Tim de Jardine -Entrepreneur

There has been a lot of talk recently on the definition of an entrepreneur.  You will find many different and varied definitions e.g:

“Person who owns, operates, and takes the risk of starting a business venture”

“An entrepreneur is someone who assumes the financial risk of beginning and managing a new venture. The venture can be based on a totally new idea, a new way of doing something, a new location, or attempting something no one else has done before.”

“An innovator of business enterprise who recognizes opportunities to introduce a new product, a new process or an improved organization, and who raises the necessary money, assembles the factors for production and organizes an operation to exploit the opportunity.”

Here is my definition:

Its not really about what, its about ‘who’.

Being a consultant or self-employed is not necessary entrepreneurial.  You own a job.  Congratulations.

An Entrepreneur is not a job title, it is not a status nor is it a behaviour.  An Entrepreneur is a state of being.  It is a mindset.  The mindset is that you can create or improve products or processes.  You are using your creativity to solve a problem, you are a visionary.

Are you a Visionary?

The desire/need to be associated or classified as a startup in a way that it is “cool”, “trendy”.

People build communities around start-ups, celebrate them and proclaim that they are a “start-up”, it’s their livelihood, their identif]ty.  This observation gives insight into the psychology of these entrepreneurs.

Personally I want to get out of startup mode as quickly as possible.  Out of the red (making no money) and into the black (profitable).  There seems to be a small community that continuously proclaim that they are a startup, some even after 7 years in business! (I mean really, how long can you start something).  Their entire strategy is based around being a startup.  Starting.  And not going much further.

Startups are boring, risky.  Get profitable and dis-associate yourselves with startups.

Why?  

“Start-up” implies:

• little experience
• negative cash
• unproven
• small
• insignificant
• risky

I just came back from a run and it was really tough.  Up hill for 35 minutes to a wind turbine and down again for another 30.  How on earth do I have the time to do this?  After-all after university it was easy, but now I am REALLY busy! I am involved in several companies and self=employed. 

A phrase I can’t grasp is “I dont have enough time”.  It is irrelevant and false.  Everyone has enough time.  We all infact have EXACTLY the same amount of time:  24 Hours a day, 168 Hours a week.  

Its not that they dont have enough time.  Its enough priority.

If you want to get fit, it will take 2.9% of your week.  Its not time its priority.

If you want to watch tv, it will take 12.5% of your week, is that a priority?

If you sleep for 8 hours a day 7 days a week and work for 8 hours a day 5 days a week, you have used 57% of your week.  What are you doing with the remaining 43% or 72 hours?

Start a business, getting fit, developing a skill take priority. Time is just an excuse.

Mark Cuban brings up an interesting post recently.  Its about sweat equity, the best sort of equity.  All of Marks businesses have been sweat equity and self-funded.  Sweat equity is where the entrepreneur puts all his/her time into the business for nothing, hence the term “sweat”.  Mark doesn’t believe in getting money up front and neither should you.  Sure, get cash when you have a market and customers, but never before a product.  This just creates conditions where you throw silly money at things hoping they will go away.  If you didnt have the cash, I would bet that you can come up with a solution by being creative.

The second part of my innovation series has been published in In-Business.  This part puts emphasis on the importance of execution.  

Ideas without execution truly are hobbies.  One of the biggest lessons I have learnt is to associate with people that can execute.  Most people are all talk and no action.  The most valuable employees/business partners are those that see something through to the end.  Regardless of the hardship, of the challenges and opportunities.  The best stick with it and deliver on what they promised.  The average simply give up when things start getting a little tough.  The same can be said for innovation.  The best execute, the rest have an ‘idea’.

In Wellington by the local cinema there is a spare concrete area that has recently become vacant.  The lot sits between bowling alleys, cinemas and the centre of courtenay place (cafe culture/pubs).  There was an excellent opportunity to place something constructive or different there that would draw in people in the area to a new location. Perhaps an ice skating rink?  

Guess what? they put a car park there.  Where is the innovation?  Answer: Its not there, its too dangerous. Car Parks are safe, they draw in steady revenue streams.

Safe is mediocre.

Its never a single person who creates an idea. Where did they get the thought from? What influenced them? What influenced the influencer?

An idea is an idea. An idea with actions is a plan. An idea in a system is even more powerful. An idea with execution is the winner.

Its execution that counts, not ideas. Worth repeating.

Its execution that counts

So don’t be so precious with your ideas. The reality is there are probably dozens of people with the same idea. Are they teaming up? Are they executing better? Have they just found a partner?

You will never know.

In the world of entrepreneurship Teams Win and the only way you will find out about that other entrepreneur is after they win.

About 4-5 years ago, my business partner and I came up with the idea for a device to record exercises at the gym to track and record online in a software as a service model where people could actually measure progress. At the time this was radical thinking we could clearly see there would be a market in the future.

Nike has recently teamed up with gyms to provide integration between gym equipment and the Iphone. It is now only a matter of time that this type of integration will exist on anaerobic exercises.

The point is this:

We spent alot of time honing a business plan and talking to people and it seemed that some shared our vision, some did not. We even went to a few of the local business incubators in Wellington to pitch the idea and get some advice from “experts”. This was the wrong move.

The incubator was more interested in the “budget” or “board of advisors” than pointing two fresh-faced grads in the right direction. We clearly understood that these are important areas to address, but not at that time. We wanted to get the concept right, see if it would fly…This proved very frustrating.

The moral of the story is this: Dont expect any type of inspirational/visionary advice from these so called “experts”. They are only really there to sell consultancy services.

You are the visionary.
You are the one who sees the future.
These people are not entrepreneurs.

Great Ideas alone don’t guarantee success. Original ideas don’t either. Success is accomplished using a combination of execution and more importantly timing. Why do I say timing? There were dozens of video sharing sites before YouTube. Dozens of web mail applications before Gmail and many social networks before MySpace and Facebook. What these successful iterations did was combine an already embraced concept and take successful elements of the old and slightly adjust and tweak the features to what users really wanted. The timing had to be right for these companies to succeed. Timing as in: features, the date, current events, market overview, morale.

Past experience matters, the problem is it does not always matter. So often I read of new companies that are run by a previous leader in another field or of a top athletes transferring from one team to another riding a wave of fame but reaping a mediocre performance.

The reason is because everything has changed. The team is different, the world is different, the opportunity is different.

The entrepreneur with a golden touch is a rarity.

Its a bit like the stock market. Its impossible to predict the future