The Entrepreneurial Mindset

Contributed by BL

“Some people dream of success.. while others wake up and work hard at it.”
– Anonymous

An entrepreneur refers to an individual who assumes responsibility and accountability on a project that has inherent risks and seeks to embark on and manage that venture. They attempts to establish a new trend or offer a new product or a redefine an existing market by creating a totally different market niche. Regardless of a profit or a not-for-profit venture, the entrepreneur will possess strong beliefs about a possible market opportunity and they will adopt an innovative and sustainable framework during the process of creating this new entity. Some people are called entredonneurs, another neologism which refers to a creative giver who utilizes opportunistically between agencies for a generous or altruist purpose. Basically, we call them the social entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurship is a complex phenomenon in the realm of economics. Believe it or not, there is no theory or analytical framework to explain why it exists. Joseph Schumpeter coined a provocative term creative destuction which describes the theory that entrepreneurs are both the force for sustained long term economic growth and destroying the established status quos of businesses that has enjoyed some degree of monolopy power. Without innovation, society cannot progress and will stagnate as a result of that.

What makes an entrepreneur tick? How do you know whether you possess those characteristics of an entrepreneur? After we have different roles to play in society, we should not tell ourselves to follow what our family, peers or even government define as the status quo, but be prepare to face the challenges and obstacles ahead of us. There is a common behavourial pattern that resides in entrepreneurs. As entrepreneurship is a contact sport, let me place a couple of traits which I define what an entrepreneur is to me.

1. Passion: You have the passion to pursue your dream. There is a desire within you that pushes you to conquer problems. To you, the enterprise is a baby which you give birth to. You seek to nurture your enterprise and take it to the highest level.

2. Hard work: You work for your dough, but you work efficiently and productively by making use of technology and innovations in your business model to make the mark.

3. Credibility: You have credibility that your clients, your strategic partners and your investors know that they can rely on you to do business.

4. Integrity: You may compete against a competitor, and have price wars and adjust strategies to beat them fair and square in the market. Here in Singapore, I see a lot of people claiming to have credibility and trying to con you with their corrupted mantra, “to succeed is to lie and cheat and you have to be ruthless in business”.

5. Responsibility: You are responsible for your team and your enterprise. Never blame anyone if you made a mistake.

6. A win-win mentality: You should learn to acquire power by giving it away. Believe that if you give your employee a value proposition, you win too. The success of a good leader is his ability to generate more leaders. If you keep thinking that the employer-employee relationship is a win-lose situation, you have to keep defending your own turf. Of course, learn not to blindly trust.

7. Optimistic: Entrepreneurs are optimistic and always making a difference in life. There are days where people will tell you that things cannot be done. Well, I always like to reply them, “Men who cannot make a difference should not interrupt those who can achieve it.”

8. Innovative: Entrepreneurs are people who wants to bring a change to the world. However, be prepared to be hit by market forces, which can be irrational at times. They learn to change the way how markets look and how to improve their business with new and interesting ideas.

You can generate many more but I think that this is my personal list. However, you must guard against one thing. Every entrepreneur I know are egotistic, but never let that ego overwhelmed you. That happens to a lot of “entrepreneurs of the year” in Singapore, who lost it after a year because of being too arrogant about their success.

An entrepreneurial mindset is different from the standard model. Trust me, even the ability of dealing with people requires practice.