After his successful graduation from high school, fate led Eric to attend an event in the field of digitization, where his path changed forever. Inspired by people with years of experience in entrepreneurship, he set aside post-graduate plans and entered the marketing and advertising industry with his own company. But after the initial struggle, Eric and his business partner realized a new reality: everything is connected via the Internet.
Overnight, an idea to create a platform where private individuals and companies could position themselves together for the future was born. Over 200 Austrian small and medium-sized enterprises were connected to this platform in the form of a smartphone app, generating new customers and attractive advertising potential. To maintain a unique selling point, the business was revised and optimized to align unique technological advantages. Teaming up with new partners, an eventual mix of innovative and lucrative technologies, such as virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and Blockchain, created a new, accessible Internet where people could meet each other, acquire digital real estate, open up businesses, network with each other, and do more to drive benefits from the entire new economic system.
What was your key driving force to become an entrepreneur?
Push Your Limits: There is no golden rule to be a successful entrepreneur, which is why the successful entrepreneurs, who have established their empire on their own, keep pushing the envelope of their capabilities. They do not encircle themselves within their comfort zones; they keep making small targets for their own and try to meet the targets. One, who has built his house with his own hands, is not afraid to dig his hands in shaping the walls.
Aim big: Success is a journey, not a destination. For being successful in any field, the dream has to be big enough that it will make you jump out of the bed and chase the dream. The aim has to be big so that the motivation will be intact. Successful entrepreneurs do not let the fuel of their ignition burn out. That fuel is the dream or the aim; they keep in their eyes till the end.
Action: I have seen many start-ups fail to handle success; they earn overnight and ultimately fall flat on their face. Success is a good servant but a bad master when it makes its way up to your ego. Be a committed entrepreneur; Keep learning all the new things taking place in the company, if it requires staying back in the office for long. Know the nitty-gritty of your company.
Love Your Work: If you do not work for what you love, then you have to love your work. Unless you fall in love with your work, you will not be able to give your 100%. There are people, who force themselves to sit for 12-14 hours, to earn bread and butter for their family. If you love your work, even 12-14 hours would not feel like pain. You will enjoy your work, its progress, and its fruit equally.
How do you market your business, and which tactics have been most successful?
Developing a marketing strategy is vital for any business. Without one, your efforts to attract customers are likely to be haphazard and inefficient. The focus of your strategy should be making sure that your products and services meet customer needs and developing long-term and profitable relationships with those customers. To achieve this, you will need to create a flexible strategy that can respond to changes in customer perceptions and demand. It may also help you identify whole new markets that you can successfully target.
You can then create a marketing strategy that makes the most of your strengths and matches them to the needs of the customers you want to target. For example, if a particular group of customers is looking for quality first and foremost, then any marketing activity aimed at them should draw attention to the high-quality service you can provide.
How do you define success?
In my opinion, success is thinking of an idea and turning it into a profitable company. When you can build a company from nothing into a company that creates enough money to support your family, then you are a success.
What piece of advice would you give other Entrepreneurs?
Learn from Mistakes and don’t give up, in the due course of trial and error, one learns where one is going wrong. Even Thomas Edison failed 10,000 times before making the right bulb. He tried 10,000 ways to not make a bulb, which implies that he learned from his mistakes, and every time he rectified to come up with the correct one. Try to learn from every mistake, you do or done by great businessmen, which will help you in acquiring enough knowledge to hit the right nail.