What does it mean to be an entrepreneur? Is it shuffling from gig-to-gig in an ever evolving free market economy? Is it akin to being an inventor? Is it a mindset, a dream and an idea immersed in your thoughts and you have started to commercialize? Does it begin when you close your first sale or land a repeat customer?Is it fixed or fluid?
Depending on your vantage point, being an entrepreneur may be all of the above, in tandem with a swirl of risk-reward assessment and mixed emotion.
However, whilst being an entrepreneur may be sparked by an idea, it goes far beyond just talking about it. It means taking a leap of faith and building a solution which meaningfully addresses the needs or pain points of a sizeable market segment, and (hopefully) produces commercial gain or profit. Whilst there are a multiplicity of books and training courses which highlight the skills needed to run a business, the two best sources of learning are derived from actually doing, and from other professionals who can demonstrate in real time how to excel in a particular area. The school of Google and YouTube may be credited for launching many startups, but an entrepreneur’s mindset, skills set and perseverance in the face of setbacks will determine its trajectory.
Entrepreneurship mettle is tested through several startup phases, from identifying a market opportunity, to planning and then launching, and ultimately managing growth.
If you have enough time and resources (financial, intellectual, emotional and physical), you can potentially solve any problem. However, the challenge with learning by doing is that you get the test first, and the lesson thereafter, and generally not before you run out of either time or resources. Learning from other skilled professionals in real time, who are also invested in your startup’s growth, can mean the difference between being self-taught (through experience) and avoiding costly mistakes. Whilst another person’s experience may not stop us from repeating the same mistakes, in the context of an early stage startup (<3 years), we need the benefit of a broad skill set and collaborations with a network of partners.
Although you do not need to have it all figured out before you take the first step, you do need to get started. At CARIRI’s three-month Business Hatchery Programme, we offer three useful, actionable recommendations for entrepreneurs seeking to grow their startup:
Make a habit of improving your craft
Writers write, singers sing, actors audition and entrepreneurs pitch. Knowing how to communicate well, what you do and why you do what you do, is a critical facet of entrepreneurship. In an early stage startup, the need to communicate – or pitch – what you do is a core facet in generating sales by converting a “maybe” into a definitive “yes.” Consistently delivering on what you promise will beat a pathway to repeat business and referrals.
If you are nervous about pitching, everyone has a first time. The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is practice, and pitching is a skill that frequently gets easier with practice. There really isn’t a path to entrepreneurship that doesn’t include risks and nervousness. CARIRI’s Business Hatchery is a safe learning environment to practice pitching and improve your delivery, based on real time feedback.
Identify your competitive strength
In an early stage startup, a single entrepreneur often performs a host of other functions – accounting, marketing, finance, creative problem solver, customer/public relations, communicator, delivery driver and personal assistant. Defining the unique knowledge which underlies a startup’s capability to compete, can assuredly assist an entrepreneur (founder) in developing targeted marketing strategies and investing in focused growth. Developing the practice of looking at your business through the eyes of your customers can help you to refine your startup’s competitive strength through your customers’ perspective, and understand how it is connected to core knowledge and internal processes.
Good entrepreneurs are passionate about what they do. Driven by passion and purpose, great entrepreneurs are focused on solving problems and adept at leveraging competitive strengths.
Stay grounded
You simply can’t copy and paste assumptions of how business relations work. Things do not always go up. What goes up can also come down (gravity, stocks and an economic boom). There are also no template solutions on how to run a business (Branson’s Virgin group of companies), transition from startup to company (Airbnb), defuse conflicts in a partnership (Facebook’s Zuckerberg and Saverin), scale up, scale down, or what to do after you land or lose your biggest customer or client. Continuously sharpening an entrepreneurial mindset can assist you to weather business storms and challenges with determination, perseverance and grit, by developing a healthy attitude towards risks, being self-directed with a positive attitude towards change (stepping outside of your comfort zone) and having an innovative thrust. At the other extreme end of the spectrum, a high octane entrepreneur continuously moving at full throttle can begin to buckle under stress and pressure.
Don’t get bloated by early success or defeated by early failures. Bootstrap as far as possible and fund your startup’s growth organically through sales, profits and prudent financing. An entrepreneurial growth mindset will keep you hungry for success and obsessive about innovations that cry out for creation, in the face of ever evolving market needs and demands.
For more information, please contact CARIRI at awilliams@cariri.com or call us at 299-0210 ext 5048.
