Being an entrepreneur is the in-thing today. Whoever you speak to would have a unique idea and a deep desire to start on their own. Being a serial entrepreneur myself and a mentor on various start-up networks, I get to speak to many people who in their minds are already building Flipkarts or Snapdeals of tomorrow. Sadly, only very few of them would actually be able to achieve their dreams. More than 80% of them would falter at the first stage itself by not taking the final plunge. A large part of others who actually take the plunge would pull themselves back within the first year itself. Only a very small group would have the tenacity to go through the real grind and come out successful or experienced.
Let’s look at this phenomenon a bit closely. Who are the people who want to become an Entreprenuer ? Both – freshers and experienced professionals.
Freshers, because they have some amazing ideas, very little liabilities, support from their college networks and overall, these days they don’t have the compulsion of getting into a full time job immediately on passing out. Their parents are okay to give them some time to address their calling.
Experienced professionals, because they think they know how businesses are built, they have been successful in the past, have earned some good money and above all, the feeling that if you can do it for others, why can’t you do it for yourself. Moreover, now it’s okay to experiment for few years during mid-career days.
Let’s see what happens next.
Freshers are too obsessed with their ideas. They find it extremely difficult to make a business out of them. They forget that whoever is going to put money behind those ideas, would expect this money to give him returns. The initial small money that they receive from any of the incubation cells is only sufficient for them to focus on converting their ideas into a prototype. However, one key thing that gets missed out here is whether this prototype once converted into a product will finally have a market or not. I know of so many bright kids who are either stuck with their idea itself and nobody is ready to put money behind them or if they have been able to create a prototype, it is not going anywhere as the business sense is lacking in their plan.
Experienced professionals on the other hand go through a different experience. In most cases when the reality hits – of compromise in lifestyle, managing EMIs, etc.; people go back to their day jobs. And mind you, sometimes it takes even more than a year for this reality to hit them. Those who manage to stay back, start running out of money over a period of time. Not everyone is lucky to be on the right side of PEs and VCs, it’s extremely tough to raise money in the market and they realise that all those people who would just be a telephone call away when they were part of a large conglomerate, would stop even picking up their calls. This realisation is not pleasant at all and sometimes so frustrating that people decide to go back to the chair that gave them all the power in the past.
The idea of this piece is not to paint a bleak picture of the world of entrepreneurship. If you really want to crack the code to be an entrepreneur, you need to be aware of all that what would come your way in this journey. It’s better to learn from the experience of others rather than go through the pains yourself.
Whether you are a fresher or an experienced professional, the earlier paragraphs would tell you what could go wrong. Prepare yourself against those eventualities. I have seen most successful and tough guys give up when they actually face some of these realities. Prepare yourself, build strength, find mentors, and above all check if you are actually planning to create a business or it’s just the excitement of an idea or fashion of being called an entrepreneur is driving you.
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Related : Who is a Successful Entrepreneur? | Entrepreneurship Is a Journey in 7 Stages. Enjoy The Ride.