Startups are newly founded companies that are just beginning to develop, just as toddlers need six classes of food to develop strong immune systems so do startups with reading as one of the nutrients required for their necessary growth.

Reading is always attributed to students and academia but rarely attributed to startups. Reading is referred to as one of the basic tools of success in life because it increases your confidence and makes you fit for the tasks ahead. An average startup needs to read at least once a week to survive challenges of life.

The importance of reading cannot be overemphasized especially for the
growth of startups; reading gives startups the wings to fly and necessary techniques to have a soft landing.

An average startup needs to read at least once a week to survive challenges of life.

Often, as easy as reading sounds, it is one of the most difficult tasks to carry out but it becomes quite easy when the reasons for reading are valid and the reasons include:

1. Constant learning
2. New Ideas
3. Business Skills
4. Global Competition
5. Inspiration and Motivation
6. Building Relationships

Constant Learning

Learning is a daily activity that can be achieved through reading. Reading frequently enables startups to learn how to solve problems and think critically in the most dynamic way. Learning via reading helps startups to learn from the experience of others most especially experiences from businesses which have grown from being startups to successful business empires. Reading gives startups blueprints of businesses they aspire to go into.

New Ideas

Reading helps to connect more ideas on what you already know to some ideas on your mind to give birth (bring to reality) new products or services. Reading helps to validate most ideas of startups; many ideas startups develop aside from some original seed ideas give startups abilities to climb the ladder of success and growth speedily. 

Business Skills

The ability for startups to open their gates to business is good; the acquiring of business skills and improvement of previous business skills are more important and they can mostly be gotten through reading. The acquisition of these skills increase the longevity of startups.

Global Competition

Given that startups start operating from their local markets, most startups have the vision to operate in the global market and become global competitors.

Startups can do investigations about the feasibility of conquering a foreign market without going over themselves.  

Inspiration and Motivation

Starting and running startups daily is not a walk in the park. The trials, difficulties, and mistakes a startup goes through are huge; only a startup that reads daily can overcome.

Reading gives you an insight into what other startups went through and what they are still going through. It inspires startups to wield through the storm and motivates them to do exploits even with their present challenges.

Building Relationships

 Hard work, dedication and long hours are good traits in startups but the ability for startups to build and sustain relationships with different human resources that contribute positively to them is key for the survival of any business and this can be achieved through reading.

Reading is wealth. No doubt, different challenges of business could be solved through reading. Constant reading keeps startups steps away from liquidation.

See also: 7 Reasons Africa Is A Fertile Ground For Startups

Chisom Okeke

Chisom Okeke, popularly known as “Somly” is a graduate of Accounting from the University of Benin, Benin City. She is a phenomenal writer and an “Agripreneur” whose focus is to change the narrative of the agricultural sector by providing timely agricultural information and opportunities available in the agricultural sector. She is also a virtual assistant and the anchor of Somly Writes. You can connect with her via Social Media, Facebook – Okeke Chisom; Instagram – okeke_somly; Twitter – somly