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Clarity

Devesh Dwivedi

Vancouver, Canada

Award Winning Business Expert & Serial Entrepreneur who started his first business when he was 14. Devesh has started & run many (Web, Education, Beauty & Wellness, Fashion, Retail) businesses since then. Devesh has an MBA, worked for multiple Fortune 500 companies & now he helps aspiring entrepreneurs start & grow their businesses.
Mentor @Futurepreneur | Coach @ideatoinception

$5.00/min

15 Calls

14 Reviews

27 minutes
Avg. call

Business Development Entrepreneurship Startup Consulting Strategy Coaching Small Business Business planning Business

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Business Planning & Strategy Development

Have written several dozen business plans for both clients and my own businesses. Run a Business Plan writing workshop - 'Two Sentence Business Plan' that hundreds of entrepreneurs have benefitted from

http://www.youngentrepreneur.com/blog/never-write-a-business-plan/

Idea Feasibility & Validation

Have worked extensively with & on many startups both tech and non tech to test the feasibility of the idea and validate the idea, market etc.
Quick tip: Asking the right questions is the key.

Quit Your Day Job!

Action packed session to help aspiring entrepreneurs quit their job & start a business based on their purpose, passion, & priorities! We cover your personal situation and figure out how and when to quit your day job based on my step by step process. I want to make 2014 the year of YOUR independence and that’s why I’ll make it even more easier for you to work with me. Now for a limited time (I’ll take this off very soon), you’ll get a FREE 1 hour strategy session (Value of $199) for follow-up and/or any issue you’d like to discuss in even greater details after the first session. All you have to do is register for the first session! So, hit the ‘Request a Call‘ button on this page now and take first step towards your freedom from cubicle!

Answers 6
Reviews 14

Answers

Devesh Dwivedi answered

What are some good ways of finding mentors and advisors for you and your product?

Ask is important. Always reach out to people who you believe could be great mentors to you and be specific in your ask for example, don't just ask "please be my Mentor" be more specific then that as to what help you are looking for, expectations, time commitments etc.

There are specific organizations who you can reach out for a Mentor match as well, for example, if you're a young entrepreneur in Canada, you could reach out to CYBF Canadian Youth Business Foundation www.cybf.ca or in US you could go for SCORE http://www.score.org/mentors and many more.

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Professional Mentoring

Advisor

Startup Consulting

Devesh Dwivedi answered

What did it feel like to transition from full time to a start up?

Hi there, great question and one that gets asked around a lot. From 2009 till end of 2012 I wrote extensively about this and interviewed several dozens of people from single moms to busy middle aged executives and from high school drop outs to PhDs, who have made this employee to entrepreneur transition. 2013 I got distracted and couldn't do much writing & interviewing but in 2014 I already have over a dozen entrepreneurs interviewed and we will be featuring from March on. Check out - www.BreakingThe9to5Jail.com

My best tip for transition having gone through it myself is - be prepared for a lot of unlearning and relearning. What we do and how things work in a corporate or a freelance setting is totally different from what you'll be doing and how everything works in a startup. There's no more "that's the way it's always been done" or a structure/system and you have to figure out almost everything from scratch. Feel free to use this tip or reach out for a comment/tip specific to your article's angle.

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Start-ups

Entrepreneur

Startups

Devesh Dwivedi answered

Do you think entrepreneurs will pay for a membership site about the psychological aspects of business ownership?

I believe you can build several products around that niche and sell, like ebooks, accountability programs, coaching etc and use the psychological aspect as the axis around which you create the content to promote those products... so may be a blog which consistently educates and inspires on such topics but also has some info products and coaching etc for those who need more support. Otherwise building a membership site only on the content is a bit tough now a days because some super good quality content is available on almost any topic for free or almost free.

On that note, I used to blog on somewhat related topic almost daily and have not done so for over a year and still get a few sales every week on the book I have on that blog. If you'd like to chat more about how I built it and market it on a shoestring budget, I'd be happy to help.

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Entrepreneurship

Small Business

Membership Marketing

Devesh Dwivedi answered

Could a PPT deck and interest-based signups be enough for 20k pre-seed fuding?

I second Tom's response above and recommend that you find a technical co-founder (this is something you can do with a deck and interest based sign ups) and build a MVP (minimum viable product) by bootstrapping and then raise the capital. This would test your idea at no external risk. I've been where you're at and successfully navigated my way around. I've personally raised Family & Friends money several times and will tell you that it's your relationship and reputation that's riding on that investment so be very careful with that raise and setting expectations.

I did sense that you're not confident about your idea's success or at least you didm;t sound like when you said - "Since I've been down that road before I know it might be easier to raise now, with a much lower valuation of course, than later, when the product's ready and then I'll be expected to show traction before raising." Well yes, so are you not sure that when the product is ready there wouldn't be enough users/ traction? And if not, what's the point of developing something you're not confident about? Also, 20K will only go so far so you will have to raise several rounds even after the product is developed with original 20K and the same question of traction will be raised anyhow.

Happy to help with ideas on bootstrapping, finding co-founders, outsourcing the development, or any follow up questions you may have, etc over a call.

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Startups

Entrepreneurship

Devesh Dwivedi answered

What do you say to people who want to "pick your brain?"

I come across such requests a lot and I'm always surprised that how people don't realize that we as service providers, coaches, consultants, invest a lot of time and money to acquire the knowledge (reading books, attending conferences, taking training, creating free content like blogs and reports etc all) that they just valued as a cup of coffee. Anyways, in the day and age of information being the king yet being pretty vulnerable for the abundance of me-too gurus, this is a challenge we all are facing. I actually named my 1-hr sessions "I need coffee".

I deal such requests with a simple reply asking them to either send me their questions and I'd consider writing a blog post to help everyone that may have such question, OR sign up for my biweekly free group conference call where they can ask me a question and I'd answer live though in a group and time limited format OR if they want 1-on-1 help then booking a call via Clarity (before Clarity I asked them to book a minimum of 1 hr session with me).

So far this has helped me out a lot in weeding out people who have no sincere intentions to ever pay or respect the time and are just wasting both mine and their own time. Also, those who took time to submit questions or sign up for the conference call are pretty qualified and filtered leads that I follow up with.

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Business Coaching

Devesh Dwivedi answered

How do I make a business plan that works for me?

I have written 400+ business plan in last several years as that is what I do for a living. The approach I have used and recommend for writing a business plan is what I call "Two Sentence Business Plan" and the idea is to be very objective and concise while writing and following a standard framework of answering the what, why, how, when, who, where, of each idea/element and including an action step to it. This will declutter your head, get your ideas and strategy on paper, and guide you in making well informed decisions as well.

The framework is a simple one pager you can see at http://twosentencebusinessplan.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/BusinessModel06.pdf however, you can go as complicated as you like by further diving deeper into the granular details that matter most to your business.

I'd happy to help you with details specific to you and your business, over a call, if you need. Cheers!

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Business planning

eCommerce

Reviews

Great advice. Will be definitely speaking to Devesh again.

Justin Borg Source: Clarity

Devesh gave some great ideas to the issue I had regarding my business. I would definitely recommend him.

Hadia Abdullah Source: Clarity

Had a great call. Devesh was very informative, to the point and the best part was that he prepared for the call by doing some research on my company ahead of time and had very actionable tips and ideas for us. Will definitely call again!

Andriana S. Source: Clarity

Talking with Devesh gave me a lot of assurance regards my entrepreneurial journey. Its as if i had known him for very long, the connection established very quickly. He left me with alot of food for thought, great talking to him...

Wasim Osman Source: Clarity

Inspiring call with Devesh. Gets to the point quickly with insightful advise! Time well spent.

Samuel Mekonen Source: Clarity

Got awesome advice from Devesh on my new venture. 2nd time calling and I didn't regret it. Thanks Devesh!

Raphael Paulin-Daigle, Ecommerce & Landing Page Conversion Rate Optimization Source: Clarity

Devesh gave me great tips for my business. I can definitely say that the call I had with him helped me a lot. His answers to my questions were clear. I will undoubtedly call him again soon.

Raphael Paulin-Daigle, Ecommerce & Landing Page Conversion Rate Optimization Source: Clarity

Devesh gave great insight on what to do at the current stage of my business and also offered to keep helping in the future. Thanks!

Dhruvil Patel Source: Clarity

Devesh is an excellent and effective Business Consultant. He helped me greatly improve our business process and I was impressed with the subject matter expertise, detail orientation, professionalism, and quality of deliverables.

Devesh has an extensive network of contacts, if you need expertise in any area, he will be able to connect you to the right person very quickly.

I’ve already hired them for another project with our company and I highly recommend Devesh to small business owners for all their business consulting needs.

Shrage Smilowitz Source: LinkedIn

Before I spoke with Devesh I had a lot of things running in my mind about how to define our startup's messaging. Since Bagwish is built as a utility, it was hard to think of taglines that could describe and appeal to such a broad audience. I knew I had a lot things to work on and I wasn't totally sure on which path to take to resolve them. After talking to Devesh he brought more clarity on the things I needed to focus on and change. But he didn't stop there, he also provided the resources and clear directions on where to go to fix what needed fixing. He utilizes a lot of out of the box thinking and I definitely look forward to speaking with him again.

Joseph Anderson Source: LinkedIn

Devesh:

I would like to say thank you once again for the great session on bootstrapping that you gave us yesterday. It really inspired me, this morning I feel stronger and with more energy and direction to go ahead with the business.

Monica Lomas
3D Rendering & Animation Group
President

Monica Lomas Source: LinkedIn

Member since May 2012