iNM Magazine Volume 7 | August 2015
Punto De Vista
A Concept Called
Entrepreneurship:
The Good, the Bad
& the Ugly
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Paarth Gandhe
PGDM 2015 - 17
NMIMS Hyderabad
Sarfaraz Singh
PGDM 2014 - 16
NMIMS Hyderabad
E
A
ntrepreneurship put in layman terms, is the
development of a business from scratch — coming up
with an idea, a strategy and turning it into a prot
making business. While the denition of
entrepreneurship appears simple, its execution is
equally difcult.
s an adolescent, one is susceptible to delusions of
g randeur. When I first came across the ter m
'entrepreneur', I was struck by how regal it sounded. I
immediately wanted to be one - a reaction one would come
to expect from an impressionable 14 year old. The trouble
was I hadn't the faintest idea as to what an entrepreneur
did. What was worse, and I cannot stress this enough, was
that I did not even have the means to find out. The lack of
knowledge is excusable. The lack of a system to find out
what you don't know is not.
As Ajay Bam, a lecturer at the Lester Center for
Entrepreneurship at the University of California,
Berkeley's Haas School of Business said,
"Entrepreneurship is the journey of opportunity
exploration and risk management to create value for
prot and/or social good. "Entrepreneurship requires
recognizing the right opportunity, nding resources
— monetary, infrastructure & human resource — for
taking up the opportunity and creating the right team
for the same.
The idea remained, and for a long time, I ignored it. When
it was time to start making difficult career choices, it
cropped up again, and this time, I had developed the
maturity and intellectual integrity to contend with the
concept. This is not to say that I didn't struggle with it. It
would be irresponsible of me to state outright that I
grasped it. The truth is, entrepreneurship is a multifaceted
idea, and each time you think you've finally got it, it throws
another dimension your way and makes you re-evaluate
your understanding of it.
“People who are thinking about starting their own
business must really be aware that successful
entrepreneurship involves much more than having a
great concept”, said Elizabeth Amini, CEO and cofounder of Anti-Aging Games LLC and an adjunct
professor at the University of Southern California's
Marshall School of Business.
Perhaps this Hydra analogy is not completely apt. As
robust and unyielding as it makes it sound, being an
entrepreneur is delicate work. I realized this when I had the
opportunity to interact with an entrepreneur for the very
first time. My father had introduced me to the man and I
managed to convince him to let me observe what he did,
while he did it, for a few days. I did my homework, studied
up on the different domains of a company, got confused
when it came to operations, and reached his office at 8:30
the next morning. It was a small company, albeit a
successful one, and I had full confidence that by the end of
the day I would have a maestro's insight into what an
entrepreneur did. I couldn't have been more wrong.
So, what is being an entrepreneur really like?
The Good
Since you'll be your own boss, it means that you'll be
in full control of your business. You shall thrive on the
fact that the success of your business depends
entirely upon you. Nobody will be telling you what to
do, or how to do it. Experiencing the impact of your
choices in and out will keep you on your toes.
You get to choose how many hours you shall work, and
when you're going to work. You get to decide nearly
everything about your work. The ability to live where
you want and go on a vacation as you please is like no
other. Some freedom, right?
The day started off sluggishly enough. My 'mentor' walked
in at 8:45. He sipped on a cup of coffee while he regarded
me with perplexity, mixed with a tinge of annoyance.
Then, without a word, he flipped open his laptop, opened
Outlook, and replied to e-mails for the next 8 hours. He
didn't even break for lunch. Of course, I contained my
fury over a day completely and utterly wasted, wished him
How much money you make is up to you. The money
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