I always have thought that entrepreneurs are people who are always on the hurry. They are fast thinkers, they move fast, they motivate people fast and if they find an idea is not going to add any value to their plans, they will be the first to quit. Good .. that's common sense ..
The reason is quite natural, they do not have time to waste with ordinary people with no ideas and who are in no hurry to change the world.
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| Hard work, day in day out .. Courtesy Pinterest. |
The seven characteristics of entrepreneurs are given in short in the following passage.
7 Characteristics of Successful Entrepreneurs (www.due.com)
- Self-Motivation - one of the most important traits of entrepreneurs is self-motivation.
- Understand What You Offer - as an entrepreneur, you need to know what you offer, and how it fits into the market and customer aspirations
- Take Risks to enter the market before anyone else does
- Know How to Network with the right people who can contribute to the startup
- Basic Money Management Skills and Knowledge to handle the basic transactions to get the financial model running
- Flexibility to be able to move from one idea and business model to another idea and business model in as short a time as possible.
- Passion to go to any extent and spend any amount of time to achieve one's goals.
The problem with this approach is that more often than not, when one tries to get on the best workable idea that comes through, not thought out, it sometimes happens not to be the best idea. The entrepreneur may not have evaluated the idea on it's proper and correct, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats..
But research published in HBR of May 2018 have tried to highlight what could be possible strategies startups should take up.
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| Courtesy HBR May 2018. |
How can a strategy at the initial stages of a startup help the startup to evaluate options, alternatives and models to take forward. A false move and the entrepreneur loses a couple of years, a great opportunity and possibly he would pay dearly. The entrepreneur may lose an opportunity to hit it big or go down the drain.
The authors have tried to organise the startup strategies as a matrix, where the x axis is the willingness of the company to collaborate (with a large company, not very confident of the technology or the market) or compete (usually a technology product with a clear domination of the market and no likely competitors) and the y-axis is the attitude of the company either to build a moat (be by itself as regards technology and market and hope for the best) or storm the hill (publicise the strategy, tech, and get maximum share of the market as quickly as possible) ..
Accordingly the authors have come with these four strategies a startup should resort to in the initial stages with proper thinking and planning.
The authors have tried to organise the startup strategies as a matrix, where the x axis is the willingness of the company to collaborate (with a large company, not very confident of the technology or the market) or compete (usually a technology product with a clear domination of the market and no likely competitors) and the y-axis is the attitude of the company either to build a moat (be by itself as regards technology and market and hope for the best) or storm the hill (publicise the strategy, tech, and get maximum share of the market as quickly as possible) ..
Accordingly the authors have come with these four strategies a startup should resort to in the initial stages with proper thinking and planning.
- Intellectual Property (IP) strategy (top left, collaboration and maintain control of innovation, maintain total control of IP)
- Disruption strategy (bottom right, compete with incumbents and take them by surprise with fast execution)
- Value Chain strategy (bottom left, collaborate on creating value with partners and execute fast) and
- Architectural strategy (top right, create and control a value chain, protecting IP).
An example for the IP strategy is Dolby Noise reduction system, for disruption strategy, India's Jio telecom network, for value chain strategy, Foxconn Manufacturing in China and for architectural strategy, Google ..
If we ask successful entrepreneurs, whether they had the luxury of time to decide on what their strategy would be or whether they would grab the first plausible one that came their way, I am sure, more often than not, they would confess to the second approach. It gave them the comfort that they were working on a plausible idea. For them the learning came on the way, from repeated failures and minor adjustments that happened on the way.
The other option as given by the above quoted HBR paper, looks at being on the right track, one is more interested in knowing what are the options available before them, how to weigh the options before weighing the chances of success for each of the options.
Do entrepreneurs at the start of their career have the luxury and liberty to exercise options ? Do startups think in a detailed manner or grab the first plausible opportunity that comes their way ? If you ask any entrepreneur, more often than not, they would mention how they first blindly went about the first idea that came their way and later on with experience and maturity, exercised discretion, differentiated their areas of work and expertise.
If we ask successful entrepreneurs, whether they had the luxury of time to decide on what their strategy would be or whether they would grab the first plausible one that came their way, I am sure, more often than not, they would confess to the second approach. It gave them the comfort that they were working on a plausible idea. For them the learning came on the way, from repeated failures and minor adjustments that happened on the way.
The other option as given by the above quoted HBR paper, looks at being on the right track, one is more interested in knowing what are the options available before them, how to weigh the options before weighing the chances of success for each of the options.
Do entrepreneurs at the start of their career have the luxury and liberty to exercise options ? Do startups think in a detailed manner or grab the first plausible opportunity that comes their way ? If you ask any entrepreneur, more often than not, they would mention how they first blindly went about the first idea that came their way and later on with experience and maturity, exercised discretion, differentiated their areas of work and expertise.
George.
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