Tips for (Potential) Entrepreneurs

Business mom with baby. After graduation most people consider finding a job or starting their own company. Others might consider it especially in Germany because their qualifications from back home weren’t recognised or their just don’t want to work for someone after years of doing so back home. If that is you, here are some tips:

Entrepreneurship is a skill you can learn

Skills and behaviours of entrepreneurship can be learned. You can learn how to plan and strategise, how to attract, convert and retain clients and how to network and form partnerships.

 

Be ready to change the strategy

You need to have an attitude that can recognise brutal facts when things are not working. Don’t just close your eyes and say it will work. What you would need to be asking is ‘what can we do and what can we change to make things better’. You are not changing the vision, you are just changing the strategy.

 

Invest in your social capital

You need to be willing and able to network and I don’t mean exchanging business cards, but cultivating relationships and forming strategic alliances. To survive in the business place today you need to be able to collaborate with others. (Read: Investing in your social capital and The art of Networking and building a network)

 

Follow your passion

Do something you’re passionate about. (Read: Turn your Passion to Profit)

 

Failure is part of it, learn from it

In entrepreneurship failure is not a problem; it is part of the process. The first step to success is failing. Are you willing to try something else? If the answer is yes, you have not really failed. As long as we are alive we can get to our goal if we don’t stop. However, if a business collapses you need to find out why, before you embark on another business venture. You should speak to someone in that industry or someone who has done that kind of business so that next time your venture will not collapse for that same reason.

 

Don’t give up

Entrepreneurship is a tough journey that may involve working for months with little or no money, investing millions and losing it all, and facing ridicule in society for failing. Those who choose to walk the journey should “be willing to endure” through the hard times.

“You need to have the attitude to stick to what you are pursuing. You can’t jump out of the boat every time a storm comes.”

Don’t fall for the fairy tale

You should not fall for the fairy tales and recognise that for all these celebrated icons it took long hours of work, tons of perseverance and even a dose of failure before the billion dollar success.

A lot of people go into business with unrealistic expectations. We are surrounded by pictures of people who are making it. Bill Gates dropped out of school so we think we can drop out of school and tomorrow we will be a Bill Gates. What you need to find out is after he quit school did he stop learning? There is a difference between stopping school and stopping learning.

 

It’s ok to be an employee

Not all of us can start a business. Some people will be employees and there is nothing wrong with that. The honourable thing is to earn a living, which you can do by working for somebody else or working for yourself. It is a choice and people should be allowed to choose.

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