Thinking about sailing the entrepreneur‘ship’? Is this your port of call?

During my two decades-long entrepreneurial journey, I have had the opportunity to meet many struggling entrepreneurs. On numerous occasions, I found myself wondering – ‘Why have these people become entrepreneurs?’, ‘What is their driving force?’, ‘Have they thought this through?’, ‘Are they being honest to themselves and their inner self?’ or ‘Is it just out of sheer peer pressure?’

As an angel investor in the past, I asked a question to all entrepreneurs I met and mentored – “Why are you trying to become an entrepreneur?” The responses that I invariably got were:

•  “I want to do this because everyone is doing this.”
• “It’s such a cool thing to have your own business.”
• “My friends/parents/spouse keep(s) poking me to start my own business.”
• “Oh, I was ‘this hotshot executive’ in ‘that big MNC’. A Venture Capitalist (VC) invited me to do my own thing with a promise to invest ‘so many’ dollars. So, I said why not!”

If you too are in it for any of the above reasons, you could possibly not be more wrong – as was I. In the late 90s, I was enjoying a successful career at McKinsey, but I was intrigued by many of my friends and colleagues leaving the firm to start their own companies. Highly motivated to do the same, I decided to move on and founded my first start-up. This startup was, needless to say, a royal disaster.

Why did it fail? In fact, why should any start-up fail – after all the ideation, research, funding and planning? When I started looking for answers, I realized that most people, when they think about starting their own business, fail to appreciate that the main motivation to start a new company has to be a higher purpose. It calls for an inner awareness that drives them to do something bigger than their own self.

You can find true success and happiness only if you do what your own gut tells you to do and not what others are doing. French poet Anatole France aptly said, “If 50 million people are doing a silly thing, it is still a silly thing" ("saying" changed to "doing"). If you want to become an entrepreneur, the first thing that you must do is to reach your true-self. And if that inner voice tells you to become an entrepreneur, you better go and do whatever it takes to be one. I have not come across many people who say:

• “I really want to solve this problem.”
• “I notice inefficiency in the current way of doing things. I want to change that.”
• “I have seen a lot of pain that people of our society go through and I actually want to make their lives better.”
• “I am tired of companies extracting rent from their customers and I want to disrupt the industries in which these companies operate.”

But there are some inspiring stories. There are entrepreneurs who do think on these lines and ultimately create 'Unicorns'. 25 Unicorns have got created in India over the last 16 months. These are Founders who are self-aware – the ones who know all about their own passions, dreams, capabilities and their true inner calling. Almost invariably, they are also driven by compassion.

Just like the start-up founders are trying to figure out their 'higher purpose', so are tens of thousands of business leaders across the world - for themselves, for their companies and also for their industries. At Benori Knowledge, our vision is to help our clients answer such existentialistic questions. We equip our clients with actionable insights and help them take informed business decisions. Our integrated and global approach using secondary research, primary research/expert consultations and data modelling supports business leaders like you to strategise and execute. Over the past 3 years, we have:

• Carried out 250,000 hours of secondary/primary research and data analysis
• Served 200+ clients (e.g. consulting, tech, FS, consumer, PE firms)
• Worked in 75 countries/20 languages
• Generated 25% cost savings

If you would like to learn more, write to us on [email protected] or [email protected]

Stay safe.....??.