



It's a wise business decision to have a SME. Any business with considerable revenue is better than a startup with a promise of a future revenue. SME's have historically had a good track for revenue in any country. They are the lifeblood of any economy. Failure to meet the realization that your business model is in tune with an SME and not a startup is something that is bound to create a trajectory for failure. Because, the lack of realization that you are a SME and not a startup severely hampers the psyche of the entrepreneur and the health of the business.



This does beg a question, how do you identify if your business is a startup or a SME? There is never a single worded answer but there is a simple implementation framework to help you answer this question. It is called the Design Framework.





A simple visualization of the Design Framework.-Source





This creates the opportunity to measure your growth in relation to time. Similarly, address the other aspect of your business using these graphics. Do I want to serve a global market or a local one? How does it relate to my timeline? Now, move to comparative questions. How does it compare with other businesses? Is there any competition? It may lead you to questions such as, who is my competition? Who are my allies? What is the value chain? Then, you might be tempted to ask the value proposition question, what problem am I trying to solve? How am I going to solve this?





The first draft of the answers to these questions are never perfect but it is a perfect start. This exercise is useful for a budding entrepreneur and a veteran alike. For veterans, it is a path to analyze new avenues for business and for budding entrepreneurs its a vital strategy to form the initial idea for their business. The key is repeating this exercise in regular intervals and starting each repetition with a different question. It is vital to record each iteration of this exercise. It helps you compare your performance. Remember, recording and documentation separates the greats from the amateurs.





Mythbusters is always a source of inspiration.

The exercise above helps you design your business in an efficient and smart manner. The key word here is "Design". Design is a tool that helps you cut costs. It is not the only purpose that it fulfills, but in business, any tool is cherished if it helps the bottom-line. For instance, in civil engineering, it is always efficient and inexpensive to review the designs of a building on paper or a software rather than remodeling after you construct the building. Similar approach has been taken in the exercise above. It is a design centric approach, which at heart helps any entrepreneur mitigate costs.









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Thus, similar exercises and experiments help any entrepreneur reassess their business without a financial expense. As the old proverb states, the morning shows the day, the idea of a future for any business is nurtured from the design process itself. Any business necessarily does not have to be a global phenomenon or a small business but if the business owner does not understand the identity of the business, it will never succeed. It's great if your SME is making money, but if you wish to be part of a startup, the best decision would be to continue running your SME. Invest in other ideas from the profits of your successful business. At the end of the day, if you create a value creating institution, that is what matters the most.Follow us on Facebook Follow us on Instagram Follow us on Twitter