Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship is about transforming the world by solving existing problems which will create a direct or indirect benefit to the people and thereby generate profit.
Entrepreneurship – Modern day innovation breeding ground.
Entrepreneurship is what people do to take their career and dreams into their hands and lead it in the direction of their choice. It’s about building a life on your own terms.
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
― R. Buckminster Fuller
Multiplayer strategy game:
Have you ever played a strategy game such as “Age of Empires” or “Clash of Clans”?
The overall objective of these games is to build your empire starting from the stone age and to keep upgrading to different ages until you reach a highly advanced technology age.
- You will start by collecting wood and meat to build facilities.
- Once you create people, you can start delegating the work to build more.
- You monitor them so that they are doing what they are supposed to do.
- During this process, your opponents try to build similar empires and try to crush you.
- You need to fight back or you need to crush them before they act on you.
- You never stop growing, you need to continue building to WIN.
Entrepreneurship follows a similar path as playing a strategy game – when you start, you may have to do all the work by yourself until you reach a point where you can hire resources to delegate the work. You need to constantly keep upgrading your empire and always be ahead of the competition.
Risk: Safe Job vs. Entrepreneurship
When the recession hit, people lost jobs.
When something got outdated, people lost jobs.
When there was a problem in management, people lost jobs.
When there was something not in direct control, people lost jobs.
There is no safe job, per se. As discussed in the topic “Money”, if your investments are not diversified you will suffer when the tough times hit.
The same is applicable for entrepreneurship also, if not managed properly.
Whether you work for someone or you run a business, your net result is to make money for the life that you always wanted.
If you are doing the job you really wanted to do, then it is a gift.
The biggest advantage of entrepreneurship is one can do what they want to do and choose what is the net result they want to achieve in terms of money, value, fame, etc.
Both have a benefit and a risk. You have to opt based on your needs.
“Why fit in when you were
born to stand out?” – Dr. Suess
A risk is what you will lose when you fail.
Take time to really think about what your risk is. Then determine what is the right time to explore.
“Never test the depth of the river with both the feet.”
– Warren Buffet
Calculate your risk and determine what you can afford to lose so that you can take brave action. All businesses are always taking calculated risks.
When you are at an early age, this risk tends to be very small and it gets magnified as you grow in age. You always have the option to withstand multiple failures, if any, when you start to explore at an early age.
Building a safe anthill should not be your goal.
Rather, building an empire should be.
Entrepreneurship is exploration.
Entrepreneurship is an experience.
Entrepreneurship is a necessity.
Entrepreneurship is to make a profit.
Entrepreneurship is fun.
What is the purpose of your life? Create and live an experience you want, or opt for a so-called “safe” job?
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by
the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.
So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor.
Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore. Dream. Discover.”
– Mark Twain
Key Ingredients
Five key ingredients of a successful entrepreneur are:
Motivation ~ Strategy ~ Execution ~ Value ~ Resources
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Motivation: Passion & Purpose
When passion combines with strong purpose, employed to achieve your goal, it becomes the fuel for the long journey.
When the purpose is not supported in your heart, your journey is going to suffer.
At the same time, if your purpose is not your passion, it will not live for a long time.
Motivation = Passion x Purpose
Strategy: Areas to Focus
- Idea – How it will solve the problems now and in the future, and its direction
- Marketing – How to spread the word and make others buy in on the idea
- Sales – Lead generation, lead maintenance, and converting a lead to become a customer
- Maintenance – Maintaining the existing customers, keeping them close so that they don’t look elsewhere
- Innovation – Consistently bringing new ideas for the betterment
- Managing employees – Motivation, team building, individual growth
- Cash flow (Money) – Very important vitamin for the organization. It needs to cover the cost of current running, future investment, profit, etc.
- Diversification to build resiliency, while maintaining core values
- Managing connections with people
- Managing infrastructure
- Government rules – Tax, employment, federal, state and local laws, etc.
- Energy – Building motivation and confidence, and always keeping it high.
All of the above are equally important to build and run a successful enterprise.
Initially, you as an individual or a small team needs to create and execute on the above strategies.
As you start growing, you need to identify the right resources to push higher into your success zone.
Execution:
Execution is a special skill which requires potential, perseverance, and action to reach the goal.
Giving up is easy.
Understand that the brain loves easy actions. We should resist giving up; we should always be aiming to achieve.
Commitment
While others seem to be spending time on external activities for fun, as an entrepreneur, you need to work on your vision for the future, which requires self-discipline and commitment.
Many times it is not just the individual commitment that is enough. You need to convince your close family and friends to make them understand your direction and have them provide continuous support.
Tomorrow’s dreams are built on today’s sacrifices.
Value:
Through products or services, you need to show value to be accepted as a provider. It is very important each customer feels the service they received, is worth the money they spent on.
Customers do like to pay more when they are satisfied.
Word of mouth marketing is the only way to crack the virality code in business.
Virality = Value produced / Money (and/or) Time Invested (by users)
If you want to achieve a “J” growth curve, identify the elements in business which can make the customer realize value, so that they can go out of their way to promote your product/services.
Quality:
Success of your work is determined by the quality of your delivered product.
If it fails the quality test, it will never allow you to takeoff. If the quality is good initially and if it degrades it can also bring down your whole enterprise.
“Customers don’t measure you on how hard you tried,
They measure you on what you deliver.”
– Steve Jobs
Sometimes you need to trade the time and cost for quality. You need to be cautiously make this decision, since it will make or brake your whole effort.
Resources:
People & Teamwork, Network, Technology, and Money are the key resources that should be employed in the right amounts to your advantage.
Out of all the above, technology plays a vital role in today’s enterprises. When technology is exercised to its fullest, it can reduce the need for the other resources.
For example, in today’s age, if your business does not have an internet presence, it is missing out on a huge opportunity.
Qualities of an entrepreneur:
- Challenge the status quo.
- See opportunities in every encounter.
- Have a vision and a strategy to achieve it as well as periodically refining the strategy.
- Set new goals and push the limits to achieve.
- Focus on continuous innovation.
- Strive to crack the virality code.
- Do NOT accept “No” or “Not Possible” as an answer easily. Instead explore.
- Always listen to the customers and bring in the changes to satisfy the customer’s needs quickly.
- Word of mouth promotion is more effective than any other means of marketing.
- Utilize resources effectively – Money, People, Network, Technology.
- Maintain integrity with customers, employees, and other people in your connections.
- Be hopeful, patient, persistent, and always learn.
- Relentlessly cut waste.
- Don’t procrastinate to pivot.
Responsibility:
Entrepreneurship is the ultimate responsibility.
- To the employees – whatever the outcome, you need to ensure to pay their monthly salary and other expenses.
- To society.
- To maintain credibility.
- To yourself and your family.
“Act so that the effects of your action are compatible with the permanence of genuine human life”
– Hans Jonas