An entrepreneur or an artist...?

It is funny how people refer to starting a company as starting a "business" but when it comes to drawing a painting OR even making a movie OR writing a song they are almost hesitant to mention the word "business'. It is almost as if "art" will get tainted if you mention the word "business" BUT it is ok to call a company a "business" as that is the acceptable norm...

My take has always been that to start something new (it could be anything) qualifies you to be an artist and therefore a person starting a company is FIRST an artist (or a creator) and then a businessperson. So for me being an entrepreneur is about being an artist..... sounds funny let me elaborate.

Any original thought (the mainfestation of it could be in any form ) is an "art" as it is unique to a person and that is what art is about . When an enterprise starts it is first about "creation" and the person who is starting it is the painter or artist. Like an artist the entrepreneur first conceptualizes his/her creation and "paints" a picture in the canvas of the mind (that is about the only difference between an entrepreneur and a traditional artists) . The enterprise is ALWAYS born in the mind of the creator and for me that is where the success and failure of it gets determined.

So when you are starting something ask yourself a fundamental question "what do I want to create"? the answer should paint the picture in your mind and only once this picture is clear to you should you look at taking the first step towards creation.Remember end of the day a business is ONLY about creation and if an artist doesnt know what he/she is creating then it would be difficult to expect anyone else to understand and therefore value it......

the second friend,,, the start (contd)

The second friend when you start a business (with cash being the first one) is well...... an actual friend !! Whew let you down on that one right !!

This "friend" (who can be a mentor/spouse/co founder/investor/pen pal ) is essential in the initial years as not only are the first 2 years (often called the graveyard period as success rates could be as low as 1%) very tough from a financial perspective BUT they are also very LONELY.

there are many days where you just want to well.... QUIT... The days when your biggest customer doesnt pay you as he/she doesnt have money OR well just doesnt want to pay... the day when what you thought was going be the business deal which would have paid for 2 months of working capital doesnt come through.... The day when you see an old office colleague buy a new car... the day when your parents tell you "Look at so and so, he has just bought a small flat ,when will you settle down?"... the day when you get up in the morning and ask yourself "WHY DO I HAVE to get all the bad luck ....... ?

It is on those days (and believe me there will be several) when you just need someone to listen to you and and say "Dont worry ... this too shall pass" and not in a condescending or avuncular fashion but in a one to one way. That person is invaluable for you (I had one and believe me i dont think i would have survived 2 business failures if it hadnt been for this friend)

These are the days when you should also go and see a movie (remember the titans is one of my favourites OR if you prefer hindi movies then lagaan should do fine) which talks about people who overcame heavy odds. if you dont have the money see clips online OR borrow from a library!

I also used to read and my personal favourites were business biographies and personally loved the ones on Jamshetji Tata (for the love of india) OR the one on southwest airlines (NUTS). These really inspired me and i would count them also as "friends" ie books as without them i may not have been as inspired to create and constantly challenge myself.

the start.... the 1st friend

So you have now started.... In case you havent please go back and read the earlier 3 posts as in case you have not started what i am saying now will not be relevant for you... Oh you havent started but you still want to read further , ok its a free world but dont complaint in case you find this boring....

Once you start the first 90 days will be one of turmoil. This would be a mix of frustration and exhileration but i promise you that these days will be ones that you will never forget. Remember your closest friend in the early days (and people will say in days to come also) would be... cash. yes you read this right, cash.

Surprised ! Cash is one thing which lubricates the wheels of business and also in most cases is singularly responsible for your peace of mind during this phase. In case you have a rich benefactor then life is made for you as this friend is not something you need to work to acquire but it comes with the territory! If you ask me the single biggest leason that i learnt (at my own expense) in the early days of entrepreneurship was the management of cash. It is not that one has to get obessessed with it to the exclusion of everything else that one thinks about but you need to treat it with the same respect as you would treat a friend.

Cash in early days is used in 2 things (as it is for most periods of your business). One is for making investments ie buying stuff which would be used for longer periods of time and the price of which you would recover over a time frame (computers/software/office space/website etc) and the other is expenses which are one time costs (salary/phone bills/travel etc) .These expenses could also sometime be one time and non recurring in nature (in case you are taking an office then you would need to pay a deposit).

Remember investments always get a preference over expenses and you can be slightly more liberal with them and similarly slightly less concerned about costs which are one time and non recurring in nature. It is the regular expenses (also called working capital) which you need to be careful with and make sure that you have that in check during the period of trial (see earlier post to understand meaning of this term).

i have some good news , apart from cash (which is cold) you also have another friend during your early start up days.... who is that ???? more in the next post.

The start....

So now that you are mentally ready (please read my earlier two posts to figure what i mean by that) to start you need to .....well start !That doesnt sound too tough right .

hey but what about proof of concept/talking to experts/reading internet reports on the subject which everyone talks about as must dos before you start a business !!

Well my take is that those activities are parallel activities and need to be done along with running your enterprise. Sounds weird , let me explain this further.

A business has to be "done" before you can figure out whether it works OR what you need to tweak in it to make it work . The sad part of a business is that its success only failure comes through when you start selling your product/service in the market and for that well... you need to sell. Human behaviour (which is what business is all about) cant be studied in controlled environments and even if it can the results are far from accurate ! The other aspect is that too much of thinking results in the famous analysis/paralysis which results in the classic case of prolonged inertia.

So you need to start .... and to start you need money (for yourself and for your business). In light of that the "cost of trial" needs to be low as whatever money you are putting in at this stage (yours or someone elses) is "pure risk" money so you need to be sure that you dont go overboard on expenses at this stage.

A simple rule of thumb is that whatever money you think you need (after working ALL your calculations on the back of an envelope or XL sheets) , divide it by half and that should be pretty much what you actually need to start a business (i will call it the "by 2" rule)!

This is the most vital stage of your business and the more you "think" about it the more you will NOT do it. Remember it is life changing decision and most life changing decisions are unfortunately imposed on us (through either a catastrophe or a stroke of great luck) but in this case it is completely in your hands.Look at your finances, make sure that your conviction is as strong as it was when you first wanted to do this thing and jump.........

Business to that extent is like any other sport ie while the battle is fought in the mind, the game can ONLY be learnt by "playing" on the field and NOT by sitting in the classroom.

The mind....contd

So do you really believe in something? Well i am not trying to be philosophical here but am asking this question with the intent of getting you to do some soul searching. Fundamental to the concept of entrepreneurship is the concept of "belief" and in this case it is "self belief" (more on that later though).

Cast your mind back to school and college and try and think of instances where you took a call on something (it could be as simple as supporting a different team during the football finals) which was different from what the others were saying and then had the courage to stay with your opinion despite it not appearing "popular" with the rest of the crowd. This is a cornerstone of being able to strike out on your own as for many years of your life (once you start) you will be swimming against the tide and for that it is only your belief that will keep you going.The courage of being able to say and do things which are opposite to what the crowd is doing can be demonstrated early in ones life and for me if ever there was an entrepreneurship gene then that is what it is.

Staying with this for some more time , post your proving your "weirdness" and "surrounding yourself with yay-sayers" you need to get your belief iron clad. This belief in this case is your "way of approaching a business situation". Remember that in a job we are given two sets of directions one is "what to do" and the other is "how to do it" and when you want to strike out on your own there has to be some belief in you on either of these two things which convinces you that you can do a better job of the "what" or the 'how".

Think about this over and over again and make sure that you believe in that so strongly that even if you were the only person on this planet with that thought you would still not change it. let me give you an example to make this "belief stuff" clearer.

When i started business i had a simple belief .My belief was that once a person crossed the age of 21 he/she was an adult and therefore should know what is good and bad for him/her. In case that person didnt then he/she wasnt an adult and therefore didnt qualify to work in my company anyway. So if a person is an adult then post giving a road map with a clear goal that person should be able to navigate through and reach that place. Confused ! Well in simple language my belief is that people dont need to be constantly supervised to deliver fantastic results and i was looking to create an organization where you excelled because you wanted to excel NOT because your boss told you to excel.

I have given you this example to illustrate that a belief is NOT a business plan and can supposedly be as "unrelated" to business as what mine was (notice it doesnt talk anything of making something faster,cheaper etc which is what one reads in books and self help documentaries). A belief is PERSONAL to an entrepreneur and needs to be cherished and nurtured as that is what will give you the feeling of creation which will sustain you through bounced cheques and humiliating meetings (when customers make you wait for 2 hours and then tell you to come tomorrow and to ad insult to injury tell you to call before coming as tomorrow is a very busy day!).

This belief is what makes the core value of an organization (mine was freedom) and it flows from the founder/s and in case there are 2 of your starting this company then make sure that the core belief (whatever that is) needs to be common among all the people who start.

A belief cant be theorized upon so DONT read a book to get it OR think that one needs to get an MBA/go through a course in entrepreneurship to get it. A belief is fundamental (like to steal is wrong OR Sachin tendulkar IS the best batsman in the world!) and the best part about it is that it doesnt need a majority to prove it right !

So now we have covered three stages of the mind when it comes to being able to start something new

1.Being weird

2.Surrounding yourself with yay-sayers

3. Having one single unshakeable belief

I will post more on the next stage in a couple of days.......

start something new-Part 1 -The Mind

1st of july 2010, today is the first day of my new company (well i havent stated it as yet but atleast i know what i am going to do once i get some start up logistics out of the way...

I exited the 3rd company (sold it 2 years ago to a larger firm) that i started (the first two i had to shut down for lack of finances) yesterday and it was a day of mixed emotions .How can one explain the feeling when one leaves the company that one has started!! all i can say that it must be similar to what one feels when ones children become financially independent and leave home ie bitter sweet.

anyway this is not about the past , this is about the future as my next venture will exclusively focus on getting people to start companies ie it is a seed fund which will make the first investment in a start up company.

Today is a great day as the feeling of starting something new is overwhelming The joy of knowing that finally all the thought of the last one year will slowly see the light of the day is overpowering. I believe i am really blessed to be able to follow my heart(and sometimes my head also !) and when i meet people who are undecided about striking out on their own all i tell them is that DONT think too much about it , once you have some plan in mind and have sorted out some personal finances START.

the problem is that in order to start something new you need to be slightly crazy as logic and all the advisors around you will tell you that it CANT be done.Conventional wisdom always dictates that there is safety in following the herd and therefore if you expect a "sane" person to advice you to start your business then you are wrong. Sane people will always tell you to do what they have done (remember we never see things as they are , we see things as we are) and will quote examples of from their experiences of how people who deviated from the set path only got into trouble. Remember that if sane people would have had their way Marco Polo and other great entrepreneurs of the past ( i personally regard the maritime explorers as the craziest entrepreneurs that i have ever read about) would have been sitting in their houses and who knows we might still be thinking that the earth is flat (i do know that these days some people say that the earth actually is flat !)

Apart from the weird people whom you need when you start something new you also need to have "yay-sayers" . hey doesnt that mean "yes men" and didnt what we learn at business school tell us that we must not become yes men .

Well ladies and gentlemen welcome to the world of entrepreneurship , in this world we ONLY need optimists as the "other" world (which an entrepreneur deals with day in and day out) has either cynics OR the envious.So if you want to start speak with people who can give you balanced advice yes BUT people whose outlook to life is positive and if possible hang on to a couple of people atleast who will say that "yes it can be done" you will need these people at very frequent intervals.

So after the weird folks and the "yay-sayers" are in place you need to become deaf so that you DONT hear all the advice that tells you that you cant do it and that you must give up and armed with these three you are ready to start.

So how come i am not talking about having a business plan/financial support which is what one normally reads about as being essential to start? The reason for that is that once your mind is prepared and your em0tions are settled you are ready for business and to me that is far more important that all the other conventional tools that one reads about in order to start a business.

Remember to start something new you have got to be emotionally ready which is more important than being financially ready...

So what are the next steps ..... well i will come back with more on that in a few days.....