Jeet Banerjee is back to share more actionable advice and in-depth information about his entrepreneurial journey for this latest installment of Today’s Business Leaders. Jeet was featured in an earlier episode and shared a broad overview of his career to date. This go around, Jeet focuses more on the process of launching a company.

Riding High on Success

By age 21, Jeet had launched several successful businesses which were generating revenue, and he even sold one of these businesses. When his next idea came around, Jeet decided that instead of playing things cautiously, fleshing out his client profile and bootstrapping his budget, he would go all in and invest $50,000 to get his venture started. “I was very lucky, and I was riding that cloud of being successful and achieving this stuff. I had just sold a company prior to starting this one, so I had a good amount of cash, and I just felt cocky and arrogant, and I thought anything I touched I could make happen,” Jeet explains.

Finding Value in Failure

This particular endeavor did not work out, and unfortunately, Jeet did not realize this until he had invested significant time and money. Jeet takes away two major lessons from this experience.

• Never take shortcuts when launching a business. Had Jeet started small and taken the time to research his idea and ask his prospective clients about his concept, he would have learned there was no market.
• Slow down and don’t get emotional.

Accessing and Analyzing Data

These days, Jeet understands and appreciates the value of data, particularly during the planning stages of a new business. Jeet crafts very specific questions and routinely finds creative methods to survey the target demographic. “You have to find a place where your audience is most approachable,” Jeet advises.

Turning Idols into Rivals