Since I was 22 years old, I always wanted to build companies that can answer complex problems. Steve jobs who is in the cover picture in this article is my first ever idol in the field of Entrepreneurship. But after nearly 3 years of building startups, so many failures, so many hours of work, researches I am finally getting some sense what the mindset of an entrepreneur should be. Yet, I am still very new to the field of entrepreneurship and not experienced enough to completely understand it.
What is mind:
First, we need to understand what our mind really is. But personally, I think that there is only handful of people in whole human history, that understand what the mind really is.
According to psychology, mind is a complex unit that is involved in perceiving, remembering, considering, evaluating, and deciding. Mind is in some sense reflected in such occurrences as sensations, perceptions, emotions, memory, desires, various types of reasoning, motives, choices, traits of personality, and the unconscious.
Just like a windows, Linux or Apple Operating system that can control the hardware and software units and overall computer system, mind controls the human body. everything we do in our life is first analyzed and approved by our minds.
What is entrepreneurship:
Now, Let’s look into the field of entrepreneurship. entrepreneurship is a major career field in the world.
Simply, an entrepreneur is a person who can find a solution (a service or product) to an ongoing problem or market opportunity and make profitable company around this solution. Entrepreneurs are actually a type of businessmen. Most entrepreneurs are coming from start-up companies.
A Start-up Company:
a start-up company is a newly established business, often founded by a small team, with a focus on developing and bringing a unique product, service, or business model to market. Startups are characterized by their innovative and disruptive approach to solving problems and their goal of scaling quickly to become a successful, profitable business.
Now it is time to address the major topic of the day; the entrepreneurial mindset.
Entrepreneurial Mindset:
Entrepreneurial mindset is a specific state of mind humans need to practice to consistently conduct entrepreneurial activities to build and grow companies from the ground. This involves several extreme thinking abilities such as beliefs, focus, and attitude that collectively constitutes thinking, reacting, and feeling as an entrepreneur. Persons who have this mindset are often think about innovation, creativity and building new companies or business even against the odds.
So, let’s discuss about how can we develop a powerful mindset of an entrepreneur. A powerful entrepreneurial mindset has the following features.
- continuously improving knowledge
- Experience
- Competency level
- competency level
- attitude
- self-belief
- self-confidence
- personality
- patience
Requirements for developing an entrepreneurial mindset:
Now, we have to understand the major requirements for developing an entrepreneurial mindset.
self-driven:
Do you plan for your future and act with inner motivation by yourself, or do you need anyone to push you to do so? Individuals with an entrepreneurial mindset are self-driven; they have the internal drive to turn their plans into reality. There may be failures, but they stick to their goals, never give up. The giant entrepreneur in the automobile industry in the 19th century, Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company, said, “When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the aero plane takes off against the wind, not with it.”
vision and focus on the goals:
Real entrepreneurs are dreamers, and they imagine their desired future state. They continuously keep their eyes on their goals and put all their energy into achieving them. They simultaneously focus on two areas: the fundamental problem they are trying to solve through their business and their ultimate goals. They spend their focused time each day putting in the work and understanding the purpose behind their work. While some people are setting up a vision board, others prefer to display it on the screen server of the phone. They wake up each day with a plan, purpose, and drive, and on the other hand, this practice may lead to consistency in business growth.
Independent:
Individuals who have an entrepreneurial mindset will not blindly follow the majority or look to others to be given instructions. Instead, they take independent decisions based on their objective evaluations. As Apple’s founder, Steve Jobs, said, “Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your inner voice.”
Responsible:
If you have an entrepreneurial mindset, you cannot fear taking full responsibility for what you are doing and not blaming others for their life situations; they empower themselves by improving it.
continuous learning:
Entrepreneurs are eager to learn at least one new thing every single day. So, they are with an entrepreneurial mindset and are lifelong learners. While most people spend their spare time seeking entertainment, they are more concerned with learning and development through formal and informal learning methods. The majority of the successful Sri Lankan entrepreneurs have learned from their own experience and observed role models in the past. However, current youth have many formal and informal avenues to gain knowledge, such as taking online courses, watching selected YouTube channels, taking relevant courses at universities or technical colleges, etc.
Forward-thinking:
If you want to become a successful entrepreneur or intrapreneur, you need to think long term. The famous investor Warren Buffett said, “Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.” If you want to become a successful entrepreneur, you should have the foresight to see the future. Current trends in socio-economic, political, technological, and legal environments will help you forecast for next year and the next five or ten years.
Collaborative mind:
Teamwork and collaborations are critical factors for business success. If you want to think and act like an entrepreneur, you need to think in terms of “we” instead of “I”. Successful ventures such as Amazon and Apple didn’t build Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs alone. Most Sri Lankan entrepreneurs fear starting and running a business as a partnership with others. That limits their resources access. The UBER is a very successful business model running with making drivers joining as partners with their vehicles instead of drivers.
Decisiveness:
It is not easy to assess the effectiveness of a decision immediately after making it. As the environment is highly uncertain, it is challenging to takes decisions with all necessary information. Decisiveness means that you make a choice and then own it, even if you’re not sure. Real entrepreneurs take decisions in heart and mind by considering all subjective and objective factors.
Resilience:
There are bad periods such as the covid 19 pandemic period, natural disaster, terrorist attack. There is a saying that every cloud has a silver lining. The ‘Lassana flora’ is a famous florist company converted into daily essentials delivery service in pandemic period is a good example. Entrepreneurs or intrapreneurs with an entrepreneurial mindset will not set back from such bad periods, and bounce back from failure will help the business stay afloat and inspire a team to follow the leader.
How to develop an Entrepreneurial Mindset:
Early studies on Entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial mindset suggested that the Best entrepreneurs are born with the mindset and qualities. People believed that it is not something humans can adapt by practice and learning over the time.
But with many successful stories, now, people understood that individuals could develop an entrepreneurial mindset with their effort. Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook once said: “Ideas don’t come out fully formed. They only become clearer as you work on them. You have to get started.”Therefore, the entrepreneurial mindset is about seeing an opportunity and taking hold of it.
There are several major methods/practices that can develop and improve entrepreneurial mindset.
set goals and track progress:
Setting specific goals is a major part of an entrepreneur’s life. Great things can’t be achieved accidentally. You have to set thoughtful goals you care about and work towards them. Minor achievements day in and day out accomplish big goals. If you set small goals, try to achieve them quickly and move to the other goals. But if you have decided on a larger goal, it breaks into small, achievable, realistic steps.
Set daily small goals that you needed to complete. write them down and cross them after completed. set daily, weekly, monthly and yearly goals. This will give a lot of motivation to cross them in time.
network:
The people surround us highly impact our life. If we associate negative people who complain there’s nothing they can do to improve their circumstances, we eventually find ourselves feeling the same way. But if we surround ourselves with energizing, inspiring relationships, their optimism will rub off on us.
Always learn from mistakes:
One of my 3 favourite Marvel comic heroes is Iron Man, aka Tony Stark. One of the most important thing about him is that his suits always get an upgrade from what he had last time. For example, after meeting Thor, he developed a new suit that can come to him from any distance, just like Thor’s hammer that always comes into Thor’s hand. He always learned from his mistakes.
Just like that, entrepreneurs should always study their mistakes to prevent them in the future. Every human is bound to make bad decisions at one point in time. However, learning from errors will help you make a better decision for your next assignment—many successful entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs who made it have experienced failures at some points. Therefore, be aware that you did not create the business because it is perfect; instead, you have completed it because you want it to grow.
The entrepreneurial mindset is not only for entrepreneurs; it is essential for the corporate sector as well. Individuals who have entrepreneurial traits do not like to start and run their ventures and work in government or corporate sectors as employees call intrapreneurs. They are the people who take those organizations to higher levels quickly, and they also have an entrepreneurial mindset than others.
Good luck in your future.