Getting into your own business (Part 1) – What’s the “right stuff” you need to start a business?

This is the first part of what the author hopes will be a long saga of articles to help you get into your own business. I will try and make them simple with a lesson from each piece that you can use in everyday life.

The first few intro articles will take a brief look at the nature of entrepreneurship before we go and have a closer look at some of the concepts of finding and opportunity and turning it into a viable business.

Having just completed writing a two volume book on entrepreneurship (and feeling really good about it), my wife and I travelled up to Bangkok to see the old man who was making a visit. I didn’t think that there is much I could learn from a 76 year old guy, but I could have never been more wrong. Upon arriving at the Hilton Club floor we embraced and I told him that I had just finished writing a book on entrepreneurship. “Entrepreneurship” ….he said….”that’s about courage and determination”. My father had just summed up my two volume book in two words. He won my respect.

The revelations continued during the day when he told me what he was doing in Bangkok. Being brought up in a developed country, we had always thought of exporting our products to Asia – after all we come from a developed country right! Dad was doing it the other way, bringing Asian brands to Australia, a complete change in the business premise that we were brought up on. So success is about doing things differently, where there is some latent demand that we are sensitive to pick up on, or constructing some new idea that people will get excited about.

The next day we drove out to a soy milk factory just East of Bangkok. I watched him pull off a deal on the spot, no hesitation. Two days later he flew onto Shanghai and sold the product into some of the major hypermarkets there. He knew what he was doing and then I realized business is about people and developing networks, not about what we know. It’s about creative flair and looking for things that have never been done before. It’s about imagination which plays an immensely important role in both developing ideas and implementing them.

This had been a life changing experience for me. I went up to Bangkok thinking I know everything and returned home realizing how little I really understand the world of opportunities. It’s so important to have an open mind about things so that we never miss out on something important and crucial. Sometimes our preconceptions block our ability to learn new things. These are all lessons that business schools can’t teach us no matter how hard they try. Business is deeply emotional and we need these emotions to learn. It’s the excitement of finding new insights into new opportunities that gives us the courage and motivation to be determined to just do it and go beyond what any other person has done before.

Everybody can do this, it’s about the right mindset – being open minded to new things, to dream with confidence of what could be, and having the courage and determination to do it. You can learn from anybody – some of the best ideas come from people that you would never expect. Learning is a continual process that goes on all the time.

Be brave, open minded and consider.

Finally, it must be said that not everybody has a natural inclination towards entrepreneurship. However the time may come and often does where you have no choice about it. It’s your only option. In addition we are not all loaded with the capital that business schools assume when they teach entrepreneurship. Most if not nearly all struggle to make ends meet in starting something. During this series of articles, these considerations will be kept closely in mind.

Next week I want to talk about how most people fail before they are successful.

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