Steps Entrepreneurs Can Take to Adapt During Difficult Times

Aim for less integration, data access and onboarding.

Overcoming deployment challenges should be a primary focus for entrepreneurs in the immediate future. Entrepreneurs will need to determine how they can rely on less access to data and require less integration but get the same or better results for their clients. The speed-bumps of internal bureaucracy can slow companies. Certainly, larger corporations face these impediments.

However, successful tech start-ups and AI entrepreneurs can streamline the onboarding process for their clients. One way to do that is to explore what data is most similar across clients and focus on streamlining that area.

Listen for the core issues, then define the new normal.

You can outsource ideas for innovation by relying on your customers. After all, the products and services you innovate will inevitably be developed to fill a need for your clients.

Talk to your customers to find out what problems they’re most concerned about as well as what they feel their new normal looks like. Do they feel like the economy is going to rebound? Your clients have been told they’re living in “unprecedented times” with an “uncertain future.” Those are empty phrases, and your clients are still left worrying about the health and wealth of their families, teams and businesses. By reviewing existing pipelines on a person-to-person level, you truly listen to your customers,

Don’t be a savior — focus on one problem at a time.

Of course, your clients will not run short on potential problems worth worrying about. Still, don’t adopt a savior mentality and attempt to address all of your clients’ concerns with one or multiple AI solutions concurrently. Adding more to the equation works against streamlining integration, ultimately keeping you from employing new solutions quicker.

Instead, start by identifying a single, meaningful problem you can solve for your client.

Use your entrepreneurial skills to help the most vulnerable.

You can help save the world during a time like this. According to the World Economic Forum, social entrepreneurs have helped nearly 622 million people over the past 20-plus years, improving lives by providing innovative solutions to ever-present issues such as providing improved access to health, sanitation, education and energy. What are the issues you see facing our most vulnerable? Of these issues, which ones will not be solved through governmental response? Focus on those, and you will make a true difference in lives.

 Lastly, but mostly, be proactive and resilient.

The AI solutions you’ve already seen implemented in response to COVID-19 illustrate why entrepreneurs are well-positioned to be the most resilient players during the pandemic. Still, those who thrive post-pandemic will embrace a proactive and resilient — as opposed to reactive — approach. Entrepreneurs, large enterprises and the world at large can’t afford to use current insecurities about an unknown future as an excuse to be reactive.

https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/350599