I had asked to meet people here and over the past couple of months have met lot of people.
Overall, the feeling was good, buoyant even amongst the young generation, who had turned “entrepreneurs”. Most of them could be broadly classify as:
1) Tech – yes IIT & non IIT, mostly freshers or maybe a couple of years of experience.
2) Non Tech – yes IIM and non IIM with couple of years of experience.
3) Plain graduates with solid work experience.
And amongst all of this what was surprising is more than 70% of them did not have a plan. Oh! yes there was a plan, to revolutionise, change the world, software, need for freedom BUT no ‘Plan’ as we old school believe – 1-5 years of Professional/Personal goal, impact of entrepreneurship and so on.
The easiest was I gathered was to turn entrepreneur because it was the in thing; in vogue; or peer pressure; or not wanting to work in an ‘corporate environment’ or there was money to be made.
Less than 5% had any plans of wealth creation, employment on their agenda.
A substantial chunk were staying with their parents, using their infrastructure, not worried about the basics and more in their quest to turn ‘Entrepreneur’; whilst there were others who were drawing 50% higher than in their job, so decided to turn entrepreneurs.
To me, this was a way of rebelling/trying out with the safety net right now or the degree taking you back to work at the back of your mind. AND that is “Self Employment” not “Entrepreneurship”
I would love to hear view points from all “Entrepreneurs” out there.
I write, review, rant, rave, on a variety of personal things. Call it Mindcasting. The written word has been my long time friend – jotting down thoughts based on what I read, heard, saw or recording my own experiences for later reference.
The problem is, everyone loves the word “Entrepreneur”. Everyone gets attracted to it, I am not what attracts them. They fail to understand that, in simple terms Entrepreneur is nothing but a businessman. The guy who works hard without any assurance of the returns. But yeah, with the hope of getting good returns.
I have been running a business for the past 7-8 years, had too many bad experiences, good ones as well but one thing I have learnt is, the money is the major part. If you don’t have enough money, it’s better to go slow, get some funds in the bank account, once confident, start hiring people. Hiring is the major problem for small firms, people will often take advantage of you but you have to be prepared to face all those things.
You will reach a point where you will feel that you have achieved your goal and very next moment all your dreams will get shattered too.
So you need to be prepared for all these things, it’s not as simple as it sounds. There is lot of hard work and patience in this whole “Entrepreneurship”. In Gujarati we call Business, “Dhandho” and I prefer to call it that way. It gives me a feeling of being grounded somehow.
I have noticed that, many guys have habit to “play safe”. They want to continue with their job and start full fledged business. This is not possible, you cannot concentrate on 2 things at a time. You need to focus only on one thing.
Another problem I have noticed is, before even starting the business or making any plan, the guys think about getting funds from outsiders. Boss, you need a proper plan in hand and what’s the point of doing business if you can’t stand on your feet? You need to take baby steps first, nurture the business, taste the waters and then go for funding. Atleast, understand your business first.
Also, some of the college going kids decided in the college itself that, they want to become Entrepreneur. You need to get some experience first, work for sometime, atleast 2-3 years. Understand how system works and then jump in. Don’t make a mistake of directly jumping in. (Yeah, even if you have truck load of money with you)
And lastly, like Anaggh said, the plan is the most important thing. Draw a plan, set the targets, keep grace period for the failed targets. If you can’t achieve your goals in the set targets, be prepared to shut the shop or make drastic changes in the plans in the mid-way. Basically, you need to keep monitoring your progress time to time.
Hope it helps sometime.
Regards,
Deep
Hello Annagh,
I have been following you on Twitter and now on your blogs. Well at 46, I still call myself a student. Your point on entrepreneurs is very valid. People are getting into it without a plan, without a mission, without an objective. I started my venture after 22 years of corporate jobs and still discovering new challenges everyday. I would say corporate jobs are far easier than an entrepreneurial venture because somebody else takes the final decision and stands up for it.
The youth, who get into ‘entrepreneurship’ by the sheer glamour lack skill sets such as leadership, mentoring, crisis management, financial understanding, so on and so forth.
As you say it is more of a self-employment than an entrepreneurship due to lack of experience resulting in lack of skills. Yes we have many many budding entrepreneurs. I am a member of TiE and see them at various meets but how many are successful or how many of them turn to be Harsh Mariwalas or Kishore Biyanis of India.
IITs and IIMs ‘ratao’ you the theory part of business but to actually handle a business one has to go through the rigmarole of everyday challenges – business plans, reviews, cash flow analysis – I learnt all of that in the big list of degrees that I carry but only had the courage to start on my own after working for 22 years. Like you said – The old school thinks like this only.
Kind regards,
Hema
@Hema – well said and I completely agree 🙂
Basically, the trouble begins when people fail to see the difference between these two:
http://i.imgur.com/twAbDUo.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/mXZJbbp.jpg
Thanks a lot Anaggh for raising a very valid point.
We should rather go back to the basics of economics of what made the word ‘Entrepreneur’ to emerge.
There are four factors of production:
0. Factor – Owner – Reward
1. Land – Landlord – Rent
2. Labour – Labourer – Wages
3. Capital – Money Lender – Interest
4. Enterprise – Entrepreneur – Profit
Economics suggests that you need all four factors simultaneously to do any production. In economics, production means creation or an addition of utility.
The key here is to make profit as value creation would not be established unless someone pays (or barters another commodity) in exchange for the value you added. If you are still able to keep something more as profit after paying the other three factors you are an Entrepreneur.
So you are an Entrepreneur if you are using the other three factors of productions and creating utility and earning profit, even though you are self-employed or have a small business. Earning more than the job you left is not always necessary as it’s the choice of lifestyle which you have made.
You obviously need skills and a plan to earn that decent profit and carry on in the long run!
Businessman on the other hand is the act of staying busy in an enterprise, this could even be a senior executive in a job. It’s always safe to call yourself a businessman even if you are self employed.
Rest, you can assign any jargon to the hobby or an activity which may or may not be a business. There are many around in the so called ‘ecosystem’ who call themselves as an Entrepreneur even though they haven’t made a single rupee in revenue forget about making any profit!
I don’t refer myself as an Entrepreneur yet and there is a long way to go until I can reaffirm myself as, “Yes. This is what I had left my job for!”
The reason for starting my business was similar as you mentioned. Basically lazy to look for a better job and all. But once I decided to start, then I did chalk out some kind of plan. Spoke to many hard core entrepreneurs and got their two bits and all.
And initially since mine was a social media services business I thought it was hardly ‘entrepreneurship’ as stuff was similar to freelancing. Then I started growing a team n all – that’s when after a year I thought hmm I think I am an ‘entrepreneur’ because I really had to give so much to the company and improvise like anything. The ‘plan’ I had earlier was woefully inadequate.
So it is not just about having a plan – even if you have a plan the fact is that it might be so inadequate for the challenges you face.