Five Principles for Entrepreneurs

In my experience, entrepreneurism is a process more than an event. It is like Darwinian’s evolutionary changing process. In fact, I think most entrepreneurs would agree to this fact wholeheartedly. If you look at many of the cases of successful entrepreneurs in the workforce, they have generally arrived at their particular station through a process of events. These events often start with the budding of an idea that eventual spawns into a success and then we often see a number of mergers and acquisitions which take place down the road. For those need some entrepreneurial pointers, I’ve compiled a list of five key points.

Stay Realistic

When some newer entrepreneurs who want to sell their company off for a large chunk of change without too much effort, they often do not realize their own valuations of their business may be a bit off from reality. Staying realistic is perhaps one of the most important aspects of making sure you keep your head on the ground and away from the clouds. In short, don’t think you will end up like Facebook overnight. It’s not healthy to have unrealistic expectations.

Focus

The problem with many entrepreneurs is that they often lack focus on just one thing. They are so excited about the whole world around them that they cannot just focus on one business or one business idea that they can work on and make happen. A good friend of mine is constantly running around with like a chicken with his head cut off because he has so many irons in the fire. The interesting thing is that he seems to get the least done out of anyone I know. Razor sharp focus is needed for any entrepreneur.

Connect with People

When you are just starting out, you will need to find people who persistently have been successful in their own entrepreneurial ventures. Finding people who are at least somewhat similar to you will not only boost you and make you feel like you have the ability to succeed, but they can also act like a mentor for you, giving you advice and helping you move forward and through difficult assignments and/or projects.

Adapt

Being adaptive to your circumstance is often one of the best ways to succeed as a budding entrepreneur. You may think you know your customers (or you may think you know who your customers are), but in many instances the customers may start coming to you and asking for something completely different than what you had originally intended. In some cases you may get a customer segment who keeps asking for your products who you initially did not intend to target in the slightest.

Be Persistent

Nobody ever achieved anything overnight. This is true for any aspect of life, regardless of whether you are an entrepreneur, a student, or a song writer. Overnight success stories are the exception to the rule (even though the public media would have us believe otherwise). In fact, most stories have some type of meaningful struggle prior to the success of the venture. For instance, when Honda entered the United States with its motorcycles decades ago, they started with so little cash that the three Honda employees who were living in southern California at the time, all had to live in the same apartment for the first little while to make sure they could meet their other obligations for the business. I don’t have to tell you what happened to Honda.

The most successful entrepreneurs in the world have a great deal of each of the aforementioned qualities and attributes, but they all have one thing in common: boldness. They are willing, not to take risks, but to successfully manage the risks that are presented to them. Those of you who are successful, it will be important to note that success sometimes comes by accident, but mostly it arrives by persistent effort.