The Road to Success is Always under Construction

A very successful Australian entrepreneur once told me that the road to success is always under construction. My real life experience could be treated as a great example. Fourteen years ago I was still a very young and naive student in a small primary school. My teachers told me that I was a bright student. I managed to be the leader of the class at that moment. My parents were so happy and very proud of me. At that time I was over the moon and felt like the greatest person in the world. I was thinking that if I could be the champion of the class now, I will always be the best student regardless which grade I am. However, the reality spoke differently. I became lazy and did not pay attention during the lecture. I left all my homework behind and did not prepare myself for the exams. My marks crazily plummeted. I was really young and naïve to think that the road to success is actually always under construction.

My father opened a Chinese food restaurant in Jakarta around ten years ago. At that time our restaurant was one of the pioneers in the location. In fact, the Jakarta hospitality industry was not as competitive as now. As the pioneer we basically controlled the local market and business basically was really good. Again he was over the moon and was indulged by being one of the leaders in the restaurant industry.

It is the nature of business that success will invite competition within the market. Even sometimes the new competitors would come to the market with better concept and bigger capital. Competition in the market shapes the customers’ requirement of better products or services. Not just competitors, a lot of different social and politic events also changed the business environment. For instance, the Asian crisis really diminished our sales. Both competition and the social changes created a new customer lifestyle and eventually a new consumer consumption pattern. As a kid I witnessed the fall of my father’s business. From that moment I realized that being a leader in one situation does not necessarily mean an eternal success. Even the five times world cup champion, the mighty Brazil, is not actually undefeated.

At the age of 22 I started a small business in Australia. It is basically an online retail business based on eBay, called Klick ‘N Save (http://www.klicknsave.com.au/). With a very little capital, I managed to obtain sales worth of AU$22,000/month. Since I am only a human, again I was over the moon and became too proud of myself. I did not thoroughly consider in sustaining the success by ignoring the competition and being insensitive towards the market. I absolutely failed as a marketer. I did not conduct any further market research in order to adjust my items selections. I was just too happy with the items which were highly on demand without realizing that latent competitors were actually getting closer to us. As I frequently said that in this modern society business environment changes very quick. Therefore, it requires us for being sensitive towards it. In the matter of months, the success was wiped out.

Approximately a month ago I started the new Klick ‘N Save with the new team. Within weeks, I have already faced a lot of challenges which can make me suffer from headache. Creating a sustainable business means than just being a temporary market leader. I have seen a lot of great businesses went down just within weeks. Even the mighty IBM could not sustain when Dell, Acer, and Compaq erode its market share.

I am still far from being successful but I hope this small sharing could strengthen the entrepreneur and marketing spirit of the rest of the group. The road to success is always under construction.

Comments, opinions, and questions are greatly appreciated.

David HerlambangMarketingFirst