I know personally a lot of college seniors who are graduating this year. Being the curious man I am, I asked if they were interested in starting their own business. Most of them said they are. And then I asked them whether they were going to start immediately or not. Most of them said they won’t. They decide to start out as an employee first. I asked them why. And these are the top three answers that came up;
- They want to “learn” how to run a business for a few years
- They want to collect the capital needed to start their own business
- They want to build a large network of connections first
I totally agree with the fact that you could learn to run your own business by running another business first. The thing is, to learn all aspects of the business, you need to be at the very top of it. CEO, President, Boss, what say you. I know that you will agree with me that working as a management trainee won’t be of much help to your running your own business. To get to the very top of your company takes time. and it never is certain that you will ever get there. If so, when will you start your own business? A true entrepreneur at heart most likely will be fed up with doing mundane, routine tasks and quit the job after a few years, coming out with not much then he came in with.
This thinking is dominant in the minds of academicians because of the doctrine that tells them to research and dig in as much information, experience and knowledge as possible before doing something. this thought is not at all false. But as they say, you can’t learn how to swim by reading a book. You need to jump in the water and adapt yourself thereon. Same with running your own business. Just start one and adapt and evolve and you will finally conquer the art of it. If you choose to become an employee, you will be “taught” how to be a good employee, not a good businessman. The quicker you start, the longer the time you will be able to learn.
There is also the problem that most people don’t actually know what company they want to work for. The thing is, Different companies in different industries vary widely on their style and culture. Keep this in mind; if you don’t know what you want to do, then you don’t know what you will learn and in no way that helps you learn what you set out to learn. Don’t get it? think harder. Point is, find out what business you want to start and find a company that will “teach” you how to run that business.
Collecting capital to start your own business by means of saving away from your salary is quite a good idea. But then I ask the people who answered this another question. The question was how much they needed to start that business. To my disbelief, most of them didn’t know. So, they were planning to live a frugal lifetsyle every month without knowing when to stop working and start that business. Idiotic. To add to that, they never thought of the risks they would have to endure when they finally made that decision. Most likely they will have formed a family by the time they decide to call it quits. Now we all know that quitting your job also means disregarding you of your salary. and there is a slim chance that their businesses would have succeeded already. So, that leaves them with the problem of finding the food to feed their family. Of course, This won’t be any problem if you have started your business straight after graduation. So how do you get the capital? investors, of course. If your idea is genuinely brilliant, no doubt people will line up to invest in you.
The last reason they chose to work first was that they could build a large network of contacts and connections. in the business world. This has lots of flaws. The first one is that except of you were the PR guy or the boss, you wouldn’t be exposed to as many contacts as you liked. You will work in that little space of yours called a cubicle and your only contacts will be the people working beside you. The second flaw is that if you get any contacts whatsoever, most likely you will meet them at seminars, conferences or business gathering that you as an entrepreneur could also attend. And trust me, if you really want to make contacts, you could set your schedule to attend every social event in town and voila! network built.
The issue that I’m pressing here is that to become an entrepreneur, you have to seek out as many options as possible. There is not one single way to become an entrepreneur. You have to make your own path. And to make that path, you first have to know where you want to go to and the ways available to get there.
Yes yes, but they just don’t know how, that’s the main problem. A lot of motivators out there provocating people to run business instead of working, yet they didn’t tell them how (but I don’t mean your post here).
To make our path, we first have to know where you want to go to and the ways available to get there.
Absolutely agree with this statement
since i graduate high school until now, i flunk deep in every business that i develop with (4 times). But now (as an employee) i still looking around for what kind of business that i could develop again.
working as an employee, only good for your cv. things i miss so much becoming entrepreneur was involve and develop as a team to achieve goals…
Hi Arlo,
I am Ryan, your junior high school friend. I think you’re right mate! but not always true. Because, your statements cannot be applied for all of the people. Basically, it is depending of their mindset. In fact, nowadays, there are many people who wants to be a businessman. but, they don’t have the right mindset as the people who has a “big boss” mentally, so they don’t want to do something as an employees as it should be very important for their business while it just started. Secondly, they are not usually to do something with a deadline (lazy, just dreaming for the money, never take action) as employees always to do it because of their boss usually push them . Hence, their business will not growing significantly! moreover, their business will be bankrupt Besides that, they never know the system how a big company got the crazy multiple incomes that i think it is the most important things! Steal their system!
Yeah, it’s kind of a catch-22: On the one hand, jumping into an entrepreneur role from the start is risky: No serious professional experience, no extensive network, perhaps no financial pad to support you… BUT nothing beats the enthusiasm and energy of a youthful entrepreneur. The reason I didn’t launch a company when I first entered the workforce was simple: I didn’t know what I truly wanted to build. It took 15 years to put it all together. (I wish I’d done it sooner, but I needed to travel this path for 15 years.)
Some of my friends started companies right out of college and never looked back. Everyone’s different, I guess. Finding your own rhythm is crucial with that sort of thing.
And by the way, most of us never truly feel 100% ready to start a business. Don’t ever let that stand in the way.
Great post.
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