Young Engineers as Entrepreneurs.
Let’s say you want to build your own engineering firm or simply want to use your engineering skills to create a business of your own. It’s best to get yourself some extra business units to understand the ropes of the business world. But if you don’t have time for that because of you still don’t want to leave your full-time engineering job, here’s the best advice if you plan on starting or growing a business.
First, it’s important to focus on your customer more than your product. Take the time to study about customer experience. We, millennial engineers have had access to the internet during our 4+ years in engineering school and we’re used to searching the most in-depth topics over the web, so don’t use “I don’t know where to search these things” as an excuse. Once you’ve done your research about customer experience, you will understand how to keep your customer satisfied in the long run.
In the industrial age, everything was about the “product” and “product development” since everyone in that time, wanted to “try” anything new. Now that we’re in the technological age we’re more about the “customer” and “product customization” to fit the customers’ ever changing needs.
When does a business really start?
A business doesn’t start when you have a product. It starts when you have a customer.
So it’s important to understand how to get into the heads of your customers and ask yourself:
What is the problem they need to solve?
What is the benefit they get if you solve this problem?
What can you do to solve it better than the others?
Why should they put their trust in you?
If you notice, these questions are what we engineers do best! We love looking for problems to solve and we like looking for unique ways to solve them.
As engineers, we should expect these answers change over time, so change your answers and products regularly, to fit what is needed by your customers—this is where the product customization comes in.
Customers’ expectations and needs nowadays keep changing fast so it’s important to keep up with the trends. Once you get the flow, you’ll be able to forecast what they need before they do—and they’ll be buying your product or services
