Starting Up, Taking the Plunge

In today’s world everyone wants to be independent and get an easy exit from their routine jobs.

Many people believe that they would be more successful, or lead a completely different life, if at some point they had made a different choice about their career and followed their dreams. But there are really very few people who decide to lead an unconventional path and emerge successful.

What really drives these people to take the plunge and start up their own business?

Most of the entrepreneurs decide to start their own business as they want a better control over their life. They want to follow their own business idea and work on their own terms or sometimes even to supplement their current income. The most important characteristic in all these entrepreneurs is that they are very passionate about their work and can work round the clock to see their dream turn into reality.

According to an online poll conducted by Hiscox asking entrepreneurs what motivated them to turn their idea into reality a vast majority of the responses indicated that the primary reason was to be their own boss.

Source: UK Business News
The results of the survey are as follows:

• 32% of responses indicated people went into business to be their own boss
• 27% wanted to make extra money
• 16% hoped to bring to life a great idea
• 14% wanted to escape the corporate world
• 10% had started their own business as a result of being made redundant

What are the essentials to be an entrepreneur?

Thomas H. Byers in his book “Technology Ventures from Idea to Enterprise” brilliantly summarizes roles of entrepreneurs as ‘Entrepreneurs strive to make a difference in our world and to contribute to its betterment. They identify opportunities, mobilize resources, and relentlessly execute on their visions.’

To be successful with the startup venture one must be dedicated and focused. It’s very important that the concept of the venture should be as unique as possible to avoid facing any competition in the market. Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin group rightly said “Business opportunities are like buses, there’s always another one coming.” It’s important to identify the right opportunity and then plunge into action with proper planning, rather than getting started without planning and then wondering what to do next.

An equally motivated team is very crucial while taking the first steps with the business, selecting the right candidates for a startup is a more difficult task than choosing the candidates for a well-established company, as in a startup team it is often required that the team members can perform tasks ranging from product development to marketing and sometimes even maintaining accounts.

What are the challenges faced by entrepreneurs?

To be an entrepreneur one has to move out from the comfort level of a fixed monthly salary and job security, definitely it is a daunting task for many. Most of the startups are self-financed in its incubation stages, so to get a start one has to invest a lot of personal savings into the business, and after doing all this the chances of getting a good fortune in return is uncertain.

Entrepreneurs definitely should have a lot of patience, very few tasted success right from the time they started. It’s important to believe in the idea of the business and keep on making changes as per the need of the customer. Most of time people quit when they are close to achieve what they had initially planned. Of course choosing a secured job is far less risky than leading a startup but in the job one would definitely miss the satisfaction of seeing your ideas turn into reality.

There are risks and costs to a program of action. But they are far less than the long-range risks and costs of comfortable inaction- John F Kennedy

Running your own business is not for everyone but it can be fulfilling if it’s the right thing for you. Keep yourself motivated and the team with which you work. Learn different skills which you need to be a successful leader .Wait for the right opportunity get everything settled and then go ahead take the plunge to success and freedom.