The Joy Of Entrepreneurship

Testing limits of possibilities is an incorrigible human instinct. Trying to extend those limits is what drives the people driven by passions, from formulae I racers to mountaineers to entrepreneurs.

So who is an entrepreneur? The Cambridge dictionary defines entrepreneur as someone who starts their own business, especially when it involves risks.

Having said that, we must differentiate between taking controlled risks and gambling. In gambling you loose all and sometimes win some. Yudhishtir, the lord of justs, in the Indian epic of Mahabhrata, certainly did not demonstrate an entrepreneurship spirit, when he lost all his wealth and wife in a gambling spree with uncle Shakuni. Shakuni was using a biased dice. Had Yudhishtir been an entrepreneur, he would have cut his losses early on in the gaming session. Then would have struck an partnership with uncle Shakuni and patented his dice design, then would have sold the gaming rights along with franchising to the Las Vegas casinos!

Therefore entrepreneurship is about, identifying an opportunity out of a threat and then moving ahead with a strategic intent to make money.

Entrepreneurs are the first generation business entrants, with guts of steel and who are determined to make money out of the ideas, that they are passionate about.

To start your own business you need not have a ton of cash. Microsoft, HP, Ford Motors, Infosys, Biocon all started small and at times in a garage!

No holds bar

Age is also no bar. Bill Gates started his company when he was a teenager and KFC founder Colonel Sanders started his enterprise in his sixty's.

Qualification is also no bar. Dhirubhai Ambani was a high school graduate while Narayan Murthy has an engineering degree from IIT.

In fact, I can cite more college drop outs as successful entrepreneurs than who have fancy degrees. Michael Dell dropped out of University of Texas at Austin when he was 19 years old to start Dell, with a $1000 investment. Dell is now the largest computer hardware company. Bill Gates also dropped out of college to start Microsoft in his parent's garage.

In the Indian context, I have already mentioned that Dhirubhai Ambani was high school pass out.

Lijjat Papad was started was seven semi literate poor women with a borrowed Rs. 80. It took four decades of entrepreneurship to clock a Rs. 281 crore turnover in financial year 2001-2002 compared to Rs. 6,196 in the first year of operation.

Why there are so many successful drop-outs who have made it big?

There are two dominant schools of thought on this issue. First one says that the opportunity cost of a college graduate to start a new venture, which has a success rate of 1 in 10, is higher than a dropped out colleague. That is so, because a graduate is more likely to get a job than a drop-out.

Another school of thought says that the drop outs are non conformists and they can therefore think differently. Albert Einstein was written off by his maths teachers at school and after passing out from Swiss National Polytechnic in Zürich, and his teachers there did not think highly of him.

The same school of thought suggest that the college graduates are conformists and therefore only suitable for the corporate rat race. And, even if you win the rat race, you still end up being a rat.

How to get out of the rat race?

Robert Kiyosaki, the author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, defines a cash flow quadrant. I strongly recommend this book to escape the rat race. In a nutshell he says that it is not your employer duty to make you rich. You have to do it yourself. Your employer will give you enough to survive and a bit more to keep you running up the hamsters treadmill.

In order to get rich or at least to get the thrill of trying to get rich, start your own enterprise.

How much money is needed to start a venture?

His or her prime resources are human capital and not financial capital. In fact, entrepreneurship is about converting the human capital into financial capital. For example Lijjat Papad started with a Rs. 80 of funding. Do you have Rs. 80 in your pocket now? If not! Then you could always borrow, just like the seven enterprising founders of Lijjat did.

Next step:

So now that you know that you can garner the magic sum of rupees eighty, you need to know how to go about starting your own money making venture.

You can contact one of the Technology Entrepreneur's Park promoted by Department of Science and Technology near you. Or you can contact TIE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) chapter near you, see http://www.tie.org.

I wish you luck and I am sure you will find it a thrilling experience.

The joy of entrepreneurship is walking the talk, on a tight rope with no strings attached.

About the Author:

Ashish Banerjee, ashish@oecom.co.uk, is CTO and founder of Osprey E-Commerce Ltd.,UK. He has also founded VServe Solutions Ltd. In UK.

Ashish Banerjee has more than 16 years of experience as a software developer. He has experience of designing and developing software for USA, UK and Germany. He has been a nominee for Dewang Mehta award for Innovation in IT for year 2002-2003. He has guided more than 12 masters of technology level projects with IETE (Institute of Electronics and Telecommunication Engineers). He has contributed a number of articles in trade magazines and Internet. He has co-authored a C# Web Services book (ISBN: 1861004397) published by Wrox in USA and UK. He has been recognised by Microsoft as Dot Net Community Star of India.