil your vision is greater than the setback that's before you, then you'll keep going.

To quote Zig Zigler:


"Make failure your teacher, not your undertaker."

We should embrace failure as a learning tool, using insights gained to make informed decisions moving forward.

Building resilience also requires maintaining a healthy work-life balance, ensuring that personal well-being is prioritised alongside your business goals. As founders you can enhance your resilience by setting realistic expectations (of yourself & others), celebrating small victories, and learning to manage stress effectively. Whether you need to go hard at a heavy bag or take a walk outdoors.

Additionally, surrounding yourself with a supportive network of peers and mentors can provide encouragement and perspective during tough times. By fostering resilience, you will be better equipped to handle adversity, maintain focus on long-term objectives, and continue pushing forward, even when faced with significant obstacles.


Stamina - Cultivating Resilience

Now that we've covered the foundations, look forward to part 2 where we'll unpack some of the practical steps and hard skills needed.

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