Wisdom from the emergence of Educated, Experienced Entrepreneurs

Indian education system has long been chided for its inability to produce entrepreneurs. As a society, we Indians are a conservative lot and when the choice is between the “risky” option of entrepreneurship and the lure of a good paying MNC/ large corporate job, the  inclination is clearly towards the latter. We tell ourselves- let us take this job for a few years, get some experience and then we will start out. Over a period of time, this becomes a case of “good becoming the enemy of great”. The entrepreneurial idea keeps on getting postponed on the premise of some or the other personal goal (marriage, kids, kids schooling -an unending list really) and becomes more a mirage than reality in most cases.

There is a joke in the financial markets that if your equity investments bets go wrong, you become a  “long term investor”. Similarly, in the recessionary phase, in the financial markets recently, entrepreneurship was the euphemism for people asked to leave jobs. However now the tides are turning and bullishness is back at least for the equity and the job market (albeit less vigorously). With this background, it is interesting to note the large number of educated and experienced people who are moving towards entrepreneurship.

Although this phenomenon seems to be catching up across the board, it is more prevalent in the services segment-particularly in financial services and technology (especially internet and mobile based businesses). This is partly because of the lesser start up costs of these ventures. Incidentally, on a broad brush basis, the drivers in these two specific sectors are quite different. On the technology side, people have seen a large number of success stories- Facebook , Whatsapp, etc, which have made the entrepreneurs-generally young techies, extremely rich in a relatively short span of time. This leads to a pull factor amongst other creative technology savvy people, to want to create something of their own.

On the financial services side, it is quite often a push factor- disillusionment from their mundane roles, the realization that there are too many external factors which determine one’s success or the lack thereof and a growing feeling that the pay does not adequately cover for the stress.

Besides these, the macro driver is the economic growth that the country has seen leading to individual prosperity and also abundance of opportunities for the well qualified. As a result of the former, in 10-12 working years people have been able to generate more wealth than the previous generation in their life time. This clearly increases your risk appetite. Similarly, the realization that even if things do not work out, you can find an okay job opportunity, adds to your risk taking ability. On the social side, the financial support derived from your spouse’s income also aids the move towards entrepreneurship.

Besides being a harbinger of good times to come, I believe this is a sign of us maturing as an economy- and hope that we go beyond the two stated sectors.However, I would like to draw from this and apply the knowledge and wisdom there from to our lives.

For me an educated, experienced, entrepreneur represents a person who has chosen a riskier path because he wants to achieve his true potential. It represents a man with conviction- a dreamer, a risk taker, a person who is willing to sacrifice in the short run, to achieve a much higher goal in the medium to long run. I think the message is loud and clear- One Life ! Let us not waste it in doing things we do not like. Let us try to achieve what we can- better to fail in these attempts than never having tried at all.

And I am not necessarily talking about our careers alone. This is an all-encompassing learning. If we can take initiative and be better at our hobbies or make something meaningful out of them- let us do that! If we can use our passion and energy to actively work on our health and become more disciplined about it- by all means. If we can improve our relations with people, let us make efforts towards it. From the society’s perspective, if we want to and can make things better- let us do it. Even on other fronts, let the pull factor be the desire towards self actualization and the push factor be a discontentment with accepting things the way they are.

Let us not find excuses for why we cannot do certain things- family pressure, peer pressure, lack of time, lack of x, y, z. Believe me when I say this - “it is all in the mind”. You are as strong as you think you are, as capable as you want to be! Anything that we have always thought about- dreamt about….. let us focus our energies to achieve it ! There is no wrong time to do the right thing- the right thing is pursuing your dreams and the Time is Now…. !