Reid Hoffman Shares Entrepreneurship Guidelines

Aug 25, 2015Nii Ashalley

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Reid Hoffman is a successful venture capitalist. And also well known as the co-founder of LinkedIn. His leadership has led to the incredible success of the social networking site. He brings an exceptional amount of industry experience and success recipes for entrepreneurs.

He’s not only associated with LinkedIn, but also made major contributions to an Apple project named “eWorld”. He also co-founded SocialNet and had been part of the PayPal team. He is an unconventional thinker and strategist.

Reid Hoffman has many valuable advice to share with aspiring entrepreneurs. The list below represents some of his ideas for success.

Entrepreneurs Must Have an Exceptional Product

Reid Hoffman says entrepreneurs have to do much more than just building a superior product if they want to survive in an overcrowded market. Hoffman asserts that, becoming exceptional in product or service development will set you apart in your niche market. But apart from building unique and leading products, he believes entrepreneurs should also envisage a great distribution network.

According to Hoffman, the best examples of successful companies would be Facebook and Instagram. These companies came up with products that no other competitors in the industry were offering.

Reid Hoffman also believes entrepreneurs should not enter overcrowded markets like a social networking site or a daily deal site because consumers may have no more need for similar businesses.

Entrepreneurs Must Aim Big

Reid Hoffman advises that entrepreneurs should think big when trying a business. “If someone is thinking of starting his or her own business, the product or service category should be dominating the market. If the product is nothing new but a little improved version of something that already exists in the industry, entrepreneurs might have to take much larger risks for a very minimal gain“, he reveals.

He is of the view that, influencing investors to put money in the business will become more difficult in such case. This is why most entrepreneurs should aim at building an above average product or service.

Build a Vast Distribution Network

To be successful in the business, entrepreneurs should build a large distribution network. Having a great product will not be enough if there is no efficient distribution network to get the product to a wide number of consumers.

This is why entrepreneurs have to grow their network, connect with much larger spaces so that more numbers of consumers get to see what’s on offer.

Reid Hoffman Admonishes Entrepreneurs to Grow Their Experiences

Reid Hoffman believes, that there is actually no preset rule for entrepreneurship. An aspiring entrepreneur should not enter a market with any pre mindset or unproven entrepreneurship rule.

He or she should rather evolve through working situations and business experiences. If there is any entrepreneurship rule that does not work, a person can break it and make his or her own rules that work effectively for his business.

Entrepreneurs Must Have a Backup Plan

Reid Hoffman says all entrepreneurs and business executives must have a backup plan in case of failure or opportunity. “You need to have plan ‘b’ ready if things don’t work out well or go as planned or opportunities occur“, he stresses.

He gave example of Instagram. Instagram started as a check in app. But when the company noticed that people were using the app to take photos and share it with others, they quickly evolved and grew as a photo app, which worked very well for them.

According to Reid Hoffman, these are some of the basic guidelines for entrepreneurship. However, he also believes that aspiring entrepreneurs should evolve and should not stick to any specific rule as the tech industry is evolving fast.

Nii Ashalley

Nii Ashalley is the inspirational voice at The Business Frontal. His uplifting quotes, dubbed "Ashalleyistics", have encouraged many entrepreneurs, start-ups and leaders to achieve their maximum potential. He is a seasoned counselor, a life and business coach and an author of many call to action business articles.