Entrepreneurship Needs Skills Not Fancy Resumes It's not something to be confined to a curriculum but which comes with experience and practice, let's explore it in detail.
By Sherina Kapany •
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Entrepreneurship is a term that's been casually thrown around for some time now. In the advent of the start-up generation, many people limit the definition of an Entrepreneur to "A person who starts their own business.' I personally believe this so-called definition doesn't even begin to shake the dust off. Entrepreneurs are those free spirited people who dare to dream big, think differently and have the ability to get their work executed the way they want. You do what it takes to get where you want to be.
Notable entrepreneurs like Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos are the kind of people who really leave an impression on you. Observing them closely, you are bound to find skills and traits common between all of them. Many people consider having these traits as the right formula to becoming excellent business owners. Let's reflect on our day to see if we can (honest-to-self) confidently own these traits for ourselves, shall we?
Creative Thinking: Entrepreneurs see the world from a perspective beyond the mainstream or else it might have taken more than a decade to form Amazon.com through mergers. There are numerous online shopping websites on the internet but it was the creative mind of Jeff Bezos that expanded an online book-selling business to using drones, streaming media, and supplying nearly any item under the sun. Creative thinking comes from being exceptionally good at something while learning something new at the same time, so even if you are good at something as simple as understanding how a person thinks, you may end up making "The Great Indian Sale' out of it.
Leadership: People look up to entrepreneurs for many things like inspiration, experience and how well you tackle tough situations. No leader can claim success by simply working alone, while every notable and successful leader credits their team for the company's success. This not only makes them more productive but also desirable, which means that your customers may someday want to work with you. Leadership isn't just limited to crediting your team. You take the fall for their mistakes, never showing any sign of damage while at the same time making tough decisions that may weigh you down in times to come. Ultimately, each action your company takes starts and ends with you.
Risk taking: Success comes to those who are ready to take risks and entrepreneurs are synonymous to risk. Business sometimes requires experimenting with different paths that lead to achieving the same goal. Each path has its own set of struggles and hurdles, and you may end up circling back to square one but the payoff is what makes the concept so exciting. Entrepreneurs do rely on foresight and are ready to make short term sacrifices, but it is this thrill of making a difference that separates the truly great ones above the rest. Risk is for amateurs who don't know what they are doing, is me paraphrasing Warren Buffet.
Resilience: Failure is a part and parcel of running a business, pretty much like life. As an entrepreneur, you are responsible for forging dual lives – your company's as well your own. To err, after all, is human. To make the same "err' again is downright foolish. Giving up is not an option, another perspective to approaching the problem behind failure however, is. As an entrepreneur, it isn't just the ability to learn from mistakes that makes the difference, it is also the ability to hold hard and push on past failure at the particular time.
Strong work ethic: The life of an Entrepreneur sure does look exciting but they have to go through a lot. Entrepreneurs cannot afford to procrastinate, due to which they always end with a last minute meeting or working late night. If you are planning to become an entrepreneur you have to learn to adhere to the "work comes first' lifestyle. Self-discipline is key to entrepreneurship.
Though you have highly decorated honors and massive experience in your domain, if you don't have these qualities as entrepreneur, you may have a hard time managing your company. Most importantly, you need to learn to say no to things you love to do during your free time to make room for your legacy's priorities. Yes you read right, entrepreneurship is the founding stone to building your very own legacy, and you have to be willing, to be craving to achieve the legacy you dream of every so often.
