Every year there just seems to be yet another story of a tech entrepreneur who built themselves from the ground up. From Zuckerberg to Dorsey, to Larry and Sergey, there are countless success stories for aspiring entrepreneurs to draw inspiration from. But what practical knowledge is there to gain from engaging with the startup successes that came before you?
In actuality, all the most successful entrepreneurs were those who used the time available to them to hone their skills. Unlike other more traditional business ventures, working in tech requires entrepreneurs to develop an eclectic array of skills, including technological competencies alongside the general business knowledge and management skills that are required to build a successful enterprise.
If you’re looking to follow in the footsteps of tech whizzes that came before you, then this read will help illuminate the path of self-development that lies ahead for you. Read on to unearth all the most valuable skill sets that you should develop alongside your entrepreneurial spirit.
Experience with UX and graphic design
You wouldn’t expect a tech entrepreneur to have a working understanding of colour theory and user journey mapping, but the fact of the matter is that building your own tech product independently typically means learning everything you need to know to make it as appealing to your target audience as possible. This means ensuring that colour schemes are totally aligned with the preferences of your user demographic, just so you’re positioned to provide a strong user experience from the get-go. Knowing just how to develop your digital project for peak usability will increase the likelihood of your end product hitting the market with maximum impact come its release date.
As for graphic design, utilising design methodologies can help you create compelling promotional content for marketing your tech innovation once it’s ready for release. Any techie knows just how valuable your audience’s attention can be online, so utilising all the design tools at your disposal from an understanding of Canva to adhering to the colour wheel, can help ensure that first impressions of your tech innovation are as strong as possible.
Proficiency using programming languages
On Entrepreneur’s own list of tech skills that all entrepreneurs should learn, about five out of ten of the skills refer to some kind of proficiency with coding. Naturally, knowing how to work with programming languages is truly foundational to developing any kind of commercial tech offering. For this reason, all tech entrepreneurs should ideally be equipped with plenty of training and experience with developing digital applications from scratch.
Working with both front-end and back-end development projects can equip you with the varied experience that you’ll need to spearhead your very own project. Similarly, tech entrepreneurs should feel comfortable working with Python, this being the most popular and widely used programming language in the world.
Tech entrepreneurs who want to make sure that their finger is firmly on the pulse should also take measures to engage with low-code and no-code development platforms and methodologies. As low-code and no-code development is likely to become more widespread, resulting in future development projects being released by non-developers, it’s in every tech entrepreneur’s best interests to determine how best these technologies can enhance and streamline their own projects. Determining what sets independently produced programmes apart from those that utilise low-code and no-code development platforms will likely also help future entrepreneurs provide more thoughtfully designed digital products.
Project management skills
It’s common for tech entrepreneurs to work from home, or perhaps even from their garage, as an homage to some of the innovators that came before them. If you are building your empire from your home office, then it’s highly likely that your collaborators are also working remotely. If you are working with other professionals that are based in other cities or perhaps even other countries, then honing your project management skills will likely play a major role in keeping your remote projects firmly on track.
Financial management skills are also highly valuable for tech entrepreneurs who may be looking to potentially expand their development project into a larger scale startup enterprise. If you’re looking to outsource any of your development work or other tasks, then it’s imperative that you get into the habit of recording invoices and other payments alongside keeping track of all the outsourced work that has been completed, and is to be completed.
Understanding data analytics
Being able to make sense of business data can help you improve on not just your tech products, but perhaps also your own technical skill sets and business processes. But how exactly can budding tech entrepreneurs go about engaging with the practice of data analytics?
You don’t necessarily need a degree in analytics to utilise the power of data nowadays. In fact, there are likely an abundance of software tools available to you that can provide insights into your market niche and most importantly, into the performance of your tech product following its release.
Social media giants like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter use their analytics resources on a daily basis in order to identify new growth opportunities and optimise their revenue streams. It’s up to the tech entrepreneurs of tomorrow to engage with the development potential of data analytics methodologies at the onset of their careers. That way, you can equip yourself with the extensive hands-on experience required to effectively put your business data to use.
Research and independent study
Digital technologies evolve at a rapid-fire rate nowadays. For this reason, it’s imperative that aspiring tech entrepreneurs make a discipline out of engaging with industry news and trends. Read heavily, subscribe to tech news publications, community forums, and the social media profiles of all the innovators that pique your interest or anybody who you’d like to emulate.
Join the conversations wherever you can, but also know when to listen and learn. Ensuring that you and your wider enterprise maintain a presence at tech industry events is also key, not only to establish yourself as a fixture in local and potentially even global markets, but also to ensure that you’re always in the right place to hear the news and stories that are most pertinent to your market.
On top of making sure that you have access to the information you need to manage your projects and enterprise effectively, it’s also important to get into the habit of thinking critically about any resources you come across. Formulate your own thoughts and perspectives, and share those with your wider network, either on social media like LinkedIn or perhaps even through trade publications. Tech entrepreneurs have the unique opportunity to become some of the world’s most influential trend-setters, so why not reach for the stars?
As you can see, becoming a tech entrepreneur is certainly no easy feat. In truth, it’s an ongoing process of self-improvement, learning, and plenty of painful trial and error. Thankfully, taking time to develop all the skills we’ve outlined above will increase your chances of defying the odds and experiencing the success that you’re hungry for. Just keep building, learning, and questioning, and you’ll be able to bring all your wildest ideas to life!
