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Entrepreneurship & Getting Started
Motivational speaker and author TONY A. GASKINS, JR. once said
“ If you don’t build your dreams, someone will hire you to help build their”
This quote is specifically about your future, and what your plans for it might be. If you have no specific plans or aren’t working on your dreams, what will you be doing? According to this quote, you’ll be working on the dream of someone else. While that’s not improper, or illegal you could be working on your dream instead. Or better yet, if at all possible, work on both at the same time.
Take me for example, I want to be able to help my community by equipping them with the knowledge, and resources I wish I could have had. While I do have a full-time job in finance I’m also slowly working on my dream through this podcast and the resources I put on my website and social media. To me it’s important to have dreams and if it’s something important to you why wouldn’t you at least dedicate part of your time towards them? They don’t call us dreamers for anything so believe me when I say that dreams are what give us the drive to get things done.
Defining Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurship can be viewed from different angles but for simplicity’s sake let’s look at the definition.
Entrepreneurship is defined as the activity of setting up a business or businesses and taking on financial risks in hope of profits
Here are some people that might come to mind immediately when you think about entrepreneurs: talk host Oprah, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg but really anyone who’s running their own business or side gig is considered an entrepreneur.
Going over some Pros and Cons of being an entrepreneur is important to understanding if it’s something that you really want to go into. So whether you want to start a side hustle, go freelance or launch your own business, there are several pros and cons to being an entrepreneur so let’s take a look.
| Pros | Cons |
| Freedom – The biggest pro to being an entrepreneur is having the complete freedom to do your own thing. You are your own boss. You call the shots and hire your team. | Responsibility – While you might have more freedom you will also have more responsibility. The future of your business and your next paycheck is in your hands. There’s a lot of sacrifices that come with starting your own business. You have to decide if the pay-off is worth it because carrying the weight of responsibility can be difficult at first. |
| Flexibility – With the extra responsibility also comes flexibility. Working for yourself means you can work whenever you want and wherever you want. You could work from your couch or the local coffee shop. | Risk – Being a business owner means taking on much of the risk. Instead of your employer taking the fall, you’re now often risking your savings, time, and effort to get your business off the ground. |
| Control – Getting your venture off the ground requires heavy lifting but it’s your dream and you are in control to make that happen. Having control of the influence over the direction of the company is the exciting part of being an entrepreneur. | Workload – The workload of being an entrepreneur is no joke. It takes some serious hustle to get your business up and running, and for the most part, you’ll be doing all the grunt work – especially in the early stages. While it’s exciting it can also be exhausting so it’s important you take breaks and care for yourself first before anything else. |
| Profits – Then of course there’s the profits. Instead of making others richer, now your profits can slide right into your own pocket. Your business success becomes your success. | Limitations – In the early stages of your business, you’ll find that it can be limiting without the funding of a big name or well-established business behind you. |
Myths
Now that we’ve covered the pros and cons of being an entrepreneur let’s move on to the myths of entrepreneurship.
Let’s face it chasing your dreams is no cakewalk and a scary thing, but one thing is certain and that is that equipping yourself with the knowledge will make getting started that much easier.
| Myths | Facts |
| You need to be already rich to start a business | Some businesses get off the ground with little initial money. But the majority raise funds from outside investors or lenders to get started |
| Entrepreneurs have to be well connected | You know the saying “ It doesn’t matter what you know; it matters who you know” well to succeed as an entrepreneur, forget about that. I say this because if that were entirely true then explain the first-generation immigrants who comprise a huge percentage of entrepreneurs? Immigrants often come to a new country with no connections and no network. They are more likely to become successful entrepreneurs. |
| That you need a completely original, unique, and brilliant idea | There’s plenty of successful businesses based on existing products or services |
| That failure is your enemy | Plenty of successful entrepreneurs have failed but the key is to learn from your mistakes but don’t be afraid of making them. |
| That only money motivates employees | Recent statistics have shown that millennials, who are quickly becoming the majority in the workplace (btw), would rather earn less at a job they enjoy than secure a higher wage doing something they hate. Overcoming this misconception puts a heavy obligation on the entrepreneur to develop not only a business model that generates revenue but also a company culture that engages employees. |
Coming Up With Ideas
As I previously mentioned you don’t need to have an original idea, just an idea. A good way to do this is by either having a journal or using your notes on your phone to make notes of anytime you think of
- Products or services that you wish existed but can’t find
- Needs of those around you that aren’t being met by existing products
- Ways existing products or services could be better
- Ways to help people access information or products more easily
Great businesses solve specific problems in an exceptional way. People move away from pain and towards pleasure, so find out what their pains are. Ask them directly. Join Facebook groups relating to your industry or interests and use the search bar to find the problems, issues, and grumbles that others are having.
A great way to do this is also by quizzing your friends and asking them what their one biggest challenge is. Ask what they’re struggling with.
Even better is to create solutions to your own problems. Can your solutions become one that serves a far bigger audience?
Which products would your team love to have? Chances are others would too.
Use Effectual Thinking
Causal thinking is when you follow the pattern of cause and effect in devising a business idea. You think of the problem and you decide how to solve it regardless of who you are to tackle the challenge. Meanwhile, effectual thinking is where you look at your existing assets and work out what you are uniquely placed to do.
What I mean by your assets are your knowledge, qualifications, networks, and exceptional strengths. Somewhere within them lies huge value. It might be found in something that’s insanely obvious to you but groundbreaking to others.
Hone Your Ideas Muscle
Your metaphorical ideas muscle strengthens and increases in size with use. So use it. Practice thinking of ideas for even the small, regular occurrences of your daily life. Keep going until you reach ten. The first five will be easy to think of, then they get harder.
Ten things we could have for dinner tonight. Ten people, I could call this week. Ten colors we could paint the bathroom. Ten songs that make me happy. It doesn’t matter what you think of, what matters is you use your ideas muscle. Make it a game and do it daily. Soon, writing a list of ten new products we could create or ten new businesses I could start will seem simple.
Combine Niches
Justin Woolverton, the founder of HALO Top ice cream, created the product as an experiment in his Los Angeles home in 2011. For him it was simple. He was into fitness and he wanted to eat an entire tub of ice cream without feeling guilty. Ice cream and health food were two niches not previously combined effectively, but Woolverton managed it and in 2017 HALO Top was the pint of ice cream in America.
Great business ideas can be born from combining two or more distinct practices. The result could be a product or service that amasses interest from both sides to create superfans.
Get A Change Of Scenery
Changing your scenery will change how you think. Your brain is forced to come out of autopilot; it’s a survival tactic. It’s whirring away, processing new information, and looking out for dangers. This is prime idea time.
Routinely change your routine. Make it normal that you are regularly spontaneous. Refuse to have the same weekend twice. Refuse to do the same walk twice. Stop reading books by the same authors. Widen your sphere of consciousness to become a magnet for inspiration. Spend time with new and entrepreneurial people, so their mindset inspires yours. Always be changing something up to stay alert, hear new perspectives, and absorb new influences.
Looking deeper into the ordinary things happening around you can give rise to a great business idea. Something regular delivered in a niche way, or something niche delivered in a common way. A simple message shared in a novel way. A complex solution shared in an accessible way.
Conclusion
To conclude this episode let’s talk about the modern perspective of Entrepreneurship.
As entrepreneurship is taught more and more in many universities and colleges, more and more young people will be interested in pursuing entrepreneurship as a career path. We young people especially are uniquely positioned in today’s entrepreneurial environment. Being young is not a downfall, but instead, it’s also an asset to those innovating, especially with technology-related products and services.
In today’s modern world there is a vast amount of information and resources on the internet that can equip us with the skills to bring new ideas to life, and even crowdfunding platforms that have made this available to everyone.
We’re at the right place and the right time for entrepreneurship; it’s just up to us to take those first steps.
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