Entrepreneurship and Leadership for … Life
Entrepreneurship is more than just starting and running a business. It’s a lifestyle that some choose to thrive and survive in. It’s a state of being, that not only helped the world with innovative and better products but can also improve the life of any practioner.
Entrepreneurship and leadership are similar in many ways. Like leadership, entrepreneurship also improves the personal lives of entrepreneurs.
Entrepreneurship teaches everyone to take calculated risks. Risk is a part of living. We take multiple risks everyday. When driving, deciding whether to change the lanes or not when there’s heavy traffic. Or when going on a third date, whether to take red flowers or white flowers. They may or may not mean different things to your date. Entrepreneurial experience helps in analytical thinking. If you take a red rose, there are two things that can happen: either you an upgrade or a downgrade. If you get an upgrade, you could get engaged. Then you might get married as well. If it doesn’t work, well you’ll be on the lookout for other people.
For those who are familiar with Game Theory, something formalized by John Nash, the central character of A Beautiful Mind, this concept might sound familiar. Entrepreneurs are trained on critical thinking. After some experience, they become masters at calculating and mitigating risks.
More importantly, entrepreneurship helps one to take the initiative to do something. Many a times, people have great ideas but there is no action to follow-up. The ideas get lost due to lack of action. The only way to make a dream come true is to wake up and the difference between dream and reality is action.
Time management is a by-product of entrepreneurship training. Entrepreneurs are most productive when they are the busiest. It’s a fact that a piece of work when given to a busy person is sometimes done faster and more accurately than when given to someone who’s not that busy. Entrepreneurs, by practice, learn how to manage time well. It’s a requirement and not a luxury since at any given day and time, they have tens and hundreds of things on their “to-do” list.
Entrepreneurs always find an opportunity in a bad situation. When our business plan got rejected by a couple of venture capitalists, we at Gridalogy thought of alternatives. We got ourselves together and improved our plan. At the same time, we also came up with a plan to fund the company internally for as long as we can. The result was three other companies that we formed so that we could fund Gridalogy.
Entrepreneurship forces organizations to operate on lean resources. More often than not, they end up trying to prove their ideas and have to work on extremely limited resources. Some VCs also believe that the more money that is given to a start-up, the less is the chance of success.
Entrepreneurs have contributed much in the world that we live in. Our lives are touched by their creation every single day. From the most popular operating system to the chip that runs them and from automobiles to energy efficient electronics and a efficient supply-chain system, all have been the innovations of entrepreneurs. You can love ‘em, you can envy ‘em, but you can’t never do without ‘em.