Great video from my session at London Metropolitan University – Business Society talking about the motivations for starting a business while still at university.
Learning by Doing
It is from classrooms we learn so much about life, this starts at a very young age and we are now expecting the young to stay for longer periods of their lives. These safe environments are where the young can develop knowledge of their surroundings in a way which ensures their growth. However, they tend to be risk adverse, safety aware, one size fits all and also very bureaucratic.
Last week I had the pleasure to be at two very different National entrepreneurial events which enable students to learn while doing, SIFE and FLUX500. These are two very different programmes of events engaging students at extremely different levels, learning and outcomes.
However, they both get students from diverse backgrounds, skill sets and outlooks in life to engage in entrepreneurship without even making reference to business or entrepreneurship. These both empower the students to develop, explore, make mistakes and reflect on the outcomes.
Setting out in business is requires you to have multiple skills, finance, manager, sales, marketing, leader, employer and entrepreneur. These diverse skills have to be learnt and it’s through developing these we can become a professional and accomplished entrepreneur. These are life skills which no text book or online course can even attempt to fine tune. However, they are skills which employers, investors and fellow entrepreneurs love to be associated with.
Therefore we need more of it at all levels of education. However, it’s not about governments providing more cash, as both of these events received no direct finances from government agencies. They are funded by sponsorships from corporations who are looking for the most talented young people who can come into their businesses and make a difference, have ideas and be multi-skills in areas such as finance, manager, sales, marketing…
The involvement of business in developing the young is important in setting the needs and evolution of the learning outcomes. This business model is a very robust one which ensures the needs to every party involved, the students, educators, third sector, entrepreneurs and employers. It is therefore something which should grow and develop to ensure more opportunities are available to the young.
Take a look at www.sifeuk.org and www.flux500.co.uk and engage yourself.
The Three Stages of Entrepreneurship
The process can be easily split into three stages: Thinking, Doing and Growing.
Thinking about Starting
The start-up phase is thinking, making plans, developing the right motivation to start and develop the aptitude to be an entrepreneur. For some people this is the hardest part and they struggle to choose an idea, develop the idea past just that and get other involved in making the idea reality. The majority of entrepreneurs never had the luxury to have to sit down and brainstorm ideas, then using innovation techniques decide on the best idea and then market research which one of the shortlist to take forward to a business. I still believe in the ‘gut instinct’ method, if you don’t have the guts to make the decision you want to take forward, then you don’t have the guts to make it work, so stay and get yourself a job in someone else’s business.
Doing a Startup
The doing phase is the hardest, it’s the one all the famous entrepreneurs don’t talk about, it’s the part where you spend 18 hours a day, 7 days a week making this business inch forward to some form of success. In this stage you need to start to build relationships with your staff, your bank, your suppliers and your customers. This relationship has to develop a trust and a strong bond which allow everyone to understand who they are and what value they provide into the business model. If someone doesn’t understand this then they will become the weakest link in your business.
Growing a Startup
The final stage is growth, personal growth, business growth, network growth and sales growth. This stage is normally post 36 months and it’s the point where the business model and relationships with suppliers is well established. The bank actually like and trust you. The most important part of this stage is to figure out ‘what type of entrepreneur you are?’ and what you can and cannot do, what you want and do not want to do. The things you don’t want to do, hire someone better that you. The thing you want to do and no good at, then develop some skills, in fact you will need to develop skills anyway. Knowing yourself will ensure your business has a solid foundation. In this stage you need to develop stronger bonds with your local community as you require more employees, more space and more flexible and understanding relationships with those around you.
Do Politicians create Entrepreneurs?
When a new government comes into power and they don’t have too much money, they look to get entrepreneur to work to generate them more money (so they can work out ways of spending that). So around the world we see Entrepreneurs, Business Growth, Enterprise Zones… etc being announced by politicians.
So are these politicians creating new Entrepeneurs?
The fact that the economy is on it knees means that the most logically person would think twice between the three news stories, first: government has no money, second: economy reducing, third: why don’t you start a business. Within the 60 seconds news flash, you mind has to say, hang-on your trying to brain wash me into bankruptcy, and maybe you’re right.
The fact is existing businesses are declining, new businesses tend not to, as their cost and staffing structures are more flexible and they can capture new customers who are looking for new service propositions and experiences faster. Those businesses which start in a recession also manage higher growth when the economy starts to increase. So it’s never been a better time to start a business, keeping these factors in mind.
Those that fail will come into two areas, those that spend money on the wrong things and those that don’t develop fast enough. During a recession many people who are thinking of starting a business will have some form of redundancy payment which they hope to use in developing their business ownership hopes. These people either think that paying for high value websites, marketing material and franchises will automatically bring success. The development of the business and the entrepreneur is very important. We see people who think of starting a business as a similar role, yet with more freedom as their previous job, meaning they can come into the office at 9am and leave at 5pm with 5 weeks off holiday each year. Successful businesses don’t run that way (pop down to the 24 hour Tesco’s and sit, watch and learn) and the extra effort is an important factor in ensuring success.
The message given by a government is taken in on many levels, the basic on is “get off your sofa and make your own job, cus no one else ‘at this point in time’ can and you are the champion of your own destiny (until we get a bit more money).” This message is digested by a vast range of people from 12 to 50 year olds who then decide to make the changes to ensure their destiny is one of self esteem, motivation and focus. There is no better way to live your life and this is why an entrepreneur’s role the world is secure and thankful leaving the politicians just to talk about it.
Do we need a knowledge or a skill’s economy?
We hear the term ‘knowledge economy ‘ used by many people and this week I finally made a decision, its not good for us entrepreneurs. The essential facet of a knowledge economy is that focused on the production and management of knowledge. It means Universities can get paid to make new discoveries, without ever wanting anyone to use them.
So lets take a look at history, Greek scholar named Pythagoras, who lived around 500 BC was also fascinated by triangles with these special side ratios and came up with a theory which we still use today. So the Greek’s had a knowledge economy. I don’t have to say how they have factored since taking the cheap finance available since joining the Euro. However, the development of knowledge itself does not bring prosperity, it’s the continued exploitation of it.
The fact is with a truly international economy and information sharing through the internet, knowledge is not an asset until you have the skills to use it. The frontiers of knowledge are only today’s and tomorrow we shall have new frontiers which make yesterdays knowledge redundant and obsolete. With more people on the planet the pace of this knowledge development increasing as the human race, races for more knowledge. How can you expect to win a race when you have over 6 billion people against you? Small countries do not have the man power or money.
The answer is to master the skill of managing, exploiting and capitalizing the knowledge. Society needs to develop people who have these skills to transfer knowledge into successful enterprises.
When I look at successful entrepreneurs, they develop industry knowledge, but never technical, they know the trends, but never the detail, they understand what works and what does not, but could not build any product themselves. The skill to adapt to whatever life throws at you is a skill we should all have and this skills needs to be learnt at every stage of education, even a university one.
In a knowledge-based economy, knowledge is a tool. So if we are going to anything we need an knowledge-based economy with a population who have access to the knowledge and the skills to master it for our enterprising future.
Pythagoras gave us a tool and we should never forget the skill of using it.