Entrepreneurship

I had wanted to write something about this for some time but didn't have the time to. No time mainly due to my writing style. I do a first draft, proof-read, revision, final layout all at the same time. One paragraph can take me 30 mins.

But I'm trying to do away with that. What's the use of maybe a very good article if it could never be published. That's the main reason why I started blogging. An avenue for me to write again since I'm no longer in school.

Another problem I have is I digress too much. My topic is on entrepreneurship, why the hell am I writing two paragraph on my writing style?! haha.

Back to the topic, it sort of triggered me(here I go again) when I was interviewing a candidate. She brought up the fact that she wants to be an entrepreneur and went to quite a few courses on such scope to learn more. However, she still does not have an idea of what products or services to market.

I admire her courage and acumen. She was freshly out of school.

I would like to play the Devil's Advocat here.

Personally, I started a business with a few partners that deal with recruitment. It came a long way(in my opinion) albeit commencement was only in early 04. I left a comfortable job as a Customer Service Executive in an Aviation company. There, I got the chance to deal with customers from 3 different countries, travel to Taiwan on business, managed a booth during an exhibition.

A lot of people has the perception that being your own boss is ideal as you report to yourself, you can do things your own way and also reject doing all the things that you hated but were forced to do if you are just an employee.

That is actually quite a myopic view. What about the nice things that came with your job as an employee? The nice colleagues, the outings, the massive D&D, the learning process from people who are cleverer than you. And you are being paid to go through these btw. And oh yah, you can leave office on the dot.

Yes, there may be some issues that you feel you know better than your supervisor or boss. But things are usually done for a reason(I'm not considering politics). And it would also be your responsibility to escalate any better methods to your boss too. You expect him to read your mind?

Yes, being an entrepreneur gives you a free rein in doing things. But is that necessarily good? Unless you are certified to be the most intelligent person out there, I don't think so. A good consolation for today's entrepreneur is that there is Internet. You can always google on things you want to know. That's why a lot of seasoned entrepreneur are being asked to become mentors.

And unless you have a budget big enough, you will have to undertake the work of all the current departments you take for granted as an employee. You will have to be not only the CEO but also the finance dept, HR, marketing, IT, admin, sales, customer service. All rolled into one = a lot of time spent at the office.

My main point here is there is always another side of the picture. As much as the government is coming out with incentives and stuffs to encourage, I hope such hopefuls would be able to see clearly before jumping the gun.

Could you tahan the first few months without wages or are you so confident that your business plan is so awesome that you canbreak-even on day one? Would you mind spending most of your time at work and neglect all the other things in life?

What if you do not have any idea on what to do? Go and get yourself a job, gain exposure and try to discover what is your traits and see if you can couple that with your product knowledge then.

And don't reinvent the wheel. Learn from other people's mistakes so you don't have to experience it.