What stops you from being an entrepreneur?
It’s a simple question, but one, I’m sure, will solicit a plethora of answers. I previously asked what the ingredients to starting a company were, and I’m sure part of the answers are there, e.g.:
- I don’t have a good idea
- I don’t have the knowledge
- I don’t have the team
- I don’t have the money
- etc.
On the other side, there’s the risk-component, e.g.:
- I can’t bear to fail
- I don’t want to go into debt
- I got kids
- etc.
The people that do start businesses have a number of characteristics, such as:
- the non-desire to work in a regular job
- a network of people that they bounce ideas off
- a stuburn belief in oneself and the idea
- the willingness to take risks to get to where you want to go
- the love for it
I’m still figuring many things out myself, but one thing that I do believe is that life is like a computer that can be programmed.
- You can come up with a good idea and figure out a system of how to research its viability.
- You can find people everywhere to talk to about your ideas and how to set up your business
- You can get money with a good idea
- And you can create tons of positive signals that boost your self-confidence and the belief in your idea.
But it will always be an opportunity cost, between the risk that you take (losing a steady income, endangering your home-situation, etc.) and the upside, that you actually get to do what you want to do (sort of: your customers are still your boss).
So what’s stopping you from being an entrepreneur?
Vincent
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- Rebooting entrepreneurial brainstorming sessions: what elements should they contain?
- Book review : The One Minute Entrepreneur
- In response to Guy Kawasaki's "VC Wishlist": The Entrepreneur Wishlist
- The Right Mix between Idea and Execution
Business Process Management, Business intelligence, Business strategy, Consulting, Education, Entrepreneurship, Friends, Future, Project Management, SME, Venture Capital, innovation
One simple thing : TIME !
To start a new business, better make it right at first place. Hence the need for thinking, planning, implementing, etc.
However, thanks to the Web 2.0, creating a new “stuff” has never been so easy : you can come up with an idea, discuss it on blogs and forums, launch it in alpha, and run it in beta. Just a matter of… time
Not to mention “innovations” like Skype, open source code you can plug & play with, as well as sites like meetup.com and the very relevant open coffee meeting in nearly every major city worldwide…
It’s never been so easy to connect with people and exchange ideas with them.
What stops me from being an entrepreneur (other than having to spell en-tre-pre-neur?) is that I’ve already been one.
It’s high risk and a very tough game. Cutting loses and putting your life back together is a humble experience, and figuring out that even the best entrepreneurs fail most of the time is something that will keep me from doing it again.
..well, until I get another irresistible idea.
Thanks for the post.
Or maybe the security at your job?
Probably feeling too much secure and being well treated demotivates from going on your own. I’m mainly involved with Project Management (I run PM Hut), and I always wondered how come most people are employed when they can go on contracts and earn 2-3 times more. The answer was eventually one word: Security.
That’s an excellent question, Vincent.
To answer PM Hut question, I have been contracting for about 7 years in UK, Switzerland and France. I would say it has nothing to do with being an entrepreneur since you just are on your own, selling knowledge services. Quite comfortable
In my mind, starting a business is a different story. And it’s a team one. This is what I miss while being contractor : the team project, the feeling of belonging to something greater than the sum of its parts.
What is stopping me ? Mortgage, kids, time. These are excuses. I think the main things are the vision, the leadership and the focus.
I’m not focussed enough to concentrate on one sole project unless I work with someone who has the vision and enough leadership to keep me focussed on that very thing.
So I would say I’m just waiting for the opportunity, I dont feel like rushing.
I don’t know.
I possess all the qualities of an entrepreneur.
I have really useful and often brilliant ideas coming to me, all the time, and I develop them in mind, and on paper.
But, I could go into a long litany of troubles that have happened to me. Perhaps some could have been avoided with money, I guess.
But I have persevered through them all!
I know my success lies in inventing.
Perhaps I need a partner?
Maybe I need my mommy to hold my hand???
Tell me?
Wow, this feels like therapy. And that was kind of why I wrote this post as well. I definitely think that people look primarily at the risk of going at it on your own. But I also think that there’s a risk of having a job… yes, you get a regular pay, but there’s also a certain price to pay ~ loss of freedom, perhaps, loss of individuality… there are of course huge differences between jobs and people, so that it’s hard to generalise.
I think that starting a business requires for certain elements to be in place, which some of you mentioned: time, an idea, the team, the reward, etc. One is not enough, because it’s always counterbalanced by risk. Risk/reward is always greater for entrepreneurship, than working for someone else. Same with risk/your idea vs. someone else’s idea, etc. etc.
But once those lego-blocks exist, once you have the right idea (which also means that there’s a market and reward), the right team, the right home-situation, etc., and can put all of that together conceptually, then it makes sense to build a business. I think that it takes a lot of patience and awareness to accumulate those lego-blocks, but once it’s there, it not only makes sense to go for it, but it also makes sense to do it again and again.
Btw. I haven’t mentioned money as a factor that much yet, because I don’t consider it to be one. I automatically assume that a great idea (which I define as an idea that is realistically executable & has a sizeable market) will not have difficulty in attracting investment.