Yesterday, I had the opportunity to listen to 2 eminent entrepreneurs at SiliconIndia StartUp City - Sanjeev Bikchandani and Ajit Balakrishnan. This blog encapsulates the key take-aways from the 2 sessions. Sanjeev spoke about the 8 essential self-explanatory things that are key to the success of any entrepreneur. He'd give instances from his own experience at running InfoEdge to elaborate.
- Great businesses are built on deep customer insights.
- Are you solving an unsolved problem?
- The best kept secret of many market leaders is 'first mover' (atleast an early mover)
- Are you doing real work for real money?
- Be frugal - you are in control of your costs, not your revenue
- Assume you would not get funded - Have a suitable Plan B
- If you became an entrepreneur primarily to get rich - quit now.
- The most important quality of an entrepreneur is persistence.
Ajit spoke on the topic: The art of periodic re-invention.
He drew parallels between the evolution of the automobile (from the horse carriage through Henry Ford's Model T to the current models) and the Internet industry. An important dimension he added to his case was how important customer acceptance of the innovation that the innovator tries to bring in. He highlighted the case of how the evolution of the automobile got stuck at the horse-less carriage stage and how the evolution of internet portals got stuck with the newspaper look because of customer reluctance to accept a change!
Ajit also stressed on how important the mobile phone platform is for taking the internet evolution to the next stage. He also mentioned that the current craze for networking could be the basis of next potential big business opportunity on the Internet.
Very true pavan, a prominent thing that Sanjeev rightly pointed out is... "If you became and entrepreneur to become rich, quit now!"
ReplyDeleteThat the common misconception many of us have, there shall be lot other ways to become rich and famous, even quicker than pursuing entrepreneurship.
An entrepreneur is born to build something, innovate and learn, he is posed with challenges in his journey, each of which has a lesson to teach! Whatever.. I guess, that's what we are in this world for... To LEARN!
Another misconception is, an entrepreneur doesn't like bosses... which readily conflicts the way an entrepreneur works, He needs to collaborate and report to lots of people, his clients/ customers are his bosses.
ReplyDeletehaa yes.. he wishes to take decisions independently, but thy shall always be open for feedback and criticism, and owns up the results of his decisions... that doesn't mean they don't like bosses, in fact.. that's the characteristic of a leader!
@ Paresh,
ReplyDeleteSanjeev made a nice point why it is not just advisable to get into being an entrepreneur for the sake of money!
He said, don't be an entrepreneur just to make money because if you dont make money in the first 2-3 years you could lose steam!!
In the end, it may be that you could quit the business just when you are on the verge of making money...
I've been to a talk by Kanwal Rekhi once and he explained the importance of the ability to look at your business from an unemotional point of view. He explained how passion and emotion are two completely different things and the importance of treating ideas and decisions passionately and not emotionally. The courage to stand and up and say "I screwed up" takes us a long way.
ReplyDeleteJust wanted to add this interesting piece.
@ Jayant, Thanks for the inputs..I somehow think not all rules apply to everyone.
ReplyDeleteYesterday, I watched Federer win the French Open title finally. If my memory serves me right, he was a finalist in the past 5 editions as well. And at the end, he was all emotion! In this case, I am forced to think being emotionally attached to success helped! I feel strong emotions can charge up an individual like no other..
I do not clearly understand how differentiating 'emotion' and 'passion' plays a role here. Thought seemingly obvious, it is a little hazy at ground zero.
I cannot agree more completely with your last point.
Sometimes emotion can make us resistant to change, and we have to guard against that. I think that was what he was trying to say.
ReplyDeleteIf I can put my understanding into an equation,
ReplyDeletePositive emotion = Passion!
I believe persistence is a very important attribute for someone who wants to be an entrepreneur. After all bouncing back is the name of the game!
ReplyDeleteI liked the 'real work' and 'real money' concept the most! Especially for a business to be sustainable in recessionary times.
ReplyDeleteI agree with jayanth on lot of us are usually emotionally associated with our businesses.. usually the first ones..
ReplyDeleteI feel that yes emotion is important, as it gives you most positive energy to achieve what you want.. reinforces the power of intention.
However an entrepreneur needs to be able to live in the moment and look at whats getting screwed without emotionally attaching to cause and overlooking a few things...