7 Handy Tips to Be a Better Entrepreneur
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Before joining WAT I used to write a lot about business and entrepreneurship. So this post has sort of taken me back in time (just a good 3-4 months back not long really).
I have had the opportunity to mingle with a lot of enterprising people over the years and I have gathered a lot from them. Sometimes by asking and sometimes through observing, this post entails 7 tips, I have gathered, that any young entrepreneur might find useful. Having said that, in business nothing is set in stone and you might find, over the years, that none of this came true for you. So, take my experience and words with a pinch of salt.
Here goes the seven:
1. It’s About Value
Many people run into business purely on the basis of profits and money opportunities that they perceive to exist. However, as per my personal analysis, the biggest factor for doing business should be the value you bring to the table. If you think you can add value to a particular area, then the chances of it being a success is much more than short sighted profitability. Your value is your USP and your USP is your only bet against the hundreds of odds you will face as an entrepreneur.
2. You Still Got to Love Money
Having said that, it is still about money. In the past one year, I have had so many of my friends coming to me with ideas of business that I have lost count. Unfortunately, for a majority of them, money is not part of the plans. They say I am not in it for money, most of them are driven just by the fact that they will be doing something different and are in pursuit of fame more than money. That is a cruel injustice to the business, it’s like leaving the child an orphan. Every venture, like a child, needs to be given the scope to grow and hold on its own and for a business money defines its growth.
I am not contradicting my first point with this. Value is important for sustenance but if there is no money in it, then it is not business but just a bad idea. So if you plan to get into business, chalk out your plans on how you will get your money and before that how much do you need to invest in it, this is basic.
3. Speed is Relative
Starting a business is not always about being the first. Of course, there are numerous advantages of being the first mover, but it is better to bring out a quality product than a hasty clone. Consider Stumble Upon as an example, its premise is the same as delicious, but it still holds on its own. You need to be productive not fast, and unless you are doing the same thing as someone else don’t bother about them or how fast they are growing.
4. Entrepreneurship is a Mindset - Work on It
Entreprenurship is not just a skill that can be acquired and worked on. It is a mindset, an approach to opportunities and problems. And contrary to perception it is not something people need to be born with. You can work on your mindset by cultivating the right environment for the Entrepreneur in you to grow.
This can be done by
- Hanging around other entrepreneurs
- Reading up a lot on how people find and use opportunities
- Being observant
- And taking the initiative to work
Continuously fine tuning the mind on these lines will help you grow better as a business man.
6. Forget the Fear of Failure
Winston Churchill once said, “that success and failure are two imposters that I treat the same..” or something of that sort. Now, even if he didn’t, I am telling you now.
For a business success and failures are part and parcel of the game, it’s like boxing whether you win or lose, you get hit still. It is what you learn from them that is the most important.
Now saying this doesn’t give you the liberty to be stupid, but don’t be afraid to take the jump just because you are not sure about the depth. I can tell you from what many of the ‘uncles‘ I know tell me, regret at 60 is more painful than failure at 30.
7. You Don’t Own a Business, You Just Guard it
Now ownership is one of the primary motivators for a businessperson. Moreover, a business usually reflects the personality of the proprietor backing it. But even the law treats a business as a separate entity.
As it’s founder you are doing the same job as that of a parent, caring and nourishing the business till it can take decisions on it’s own. You are it’s guardian not it’s master. Keep this in mind always when you take decisions for your business, your selfish motives comes second to that of the enterprise you created. Something on the lines of what Ranbaxy did earlier this month, it takes guts to do the right thing, so build it.
And with that, I conclude this post. I hope you find this useful in your endeavors. Yes Rajiv, you too. 
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Hi Maneesh, Well crafted. Will add three more points to the list (what I have observed, in my own experience) -
a) An Entrepreneur must be a great ’story-teller’, sounds simple. But atleast in the formative years of building a company, he needs to have a shared vision, and more than skill sets from his team, he needs an unrelenting wave of zeal and passion…which incidentally gets built through the story he tells and shares
b) He should be able to articulate in very simple ‘grandma language’ (much at the risk of sounding simplistic), what the business brings to the table for a consumer and advertiser (in case its an advertising based revenue model)
c)He should be able to identify when to pass the ‘baton’ and to ‘whom’. That is, who will be the proverbial - ‘heir to the throne’. Which am sure both Branson and Vijay Mallaya will realize in a decade from now
@maneesh : good one, as an entrepreneur i can definitely relate to every line…cant agree more.
@shitij: I cant stop smiling reading your comment…but yes if you are/dream of running a show all the 3 parts “Story-teller”,”grandma thing” as well as passing on the things at the right time to the right one are ESSENTIAL parts of the portfolio.
A bit of my experience and understanding of your points:
when you start GENERALLY you have no resources (read: less/no money) to retain people, what all you have is vision to fire them up and there your story telling is needed.
You cant dictate your client certain things, even if they r going some wrong way with their decisions (coz you aren’t that big n successful) so you need to know the dog trick to get your ideas thru.
Running the show needs you to wear a lott of hats at one time, but at some point of time wearing lot of hats start hindering with progress of your company, so you need to judge that time and delegate the authority to right one.
BTW maneesh there is no POINT NUMBER 5 !!
and when do u get to practise all of this?
great article!
@harshil - Doesn’t WAT give you the opportunity to be entrepreneurial?
@everyone - thanks for commenting.. this is the kind of interactive response that I really like where everyone adds their bit to the post.. it feels wonderful
@shitij - I agree with you.. but they are more sort of the basic requirements that any entrepreneur would need .. in this post I was going more on the lines of how you can better yourself in doing business by setting these priorities right.. nevertheless your points add a lot of value ..so thank you for sharing your views.. and I must admit you have a unique and appealing way of putting your thoughts out
@ashish
it’s great to have someone’s opinion on this who has been there done that.. or mayeb doing that..haha.. and thanks for pointing out the miss..this is what happens when you don’t draft your post in a single sitting.. and thanks for adding that bit about customers as well..that’s another point generally missed out on
@haria
haha.. like I said dude it’s a mindset..being entrepreneurial is making the most of opportunities in an entrepreneurial way..
@rajiv
personally I feel WAT gives a lot of chances to be entrepreneurial at the stage that it is in.. however, people being people can’t be expected to be rational about their decisions.. I am not saying anyone has been irrational.. just telling you that despite providing the best environment sometimes decisions can baffle us
nice article, mr.Entrepreneur……
@ Rajiv - life is an enterprise. Everything you do in life can be enterprising, right? It’s a state of mind. It elevates you ultimately to a higher level of being. WAT sure gives great opportunities to be entrepreneurial - and i think every new organisation today realizes the value of providing the scope for individual elevation. Its just a question of whether that provision of individual elevation is for inherently selfish purposes for the organization, or as a candy stick/ trophy to showcase, or else as something that really gives scope to outlast even the organization. The third - is a little difficult to satisfy even at the best of places. WAT does a great job - but there’s no stopping these kind of things.
I think shitijs’ 3 points are key. They are the 3 most important points in my opinion. I also think that Rajiv does the 3 things that Shitij mentioned really well. Maybe the passing of the baton part is still not perfect because of the limitations of the environment but i think the rest - he does super. Anyone who has a chance to go to the WAT office and hear him storytell - do so. Or meet someone who tells fantastic stories. Im doing a lot of that myself nowadays.
@ Rajiv - what Shitij has noted - i think such an opportunity cannot be COMPLETELY replicated within an organization in terms of giving opportunities to all crew members. It can happen, but the richness of the experience CAN vary. Then again - its a matter of perspective.