My sister just recently graduated from high school and at her graduation there were two graduates from the previous year sitting behind me. They were both obnoxiously loud and I was all but forced to listen to their conversation. I laughed to myself when I heard the boy tell the girl that he thought he wanted to be an entrepreneur because then he could be his own boss and that would be "cool."
Now, there's nothing funny about being your own boss or the fact that being an entrepreneur is just a cool way to live. What I did find funny, however, was that he said he thought he wanted to be an entrepreneur. If you would've asked me 2 years ago what I thought I wanted to do I would have told you I wanted to be an aerospace engineer. I think we all know that didn't happen. My point is that if you think you are interested in being an entrepreneur, you're probably not cut out for it.
Allow me to explain.
Entrepreneurship found me. Simple and plain. I've been raised to work hard for everything my whole life. My jobs matured my sales skills, but I never thought there was any money in business (I'm from a small town). One morning I woke up at my apartment off campus in Tuscaloosa and had a revelation. I no longer wanted to do what I thought I had wanted to do since 7th grade; become an aerospace engineer. So what would I do? I had already spent a year of college studying engineering, but I enrolled in an intro business class that gave an overview of all of the business majors. They all seemed interesting, but nothing jumped out at me. MIS, OM, Marketing, and Management are all great careers and have almost endless opportunities, but they weren't for me.
It wasn't until I came up with the idea for my first startup that I realized what I truly needed to do with my life. Not what I thought I wanted to do. Entrepreneurship isn't as much about being your own boss as it is finding something that you are truly passionate about and running with it. If you fall down, dust yourself off and get back up. Run in a different direction. I'm crazy, I've admitted it 1000 times and I'll continue to do so for the rest of my life. I'm 20 years old and am starting a networking group for young entrepreneurs in a city that I have spent less than a month in. I'm also working on several startups. A couple of which could potentially make me a very happy young man. But if they don't work, well I've got some more ideas that I can make into great startups.
It's this kind of "crazy" that makes an entrepreneur. I needed to do research on something in the USDA, so I walked into the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Washington and made as many connections as I could to find out the information I needed. I was looking for advice from someone who knew business law well, so I e-mailed the Dean of the Law School at the University of Alabama. Dean Randall ended up being a great asset and mentor to my startup and I'm not able to thank him enough. An entrepreneur has to have "cohones."
I was reading an article earlier today about companies that have been around for a while. The most successful companies aren't afraid to try a new direction when one avenue isn't working for them. This is the entrepreneurial spririt. That first startup idea I had about 8 months ago changed about 20 times before it has evolved into what it is now, about to launch. Sure, I spent probably 60 hours a week editing my business plan and even more time researching how to improve the plan more, but it was all worth it.
Not everybody is cut out for that. I've seen all kinds of "warnings" to potential entrepreneurs and I don't mean to scare anybody off, but I just want people to know that through my experience entrepreneurship isn't something that you can just learn to do like playing an instrument. It's a complete way of life and philosophy that is unlike anything else I've experienced. And I love it.
Keep reading and let me know what you think by commenting below or on Twitter @AtlYngEntrprnrs
BPL
No comments:
Post a Comment