Should Everyone ‘Work’ before Entrepreneurship?

Chris had only worked for six months when he had to resign because he worked in the same organization as his new wife, and one of them needed to exit. His immediate plan was to pick up a new job. As things dragged on, he decided instead to venture into entrepreneurship in the area of his technical expertise and interest. As with many entrepreneurial ventures, the learning curves were very steep. A few years down the line later, Chris finally found his way around and his business began to grow steadily. Though, he is of the strong opinion that he would have fared a lot better, had he remained in paid employment for more years instead of the six months.

Jumai had vowed never to work for anyone as a student .Her hatred for paid employment was because of the treatment meted out to her father as a civil servant despite his meritorious service. Her father’s retirement unfortunately, threw the entire family into a financial mess. As soon as she graduated, Jumai hit the roads with her business idea. Ten years down the line, Jumai with the benefit of hindsight believes she would fared better, had fewer risks and pains if she had cut her teeth a bit in career.

Emeka is currently a very successful entrepreneur. His business employs over thirty staff with many contractors averaging over ten million per month. His story was interesting. Emeka grew up in an enterprising family with his semi-literate carpenter father. He occasionally worked with his father as a young boy growing up. Emeka himself was educated and even had a second degree outside Nigeria in a UK University. Whilst schooling abroad, Emeka worked in related industries like construction of buildings, ships, timber bridges etc. Emeka learnt how to deploy technology to upscale carpentry. Back in Nigeria, he returned to his late father’s business to join other members of his family. They eventually fell-out and Emeka decided to set up a new related business with other contemporary offerings to the delight of his customers, this made Emeka truly successful.

So, back to the question- must one work before running an enterprise.

Henrietta always wanted to fix things. She deliberately worked for an IT firm every time she was on vacation from school in a period of three years. Upon graduation, she observed her one-year mandatory National Youth Service Corps attachment in another IT firm. Today, she has managed to set up her enterprise, having been attached to right mentors who have helped shape her business.

The real-life stories shared above though not exhaustive, capture diverse scenarios to show different people’s experiences. These days, we encourage youths to get into entrepreneurship just after schooling because the jobs are not anywhere anyway! What is the best approach or model?

I will like to review some of the most common challenges faced by entrepreneurs who never worked for nor interned in any organisation.

1.     Structure: Most entrepreneurs struggle to identify the best structure for their enterprise. Most times, the tasks overwhelm the business owner so much that it affects business deliverables. Related to this point is the ability to identify the right talents. Most entrepreneurs do not want to attempt to employ the right people due to salary and cash flow issues

2.     Finances: This seems to be top on most entrepreneurs’ list of challenges. Many people hit the market once they ‘think’ they have a business idea, and then start to think of raising or sourcing for finances. However, most people do not know how to go about sourcing finance. Many others, who invested personal finance to kick off, are unable to present right financial records that would attract potential investors. Poor record keeping is one of the biggest challenges for many business owners.

3.     Network: A good number of entrepreneurs generally do not have right partnerships, relationships or network to utilize for the benefits of their business. These gaps impede their business growth seriously.

4.     Management Skills: Most of these entrepreneurs do not know how to manage their team. They often run very exclusive businesses and do not appreciate the power of positive and powerful communication. Many business owners have lost potentially good staff because of their lack of management skills. Their inability to manage their temperament, handle  the workload pressures, inability to delegate, organize and plan effectively etc, get in the way and ruin the new venture. 

Our recent Survey with Entrepreneurs at different stages of business in Lagos revealed some challenges in the following order:

1. Poor knowledge about Sales & Marketing - 28%
2. Lack of resources including right networks - 24%
3. Financial assistance – 21%
4. Weak management skills – 17%
5. Inadequate know-how on running a business 10%

Using feedback from this small survey, let us now conclude by reviewing some possible benefits from having some form of career or paid employment before one sets out to be an entrepreneur.

1. Previous employment or career should open any individual up to some form of marketing and sales since every profit-oriented business must offer products or services to meet some people’s needs. This does not completely make workers functional professionals but every sphere of interaction, including Human Resources drive towards the business goals of acquiring, delighting and retaining customers. Even in instances where one works for a business which eventually collapses or fails for whatever reasons, such employee has  at least, learnt how not to do business.
2. Paid employment helps the least person in the company have some appreciation of the complexity of business, the sheer need of resources and inputs whether physical or intellectual, the power of network with right vendors, suppliers etc. This realization helps a budding entrepreneur sit back to attempt an estimation of his or her business requirements even before setting out
3. Finance is part of the resources required for many business operations. Previous employment often help some to-be entrepreneurs have savings as start-up capital, some previous official relationships end up as entrepreneur partnerships, opportunity to know possible sources and models to generate capital and funding etc
4. An appraisal system in structured employment or mere verbal feedback is one of the most useful ways a potential entrepreneur develops his or her management skills. Strengths and weaknesses are revealed for improvement. All these add up to make a stronger business owner in later years. Some organizations have formal or informal mentorship program that further build the individual
5. An employee in some way or the other has some bit of knowledge on running a business. A serious employee would ask questions, be observant and deliberately acquire knowledge through trainings and books about the pillars that help businesses succeed.

There is the other side of learning through apprenticeship, which fully mirrors paid employment, even though the apprentice sometimes has to pay for tutelage.

 In conclusion, we may argue that there is no one-way answer to this posture of ‘paid-work before entrepreneurship’, the success or otherwise will still depend on many factors amongst which is the personality of the person involved, the expertise required, his business interest, managerial and leadership tendencies, search for knowledge, reading-ability, question-ability, teachability, learnability etc

An employee who works with devotion and integrity would most likely succeed as an entrepreneur whereas, an unserious employee will not learn much from paid-employment for his future enterprise. The answer is with individuals

Should paid employees have entrepreneur mind-set at all? Is this posture a risk or benefit to any organization? Do you want to share your experience? Please send your comments to careerpreneur@redwood-consulting.com