Understanding a true Entrepreneur!

Why should some body start some thing of his own? Is it because he is, as you can quote many saying, bitten by an entrepreneurial bug? Searching into encyclopedia of bugs you can see that such a bug doesn’t exist or is extinct now.

Leaving a cozy high paying job and starting some thing new, isn’t it stupidity?

Why should some body take such big risk?

Is it because he wants to make money?

Looking at the kind of salary that is being paid to those guys who are jumping out of the box, it can’t be true, unless he is greedy to make a quick buck. If he has a level head over the shoulder; it doesn’t take too much to understand that, he can not make such a huge money over night in any legal business that he can do. Forget about those bogus real estate and share market millionaires, I am not talking about them.

And an analysis on how much more money he wants to meet all his basic and exotic requirements can not justify he leaving this job and venturing out. In most of the cases he is not limited by money from doing/buying those exotic stuffs but by time available. So it may be better off to stay back at his present job than venturing out. At least you have your weekends to spend for leisure when you are on a normal job. You can’t expect that when you venture out to make it big. To succeed you know you need to do hard work. In a recent article, I read that, Azim Premji works 18 hrs a day even now! So when you start, you will have to work at least 24 hrs/day!

So again the question remains unanswered. It can not be for making money to lead that exotic life. Unless if he wants to make that much wealth for the next generation and generations to come …! I suspect whether he really wants that!

So then what should be the reason? Another reason I keep hearing is being you own boss!

This reason made me laugh aloud! Being you own boss…. Oooppps. At least when you are a manager in a company you have a battalion waiting for your commands..! And your company makes sure that your orders are heard and obeyed. But look at who all you can command when you start on your own. I can’t see any body except you. Not even your co-founder, if you want the company to be there! You really have to plead. You need to please government officers. You may not have to deal with them directly. Your CA will take care of it and bill it as “out of pocket expenses”! In any form of business you will have to sell something to somebody. You need to negotiate with your customer. You really have to appear nice and pleasing to get the deal signed. So who is the real boss here? You end up pleasing every body including your employees… you can’t afford to make them angry, else they make walk away.

Then what …! I want to do something of my own??? To me it sounds like a yet another name sake reason.

You can’t build a company just by your self any way. If you want to do something of your own... best may be to start a tea shop. Even there, you will have to depend on the milk vendor, sugar vendor etc. Nothing is done your own. Everything in this world is a result of team work! So how is it different from doing a similar kind of product, working for a company? I can’t see a difference except you end up doing a lot more work since in earlier case you have a support system to take care of all non-core works.

So what is it? Entrepreneurship, that is something different. It is daring and that is the style now. Well of course thoughts like these are definitely good reasons for a few to get motivated. But I doubt such motivations are sustainable once you really start touching the water.

So what is it ….!

Let us digress for a moment and look into a different question. Why Gandhi sacrificed his life for India…..?

He was not the one who is much affected by India not having independence. Neither his family.

Why? Why?

Since it is a matter of past it may be easy to answer … Nothing but his love for the fellow Indians. His love for his own country and perhaps to make british realize that they are doing some thing wrong and to correct them.

May be there lies the answer to our question also.

A real entrepreneur derives his motivation from solving the problems of humanity.

He is the one who is committed to build a better place to live. He is building a prosperous nation.

He is committed towards the prosperity of his fellow beings. He is a freedom fighter.

With out such an out standing vision and motivation, he can never be a successful entrepreneur. He may just become an yet another business man!