What makes entrepreneurs entrepreneurial?

Came across this brilliant paper which points out the difference between the way entrepreneur thinks and works and the way an MBA would handle it.

The main difference I saw was in the approach, Entrepreneur would jump into action with little analysis, and make the market carve out a roadmap, there is not a huge timelag or investment that is put in before entering the market, whereas an MBA typically spends a lot of time and effort into market research, competition analysis and logically designs the best possible product.

The difference is the cost of failure. Entrepreneurial thinking reduces the cost of failure and at the same time tries to create blue oceans. Blue oceans, cannot help but be a result of entrepreneurial thinking.

Of course for the success of a venture, experience and technical knowledge is a must, be an entrepreneur or a MBA!
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Four Types of customers

Customer

Every industry has four types of customers:

  1. Loyal Customers
  2. Soon-to-be Non-Customers
  3. “Refusing” Non-Customers
  4. “Unexplored” Non-Customers

You can gain a lot from each type of customer, if used properly. If one adds to your revenue stream, the other helps improve your product and strategy. You will need to concentrate different activities on each type of customer. This saves your effort from getting diluted, at the same time helps gets maximum out of every effort you put in.
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How not to lose a Business plan competition?

Business PlanLast month I got a chance to go through about 25 business plans. All plans were in the idea stage and were written by college students. I am no expert in wrinting bplans, but felt, with basic knowledge on how to run a company and common sense, the bplans could have been improved many folds.

For a Business plan to be successful in real world, there are a few areas that you need to concentrate on irrespective of the sector of operation. In a bplan competition you will judged on the very same criteria. I will be talking on these few key areas in this post.

Say, you go to a investor asking him to invest in your company. What are the things he will see before investing in your company?
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Kick-Starting a Venture

Gave a talk on Kick-Starting a Venture at NITK, Surathkal. Practical things that are to be taken care of when starting/running a venture.

You can download the presentation here : kick-starting-a-venture.ppt

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Google has a 3rd co-founder!?

Until now we knew Larry Page and Sergey Brin as the (only) co-founders of Google. But few months back a man is claiming to be the third co-founder of Google.

Hubert Chang claims that as an NYU Ph.D student in 1997 he was introduced to Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin by Stanford professor Rajeev Motwani. He claims that he came up with the pagerank concept, developed a part of Business Plan and even the company name – Google!

When asked why he wasnt mentioned on the original Pagerank paper? He says, he chose to pursue his Ph.D instead (Note: Larry and Sergey decided dropped out of college to start Google)
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Starting a Business: Hire the right People

Job Vacant

When we hire people, we need to choose those who have the right skills and attitude. Any business, especially a startup, cannot afford to hire someone who does not fit in. It is the team that matters more than the brilliant B-Plan you have. I can go on and on about how important it is to get the right people in, and build the right team.

With resources running low and lot of things to do, it is the belief in the idea/product that can push anyone to give their best. It is very important to see that, the one you hire initially (at-least) understands what you are doing and believe that it can work.
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Starting a Business: Choose the right partner

HandshakeIt is always a better idea to start a venture with a partner, than doing it single handed. But, not so, if you choose the wrong one!

A wrong choice here might prove is fatal. You choose a wrong partner and certainly you are on your way to the doom-land.

Ask yourself the following questions:

  • Is he trust worthy?
  • Is he valuable to the company?
  • Is he as hardworking as you?
  • Is he worthy enough(contribute enough) to own a part of your company?

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Starting a Business: Always have a backup plan

Guess what would have happened if you didn't have a backupHow much ever we plan, things do go wrong, and we get unexpected results. Remember the Murphy’s law – “If anything can go wrong, it will!“?

Having a backup plan helps you to come out of the situation without hurting yourself too much. Backup plan helps you to be up and running before you loose it all.

First of all, we need to avoid getting into these kind of situations. A proper market research will go a long way. I had stressed how crucial research is in one of my previous posts – “Starting a Business: Research before jumping in“.

Even if you did research thoroughly, sometimes things do go wrong due to various uncertainties.
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Starting a Business: No to Unwanted Facilities

No to comfortWhen money is tight, as the case is, in any startup, you do not want to be spending on unnecessary things. But unfortunately, that is what most of us end up doing.

We tend to get our priorities wrong and spend too much money and time on things like, Big Office space, logo, fancy web template, going for a costly web server, luxury to mention a few. Instead of which, you need to be spending your resources on product development, market research, sales.

Drive your resources on activities/infrastructure which will help your company to go to the next level.
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Starting a Business: Do you have enough money?

MoneyDo not underestimate the cost involved in getting your new business up and running. There will be lots of unforeseen expenditure which might eat into your budget and cause problems in the run. Make an approximate of how much you need to get your company up and running.

Some of the common expenditures are:

  • Man Power
  • Equipment/Infrastructure
  • Softwares, Hosting
  • Marketing and Sales expenditure
  • Misc – Stationary, Food/Snacks etc

Above is just the list common expenditures. Depending on your type of business and how you operate you may have to add/remove to the above list.
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