Let’s face the blunt truth: there aren’t enough jobs in the market for everyone and the university conveyor belt churns out new candidates every year.

There isn’t enough for everyone. We need to ‘create’ more jobs, and the only people who can make this possible are entrepreneurs. And no, we’re not talking about government schemes with their fancy tax incentives to motivate Fortune 500 companies to create more jobs, we’re talking about actual, real-world entrepreneurs with the power to disrupt and shake up the market.

If we’ve learnt anything from Google, Microsoft and more recently, Uber, it’s that entrepreneurship and innovation go hand in hand. The most important bit? That age has no bearing on your entrepreneurial journey.

This isn’t to say that starting a business isn’t easy, it is challenging to find your own footing in a particular industry and drive revenue. Yet the world depends on entrepreneurs to remain steadfast in their journey and to believe in their own vision, even if the rest of the world remains skeptical about it.

Advice for the Young Entrepreneur

As such, we want to share some words of advice with young entrepreneurs starting out on their journey. Here are 4 tips you’d find useful:

Keep At It

Let’s face it. You will eventually fail, it is part of the journey after all. But if you keep at it, and continue to refine your strategy, you will eventually succeed. This is only possible if you believe in yourself and remain passionate about your niche. It is therefore important to invest in a business that you are passionate about, otherwise the journey will be boring, dull and ultimately won’t amount to much.

Understand Your Market

The most common mistake entrepreneurs make is the failure to understand their audience. There’s a reason why intelligent tools like Google Analytics and Hubspot were created: to help marketers gain comprehensive insights into their market. And while it is true that the internet has made it possible to connect with your audience in an infinite number of ways, you still need to narrow your target demographic down to what is realistically possible.

Once you have identified people interested in your product, you can focus on grabbing their attention.

Using Social Media to Get Word Out

At this point, the only thing holding your business back is all the obscurity. So you jump online and relentlessly start social media campaigns to get the word out – without defining goals and targets. The thing is, you want to research, experiment and constantly measure your results to evaluate if a strategy actually is working.

Effective social media campaigning requires you to get up close and personal with analytical tools to see what Facebook posts or Twitter hashtags are working. This way, you know where you’re making progress and where you’re wasting resources.

Getting Publicity

This is an important bit, and it is often more important than social media credibility. Having relations with the traditional press gives your business publicity that could help to grow it. See what makes your product interesting and new to the market.

Then go to the media and talk to them about it. If you receive great reviews on news segments and mentions on blogs, that could be all the media publicity you need for extensive coverage.