In your opinion, what are the skills I need in order to succeed in entrepreneurship and small business management as a fresh graduate?

Good strategic skills and be able to understand the business with a wide perspective.

A partner who can help you with business modelling and forecasting revenues

I think being confident about your ideas and skills comes first (but not cheeky). Do not forget to listen and take what is best from the experts. And never give up even after bunch of failures and mistakes.

This is my advise to you from a guy like me who has been in the business of F&B consultancy for years

i have been helping people establish their business ideas and profits as well as solve their problems for long enough to tell you the following.

First of all, you must understand that one of the main problems F&B businesses are facing is the constant fresh ideas that is needed to create that wow factor also the lack of knowledge in this field is creating a serious issue as we see today. Many businesses rely on either straight franchise of the brand or a similar copy cat of an idea they saw or heard.

Today when you take a serious look at the streets, you will find a massive agressive copy cat of almost everything and anything plus other franchised brands, even though some franchised brands are facing a total whack of failure due to the lack of knowledge with the market demand.

I give you an example, Here in Egypt you will find a lot of people pouring their money into creating a wealth of F&B ideas, but all of them are just a copy and past ideas with nothing fresh except for few

let us take Weiner wald brand in egypt, the idea is supposed to be Austrian in nature and should have the same traits as that of weiner wald Austria, but no, what we see is chicken made in a rotisserie with typical spices and sold for almost 70+ LE a piece plus some potato salad that has nothing to do with austrian potato salad. the whole idea is a failure.

Some sushi restaurants are just trying to animate each other in terms of their brand, but again, they fail

and so on...

For you to be successful in this field you must think of the following and nothing but the follwing

1) The main stream of money ( the customer needs and wants) not yours or your friends advise, you must research well what people need in a certain geographical area according to supply and demand.

2) Your idea, the main star behind the success, you must understand the relationship between your idea and the targeted market you will select, if it doesnt add up or make sense, then dont do it

3) The financial aspects of the business, you must learn to balance between the lux side of the idea and the supply availability on the market beside also teh future availability and stability of the product, because if you rely too much on imported goods for your idea you could face a massive slap like today happening to many due to the increase on taxes, and tarifes for imports causing an increase on the price of everything, that could make life a bit more difficult.

so you have to balance the idea to have a more stable possibility for supply and demand without having to incure extras a lot when difficult times come knocking on your door.

just like having a menu for an establishment that rely most of all on imported goods the best on the market, and that is fine with me but when things start to climbe you will be forced to either increase or decrease quality, and that is the start of your fall down... thus you must think carefully how to balance your menu using best of local produce plus a bit of that lux side.

4) you must understand the marketing communication strategies that will boost the communication between your product aka your idea and the end user, the customer, it doesn't matter how good your idea is, if you cant send the message clearly to the public you are out.

5) This i learned from a very successful financial company in UK the owner told me himself, that the past never predicts the future, but we use it as a tool to justify few hunches we have, but if you want to predict or better forcast future you must open your six sense which is what we today call it, business revelations, which you need to take a closer look at every little change coming or even being thought about it could mean life and death to many clients.

having a skill in this business is like asking for alien technology while we still scratch our head, the critical in this whole thing is the idea the concept and the planing, they must all fall into one common sense making result if not dont even venture into it no matter who tells you what

and if you need help just email me and i be happy to support you

First of all you have to have the right business mindset, Second comes your network, once you have your plan and started to take the first step in your business you will find out that your network is expanding each day.As long as you keep on the right business mindset you will succeed.

Being proactive, honest and performing tasks dilligently. Most importantly is to take criticism as an opportunity to improve yourself. This would help you develop as an individual professionally as well personally. 

should have vision and good planing

1) Knowledge will be your key to success as you are still to avail experience.

2) Leadership skill

3) Good communication skill

4) Man power handling skill

5) Proper reserve allocation skill

6) Administrative skill

To succeed as an entrepreneur right out of college has very different constraints than a regular venture.

you need two opposite skill sets (that is a reason why collaborations are good at this stage because these skill sets are opposites at times for some people) you need a strong business acumen and very strong relationship building competence.

The whole idea of a new venture comes from playing in a good sand box. what I mean by that is if you product or service or solution does not solve a problem or if it does not make a current activity more fun and engaging then its probably not there yet and needs more work. This is playing in the sandbox. Remember if you have 1 hour to save the world take 59 mins to define the problem.

Now when you have that (a product or service or solution etc.) it does not mean that you have made it. This is when your relationship side kicks in. this is when you find those angel investors or VCs (I prefer angel investors for a right out of college venture as the risk profile is better).

Before you however pitch you have to figure out the operations , the difference between a good idea and a good business is that the business people figured out operations. find out how will you run it everyday, get down to details like how many desks and chairs you need and to details like how will you promote, price etc.

When you have this you will have better financial sheets and a much more robust business plan. at this stage I would recommend taking part in case competitions etc. to get some cash flowing. and try to get in touch with incubators as they at times have a lot of latent competencies that you may borrow to make your business work.

Hope that helps. Please let me know if you need more.

Agree with answers of the experts

******************************************

I will agree with the answers ... Variety of correct info and opinions !

Thank You