If you want to start your own business and you have the necessary skills, moving into tech is still the best way to go. Yes, there’s a comparatively high failure rate, but a tech venture doesn’t need to be expensive and many people try repeatedly until they find one that takes off. When it does, the rewards can be impressive, especially in advanced manufacturing and robotics, where rates of growth are over 180%, and blockchain, where they are over 160%. With opportunities like this, it’s easy to see the attraction, but there are other advantages to starting up in this sector as well.
Every company needs technical expertise
Gone are the days when people could go into business with no understanding of technical issues at all. Today most company owners agree that cybersecurity is a vitally important concern. For those working in other sectors, this means having to outsource for talent or pay for software and support that can be quite expensive, especially in the early stages when income is still not assured. If you have your own technical expertise in-house, you can avoid such expenses and develop bespoke security systems or adapt others, making it harder for anyone to hack you.
Initial overheads are low
The most difficult part of starting any business is raising initial capital and coping financially before you’ve started generating significant profits. It helps to keep overheads low at this stage and tech businesses tend to make this comparatively easy. If your products or services are entirely based online, or if you’re focused on design and the selling of intellectual property, you may be able to work from home or set up an office in an out of the way area where rents are cheap. You’re unlikely to have to find the funding to invest in expensive equipment until you have a strong concept which demonstrates what you’re capable of.
Products can move to market quickly
As a rule, products generated in the tech sector can be moved to market almost as soon as the development process is complete. This makes it much easier to move quickly from the low cost, conceptual stages of the work to the point where you can start generating income. You will need to be smart about marketing and your sales strategy and be prepared to invest in understanding your customers. That is a process you can interweave with product development, making you agile and responsive – characteristics that are even more important in a start-up than in an established company.
There are opportunities for everyone
Although the image that a tech start-up brings to mind is usually that of a group of young college graduates, the fact is that there are opportunities for everyone in this industry. In fact, the average age of those involved in such start-ups is 39. Although you’ll find some prejudice here, as in any industry, there’s a lot less of it than is popularly supposed. What matters is your ability to innovate and if you come from a community which has been poorly represented in the industry in the past, that can provide you with insights and opportunities that constitute an advantage.
There’s serious investor interest
One downside of working in the tech sector is that it can sometimes be difficult to explain to outsiders exactly why your idea is powerful or what your product does, but that is less of a problem in light of the fact that there are dedicated investors who specialise in discovering the best and the brightest tech prospects. Investors like Lady Barbara Judge have helped several small tech companies to get off the ground and find a foothold in the markets. The combination of required knowledge and high growth potential makes this an attractive area for experienced investors and means that there are always funding options available for those who have what it takes.
You could make it big
Because of that high growth potential, the rewards of success in the tech sector are plain to see. On average, 20 tech companies per year reach the $100m revenue threshold in the US, and last year the national market in tech was worth $1.6tn. If you have a really strong idea and launch at the right time to capture the public imagination, you can find rewards that are difficult to match in any other sector, and most experts agree that there’s still massive unexplored potential within the markets.
All of this means that if you have the ideas, the skills and the determination to make it in tech, it’s well worth your while to give it a try. If you don’t, but your business skills are good, consider linking up with somebody who does. Together you could build a company with an amazing future.