A Dozen Characteristics Essential for Entrepreneurs #12

#12) Not Afraid of Risk or Success

Many people could be successful if they only took chances. And many people who do take chances and become somewhat successful find the realization of their dreams an overwhelming possibility, so they sabotage their continued success by retreating back into a comfort zone of smallness. As discussed earlier, the employee mindset is preoccupied with a need for security. Those who cling to what is familiar to them – even if it means the denial of their dreams – lack the perseverance and ambition that the real entrepreneur exhibits. Entrepreneurs are not immune to fear. But they prioritize their approach to life so that the fear of failure, frustration, boredom, drudgery, and dissatisfaction far outweighs the lingering fear of success.

Level One: The Self-Employed Mindset

The emotional driving force behind the self-employed person is not security but a desire for greater control over his or her life, career, and destiny. Relinquishing that control to a boss every day from nine to five is not their idea of happiness, and they believe that they could do their job just as well without an employer – and perhaps without the need for other employees. They want more autonomy. They want to do things their own way. And they usually begin by creating a situation where they do the same type of work they did while an employee, but they figure out how to do it by themselves and for themselves.

Unfortunately, many of the primary objectives of the person setting off to become an entrepreneur with the self-employment mindset are pitfalls or traps. Because they want to go it alone, they often do so at their own peril. By not taking help from others they not only cut themselves off from valuable talent, intelligence, feedback, and experience that others could offer in the form of assistance, but they also create a situation where they will never experience freedom. 

Many small business owners with a strong do-it-yourself attitude only succeed at creating a new job for themselves, not a new career or profitable company. And as a solo performer, their job becomes all-consuming. They never get a day off, they always bring work home with them, and they work overtime with no financial compensation. Their motto is “Why have someone else do it when you can do it better yourself?” and they often promote their business by telling customers “When you deal with this outfit you only deal directly with me.” Soon they get burned-out, and a great majority of these self-employed people fail in a short amount of time and wind up going back to work for someone else.

They make the mistake of not envisioning a business that will run by itself without their constant supervision and handholding, and they don’t picture creating an enterprise that thrives on involving others in a teamwork effort. One of the greatest blunders is that these self-employed entrepreneurs try to replicate the same job they had before, in the same area of experience, selling a product or service they already know. While it may seem counterintuitive to strike out in a different direction and into unfamiliar territory, that trajectory puts one into a position of learning, being open-minded, and relying upon others for help. Those ingredients contribute to a recipe for entrepreneurial success because they force one to evaluate the entire business system from a new and fresh perspective. And they set the stage for working on the business without having to actually be physically in the business on a day-to-day basis.

That premise of designing a business that works for its owner – rather than the owner working for it all the time – is vital for becoming a real entrepreneur versus becoming simply the most important employee of one’s own selfemployed venture. Those who understand that fact can rise to the next level of entrepreneurship. 

Continue...

A Dozen Characteristics Essential for Entrepreneurs #11

#11) A Leader by Example

Entrepreneurs not only lead themselves through self-motivation as self-starters who jump into tasks with enthusiasm, but they are also skilled at leading others. They know the importance of teamwork, and they understand the need to appreciate others, support them, and reward them accordingly. True leaders do not become indispensable, otherwise things fall apart in their absence and they can never rise to the highest level of entrepreneurial freedom and prosperity. Neither do they squander the potential of those working under their guidance. As renowned business consultant and retired United States Air Force Major General Perry M. Smith once wrote, “Leaders who share their power and their time can accomplish extraordinary things. The best leaders understand that leadership is the liberation of talent; hence they gain power not only by constantly giving it away, but also by not grabbing it back.”

I JUST SUED THE SCHOOL SYSTEM !!!

Internet of Things made fun at Bayanihan Creative Labs

On Thursday mornings, a dozen or so students from nearby colleges gather at the University of the Philippines’ Diliman Interactive Learning Center to tinker with bits of hardware for an hour or two. These hackathons are part of Bayanihan Cre@tive Labs, an initiative of Internet Society (ISOC) global member Nestor Tiglao. Nestor, who teaches electronics engineering at the same campus, received an Internet Society community grant to develop the makerspace group at the height of his research on wireless network system designs.

The term ‘Bayanihan’ refers to the traditional practice of cooperative work among villagers in the Philippines, and it is a well-appointed name for what the project wants to build: a community of like-minded people who come together to play with available technologies, and explore localised uses for machine-to-machine communication and other areas relevant to Internet of Things.

This week, the group was going to try to build prototypes of simple wireless detectors using Arduino starter kits and gas and alcohol sensors that Nestor had bought separately from a local shop. Liquefied petroleum gas is used popularly as cooking and transport fuel among local households, and gas sensors can be useful in detecting leakages and preventing accidental fires and explosions.

The group divided into pairs and began attaching the small sensors onto breadboards, quickly progressing into basic circuit wiring and a bit of coding to calibrate the sensors’ readings. In between, hackers were curiously crossing over to other pairs, consulting data sheets and googling tips on the Internet. By lunchtime, the group had several working gas and alcohol sensors, which they tested using a butane lighter that Nestor had borrowed from a colleague next door.

The project insists on utilising open source hardware and software for its activities. Arduino kits, for instance, are both reusable and customizable, and can thus be repurposed for various experiments. The group also uses Raspberry Pi, a credit-card sized single-board computer developed by a foundation of the same name to promote basic computer science to young people.

As the makerspace is quite new, its activities remain informal, with both regulars and newcomers dipping into sessions on their free time. Most of the current participants are engineering students and interns in their late teens. Many are in their first year at university and hackathons such as this lets them play around with and find applications for the concepts they learn in the classroom.

The group itself is open access, and Nestor is keen on pulling in startups and institutions to take part in Bayanihan Labs. He hopes that such collaborative venues would encourage local scientists and entrepreneurs to innovate on existing technologies and catalyse the production of affordable IoT devices for the country. He also wants to bring the hackathons to secondary schools to pique young people’s interest in creating useful IoT devices from cheap and readily available materials.

In between physical meet-ups, the group continues to collaborate through their mailing list and make their hackathon outputs available online in their social media pages. This week’s output, they tell me, will be further enhanced in the coming sessions. The next step will be using a Wifi transceiver, or a wifly module, to transmit data generated by the sensors on to a designated server for aggregation. One of the end-goals is to send this data straight to the mobile phone as SMS. The group is also looking into other sensors to monitor environmental and health conditions—temperature, pollution levels, heartbeat—all crucial in a country that is prone to natural disasters, and where quality healthcare remains out of reach for most of the population.

A Dozen Characteristics Essential for Entrepreneurs #10

#10) Gregarious

Because business is all about people, entrepreneurs tend to be socially outgoing. They get excited about sharing ideas, products, and services, and that excitement is contagious to their employees, clients, friends, and other contacts both within and beyond the business sphere. But women and men who work hard as entrepreneurs also relish the unique opportunity to have fun doing something that they love as their primary vocation. Human resource experts, career counselors, and business psychologists all agree that those who do jobs they enjoy and are good at have higher rates of success and broader measures of satisfaction. Entrepreneurs know that firsthand, from their own experience, and they tend to be a fun-loving group of people both on and off the job.

A Dozen Characteristics Essential for Entrepreneurs #9

#9) Optimistic

A positive outlook is essential for the entrepreneur, who learns to see setbacks as bargain priced tuition for the valuable business lessons gained through firsthand experience. Past shortcomings, failures, or disappointments are relegated to the past so that they cannot continue to haunt the present or obstruct the future. And when things go right and business prospers, this further fuels the optimism and positive mindset of an entrepreneur, helping to give impetus and momentum for greater accomplishments and increased hopefulness.