Entrepreneurship 101
Imagine a day when you stop getting your food delivered to your doorstep. You want to buy a copy of the latest fantasy book, and you have to travel all the way to multiple bookstores to find it. When you go out of your house, you realize that you have to wait at the taxi stand to get into one. Can you imagine that?
Well, all of this was our reality in the past, but today if all the wonderful facilities that we have been taken away, it might just get too difficult for us to function. This makes us realize that we are surrounded by so many startups, with millions of different products and services, that have made our lifestyle better.
Nykaa, Dream 11, Byju’s, CRED, Groww, Meesho, Unacademy, Paytm, Swiggy, Zomato, Ola, Rapido, some of the many startups that have made it big, with their innovative services and their unique marketing strategies. They have not just changed how our day-to-day functioning works, but also have contributed immensely to our country’s economy. These startups are backed by people who have led and built these from scratch. This process is called Entrepreneurship.
India is one of the hotspots of the world where startups begin, develop, and succeed on a global scale. According to the Economic Survey 2019–20, India ranks third in entrepreneurship and new firm creation. This is expected to grow exponentially in the next decade, with startups coming up in almost every field possible.
What is Entrepreneurship?
In simple words, entrepreneurship is the creation and development of something that is of value. The value need not be monetary all the time. Entrepreneurship is an interdependency of aspects like project development, management, marketing, sales, and finance. An entrepreneurial venture is something that solves a problem prevalent in society or improves the way of living by its products or services. Let’s look at the different types of entrepreneurship.
Small Business
A small business could be any company, restaurant, or retail store that’s launched by a founder, without any intention of growing the business into a larger chain, franchise, or conglomerate. For example, opening a single grocery store falls under the small business model; creating a nationwide chain of grocery stores doesn’t.
Scalable Startup
Scalable startups begin on a very small scale, often as just the seeds of an idea. This idea is then nurtured and scaled, typically through the involvement of outside investors, until it becomes something much larger.
Large Company
Imagine that you work at a large auto manufacturing company. Through careful market research, you realize there is a high demand for motorcycles, and that your company has many of the technologies and processes in place to branch into motorcycle production. You go to your boss and ask for the funding to launch a brand-new motorcycle division, and you are approved. This is an example of what the large company entrepreneurship model might look like in practice.
Social Entrepreneurship
Social entrepreneurship seeks innovative solutions to community-based problems. They are willing to take on the risk and effort to create positive changes in society through their initiatives. Many social changes in question may pertain to environmental conservation, racial justice, or philanthropic activity in an underprivileged community.
#EAGRCareerAnalysis
Why should you do entrepreneurship?
There is no doubt that India has stepped into the entrepreneurial revolution. Today, even the government urges young students and professionals to turn to entrepreneurship, with many interesting campaigns like Make In India. Apart from this being a great way of being independent and earning good money, there are several reasons why you should take up entrepreneurship.
Creates Job Opportunities
As new ventures are registered every day, the requirement for people to be associated with them also opens up. Today, startups and businesses hire a very good number of employees and provide them with invaluable experience, perks, and salaries. These entrepreneurial ventures essentially prepare and enhance the skills of the workforce for large industries.
The Social Impact
Many seasoned entrepreneurs regularly nurture other upcoming business ventures to help them in their journey. Not only does this help the young businesses, but it also gives the seasoned entrepreneurs a chance to extend their own ventures.
Boosts The Economy
Entrepreneurship not only benefits the sector but the multiple sectors, which in turn leads to the growth of the economy. For example, in the 1990s, just a few information technology companies comprised the entire IT industry in India. However, the industry quickly expanded, which not only benefited the IT industry, but other sectors as well, like call center operations, network maintenance companies, and hardware providers.
Increases The Standard of Living
Besides just individual earning, which also plays a huge role in increasing the standard of living is the availability of diversified products in the market. Through innovation and a drive to launch something new, entrepreneurship provides the market with multiple new and improved products and services that can help improve their standard of life.
Encourages Innovation
Without innovation and creativity, any entrepreneurial venture cannot be successful. With new ventures, products, technologies, markets, increased quality of goods, and others that are a product of innovation and entrepreneurship, the Gross Domestic Product increases considerably as it has a positive impact on the economy.
How to kickstart your entrepreneurial career?
IDEA
The basics of starting either a start-up, small scale business, or a social venture remain the same – The Idea. There is no definite way to come up with an idea, and by the very nature of the word, an idea can strike anywhere. But how to induce that idea? How to ensure that someday an idea will strike you?
The answer is observation. An idea should be something that solves a problem in society or improves it. To find a problem you need to observe what’s happening in society. You can either work on observing things all around you, or you can start by looking into the fields that you are interested in.
YOUR SKILLSET + A PROBLEM TO SOLVE = A PROBABLE VENTURE IDEA
The problems that you want to solve can be of different types – filling an underserved demand, making something better (or cheaper) than what’s out there, inventing something new that hasn’t been done earlier, and many more.
VALIDATION
Validation of your idea involves research and survey. Use the internet to figure out whether the problem you have identified is important at all. How many people are affected by that problem? Is it possible to solve this? Are there any advancements made in finding the solution?
These questions will give you a better idea to move forward and be confident with your idea.
A good strategy is to get your idea validated by a trusted friend/professional from the field that you are planning to enter with your venture.
TEAM
An idea can be built alone, but make it into reality, you need a team. Your team can be your co-founders/stakeholders/partners and subordinates working to achieve a goal within the venture. This can be done to make your investor pitches and presentation, online presence or the Minimum Viable Product(MVP)
Recommended BOOKS
Some of the really great book suggestions for aspiring entrepreneurs are. Starting with even one of these will help you get into the entrepreneurial zone.
Zero to One by Peter Thiel
The Lean Startup by Eric Ries
The Entrepreneur Mind by Kevin D. Johnson
Entrepreneur’s Handbook by Harvard Business Review
Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone To Take Action by Simon Sinek
Funding Your Startup: And Other Nightmares by Dhruv Nath and Sushanto Mitra
Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport
I Have a Dream – Stories of 20 Social Entrepreneurs who found new ways to solve old problems by Rashmi Bansal
The $100 Startup – Fire Your Boss, Do What You Love and Work Better To Live More by Chris Guillebeau
90 Rules for Entrepreneurs by Marnus Broodryk
The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel
The Unique Indian Market by Prateek Jain
Corporate Chanakya by Radhakrishnan Pillai
Recommended PODCASTS
BIZ CHIX
FOUNDR
The Garyvee Audio Experience
Masters of Scale
Social Pros Podcast
TED Business
The Tim Ferriss Show
Recommended YOUTUBE CHANNELS
Human Behavior by Robert Sapolsky
Talk on Inflection Points by Andy Grove
Videos by Capt Raghu Raman
