What Makes a Good Entrepreneur?

I write this book because careers are on top of people minds, even more after 2020. The lifespan of a company was 60 years in 1960 and it is under 20 years today. The career span of an individual was 25 to 30 years in 1960 and is closer to 30 to 40 years today. Today, an individual’s career span is more than company life span. Having a good career requires many things to work in tandem context and timing are important. Sheer craft alone does not ensure success. A career is lived forwards but understood backwards, once you are nearly done with it. I have covered 10 dilemmas in this book, starting from a management trainee or a junior manager all the way up to a Managing Director. I have got 24 excellent and experienced professionals to talk about the dilemmas they faced and their stories are in the book.

I have a dilemma on turning entrepreneur. Being an entrepreneur is the universal dream for Indians. In 2018, 63.7 % of Indians considered entrepreneurship to be a desirable option. The key to being an entrepreneur is to have an idea that fulfills a need or addresses a gap in the market. many people venture into entrepreneurship with a me- too idea and soon repent the decision. If you are an entrepreneur, then hope cannot be a strategy.

As an entrepreneur, I argue that you need a good founding team based on trust. The team must have the freedom and the inclination to challenge you, the founder. The worst thing for an entrepreneur is to have yes men and women around you. The quality of your product or service or business model will only improve if the core team challenges itself to be better. Entrepreneurs are very important for India. India has close to 64 million MSMEs employing about 110 million people. MSMEs account for nearly 25 % of the total workforce in India. India needs more entrepreneurs and technology access is helping fuel entrepreneurship. Apart from good people, you need the right technology and the right business model to succeed.

Entrepreneurs must have a frugal cost mindset. When people are used to large corporate budgets and large company trappings, they tend to be a bit profligate. Being frugal, being high on multitasking is key to being an effective entrepreneur. You must have the ability to look at the results of your strategy regularly and change it if it’s not working. In Silicon Valley, start-ups rethink their strategy every Saturday. Be brave to change just as you were brave to take the entrepreneurship plunge.