Being an entrepreneur or not? — 1.How to Start?
You want to be an entrepreneur and also don’t want to fail then stop reading and do something else. Because potential entrepreneurs must be familiar of defeat but not desist. “How to decide” is our first post of our “Being an entrepreneur or not?” blog series and is going to followed by these; “How to start (without resignation)?”, “First revenue probability.”, “Team” and “Sustainability”.
My journey has started with an intrapreneurship training that has no outcome at the end, this makes me think about building a better process of training that has valuable outcomes.
I started to investigate about Design Thinking, Lean Startup and Customer Validation methodologies and luckily I had a chance to try these methodologies in a visionary company that I worked for. I have build an innovation team in 2012 and trained my team members with Design Thinking. This shows that other companies that I haven’t interact yet has also a need for these methodologies. So I have decided to organize a workshop for other companies without any budget. After all of these trials, customer feedbacks and with the help and support of my wife, I have decided to resign and be an entrepreneur. ( Later, I will deep dive and share my experiences in the following posts.)
If you are on the verge of making decisions about being an entrepreneur then please follow these questions below and if your answers are all yes then continue to read.
- Did you find out that what you love?
- Can you find a problem that you want to solve?
- Have you ever explain your idea to your potential customers and get feedback?
Let’s elaborate these questions a little bit;
1.Did you find out what you love?
As a cliche, there are two sentences that is mostly said by people, do what you love or love what you do. I believe in the first sentence but also I can change the second one into; innovate what you do. Even if you are doing jobs like don’t allow you to improve yourself, try to figure out problems and needs, so that you can change your daily routine into a new job that you love. As an entrepreneur, you should be aware of problems and needs that you also care, so that you can solve them. In my point of view, entrepreneurs should choose problems that personally care about.
2.Can you find a problem that you want to solve?
Having an idea is necessity but observing problems is crucial because if you don’t have a good problem to solve, then you couldn’t find a new idea that is going to be loved by potential customers. Without problem no one will need a solution, so go for problems and love them.
3. Have you ever explain your idea to your potential customers and get feedback.
All yes, and now you are at #3. This is the hardest step for new or potential entrepreneurs to deal with. Firstly, if you want to understand how to ask questions to your potential customers then you should read this book, The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick. If you think that you don’t need to ask questions to your persona then exit here.
As a result, do you have a courage to fail and try for 10 times and not to lose your motivation, then please be an entrepreneur and help someone solve their problem. Let’s keep in touch and I am curious about your comments below.
