Starting a business in the digital age is very simple but it requires rigorous planning. Simplicity does not imply that everything will go fine without having issues. It means you can start a business in your room leveraging the power of the Internet.
Before the advent of the Internet, businesses were run completely offline.
Many of the world’s richest men who are taking advantage of the Internet in their businesses make more returns than those who do not depend so much on the Internet to thrive.
A case study of Facebook Founder, Mark Zuckerberg and Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote. Dangote has been in business even before Mark conceived the idea of Facebook.
Mark Zuckerberg is 35yrs old and has only one business, Facebook launched in February 2004. While Dangote is 62yrs with a business empire has been running over 40years.
According to Forbes, Dangote has named the 43rd richest man in the world in 201while Mark was 66th. In 2017, Mark became the 5th richest person, while Dangote dropped to 105th position.
But in 2019, Mark became the 8th richest person, while Dangote became the 136th richest man in the world.
The reality is that when your business is heavily dependent on traditional or offline methods, your running expenses Econ’s so much. On the other hand, leveraging the Internet to run your business scraps certain expenses.
Dangote spends so much buying trucks, building warehouses, employing many drivers, building factories and many more.
Mark does not need to spend on building factories and buying heavy machinery.
Put simply, Mark has achieved more globally in 7years than Dangote has done in 41years.
This is because Dangote started his business in the Industrial Age, which required physical strength to succeed. While Mark started his business in the Information Age, which requires intelligence.
The lesson here is that everybody needs to embrace knowledge and start thinking of businesses that would scale leveraging the Internet. You could learn digital skills before starting your business.
Again, embrace and apply Innovation, you never know the new keys to open new doors. Old keys won’t work in this new age of Technology. Technological advancements are the way forward.