So You Want To Be An Entrepreneur?

How to decide if starting a business is really for you

Jon Gillespie-Brown

• Publisher: Capstone
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9781841128030
• eBook ISBN: 9781907293429
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Small Business
• Index: Business

Jon Gillespie Brown brings his extensive mentoring experience to bear in this new handbook for would-be entrepreneurs. So You Want to Be an Entrepreneur? contains a series of mentoring sessions, each carefully thought out to make you consider and plan your life based on your passions, ambitions and ultimate visions. By actively taking part in each of the exercises, you give yourself the best chance of succeeding as an entrepreneur, or the sufficient clarity to decide what other career options are best suited to you.

Explore your real goals, hidden talents, passions, assets and core skills. The simple self-discovery tools in the book will make it easy for you to analyse this information and take the next steps towards your entrepreneurial dreams with total confidence.

PRAISE FOR SO YOU WANT TO BE AN ENTREPRENEUR
'Read this book if you plan to be an entrepreneur, find out what it's really like before you make the leap!' Doug Richard, entrepreneur, business investor and former member of the Dragons' Den TV programme

'Before I invest in a business at an early stage I want to know the founders knew what they were getting into. I would suggest they check out if they measure up to the demands of the ups and downs required to be a successful entrepreneur by reading this book first.' Richard Farleigh, Author Taming the Lion: 100 Secret Strategies for Investing and former member of the Dragons' Den

'The key to entrepreneurial success is understanding what type of entrepreneur you are, and then doing business in a way that is true to yourself, and above all, one that brings you personal happiness and fulfilment. This book will help you decide whether a life of an entrepreneur is for you.' Rachel Elnaugh, entrepreneur, business speaker and former member of the Dragons' Den

'Very few people truly consider the hard work, disappointment, frustration and crushing lows that every Entrepreneur experiences along the journey. Jon's book is a must read for anybody ready to take the leap!' Richard Parkes Cordock, author of Millionaire Upgrade and creator of Millionaire MBA Business Mentoring Programme

'The only form of safe employment is self-employment. I recommend anyone considering the entrepreneurial path to read this book.' Geoff Burch, International Speaker and author of Go It Alone: The Streetwise Secrets of Self-Employment

tobeanentrepreneur.com

Mentor Session 1

Introduction to Entrepreneurship

• Introduction and overview

• What is an entrepreneur?

• Research into entrepreneurs

• Top ten traits of entrepreneurs

• Lesson-how do you measure up so far?

Introduction

Welcome to your first mentoring seminar.

Whether you are embarking on your first career, have come to a career crossroads much later down the line or whether you fall somewhere in between, you will benefit greatly from these sessions.

Firstly, let me congratulate you for coming this far. You obviously care deeply about who you are and what you are going to do with your life. You would be amazed how many people never even get to that point.

This is not an ‘all or nothing’ education, however. Whether we finish our journey together with you feeling confident to begin your new life as an entrepreneur, whether you decide to remain happily just as you are, or you decide to find some other great organization to work for, you are going to understand yourself and your motivations in life with a new and invaluable clarity.

Let me first tell you a little about myself and my experiences. I am a successful working entrepreneur, and contribute a large proportion of my time to mentoring others eager to succeed in the entrepreneurial world. My own entrepreneurial roots go back as far as I can remember. I was always a bit of a maverick, even at school. Growing up, I lived in many countries and was exposed to many cultures and languages - this helped me become a keen and curious observer of life. I was always one of those people who had a knack for listening, even as a child when kids would often confide in me. Conversely, I was also quite shy and something of a ‘loner’.

I learned early on, however, that I could make friends and help other people not through my personality but by my contribution. At that age I didn’t have a word for it, but today it’s my watchword and what I base much of my life around.

Over the last 20 years I have started over half a dozen businesses; indeed, today I still run three so I am very much a working entrepreneur. However, I take the time to actively help others through giving my time, my resources and my money - my favourite phrase to sum up my philosophy is you get what you give - I find the more I give out to others, the more help I get back. Don’t think that my giving is driven by a desire to get something in return, it is not. I am just reporting a healthy consequence of my actions. If you ‘give to get’ you will not have the same results, I assure you.

INSIDER TIP

I find the more people I help, the more seem to help me. I also find that the harder and smarter I work the luckier I get. Finally the more passionate and enthusiastic I am I find I get the same response from others.

Try it, you will find the same!

Over the years I have mentored hundreds of people from every race, class and culture. I have done this in the UK and the US, with everyone from business school students, to friends, to business colleagues. I have done this as part of ‘Digital Ventures’ (www.digital-ventures.com) and also as part of team at the London Business School and Stanford University. I have seen ideas from camera stores to dairy farms, from software to restaurants. In every case I have to say the same simple learning applies - those that were the most successful and happy were those that followed their passion and dreamed big dreams!

Over the next eight sessions I will take you on a journey to discover what an entrepreneur really is, what the research tells us and what the prevailing myths are. I will give you an insight into what life is like for a working entrepreneur, providing stories and examples from talented entrepreneurs I have being lucky to come into contact with. Then, together we will look at the different areas of your life and carry out a personal assessment of your potential to successfully become, and prosper as, a working entrepreneur.

I want you to think about yourself in a way that you have never done before. Don’t immediately create excuses why it won’t work for you. I want you to grab this opportunity with both hands and give it your best shot. Be painfully honest and as open-minded as you can; the benefits are going to be huge, no matter what outcome you choose. This is not a passive learning experience, I need you to get stuck in, and question and record your own thoughts as we go along.

Let’s get started on our journey, joining us will be our fic tional friend Jane. Grab a pen now and take a look at the web site to download the forms we will start using below www.tobeanentrepreneur.com. If you don’t have web access try and take a copy of the page as you will need more space than is provided in the book to work effectively.

Together with Jane, take a quick look at this list of ten questions that will help you answer the ultimate question: Do you want to become an entrepreneur?

There is no right or wrong answer at this time; just write whatever comes into your head. Keep your list to hand. We will then revisit it towards the end of our time together with what I promise to be surprising results!

So take your pen and the downloaded sheet of questions and complete it quickly and honestly. Below is how Jane did it to give you some ideas and how to go about it.

Top ten ways to answer the ultimate question - do I want to become an entrepreneur?

You can see that Jane is totally new to the idea of being an entrepreneur, a situation which may not apply to you; you may have started your journey already. Don’t avoid these questions, however, as they will be very useful for you as you go through the mentoring sessions. Take the time to write down the answers on a separate notebook which you can use for making all the notes as we go along.

Top ten ways to answer the ultimate question - Do I want to become an entrepreneur?

Have you answered the questions as best you can? OK, let’s move on and learn more about entrepreneurship.

What is an entrepreneur?

The age of the entrepreneur has now well and truly arrived. Twenty years ago the word buccaneer would have been used in the same breath as entrepreneur, but now the definition of an entrepreneur is, someone who is willing to take risks to launch a product or service successfully.

A popular misconception is that inventors and entrepreneurs are one and the same. This is not the case. An inventor creates something new. An entrepreneur assembles and then integrates all the resources needed - the money, the people, the business model, the strategy, and the risk-bearing ability - to transform the invention into a viable business. He or she is a person who organizes, operates, and assumes the risk for a business venture. They have a talent for homing in on opportunities and have the abilities needed to develop those opportunities into profit-making businesses

‘It is a contradiction in terms to call yourself an entrepreneur when you’re actually betting other people’s money. Let’s define the entrepreneur as someone who is willing to take a risk with their own capital. In other words, they have upside but they also have considerable downside.

‘The other thing that unites us as entrepreneurs is a burning desire to be our own bosses.’

Sir Stelios Haji-loannou
Founder and chairman, easyGroup

Research into entrepreneurs

The recent surge of interest in entrepreneurship has resulted in more focused research, which serves to benefit us all. Across the globe, recognition is finally being given as to the importance of entrepreneurship to society.

‘Entrepreneurship is America’s most important competitive advantage. It’s what America does much better than any other advanced industrial nation.’

William Bygrave, Babson College

Whilst traditional research rarely focused on entrepreneurs as a distinct group, this is now changing. Academic researchers have begun to look at the entrepreneurial process as something quite different from starting a small business or managing an established company. Research points to the entrepreneur’s ability to take calculated risks and to have an achievement orientation, a sense of independence, an internal locus of control and a tolerance of ambiguity.

Contrary to popular belief, studies have shown that an entrepreneur does not need specific inherent traits, but rather a set of acquired skills.

‘Successful entrepreneurs have a wide range of personality types. Most research about entrepreneurs has focused on the influences of genes, family, education, career experience, and so forth, but no psychological model has been supported.’

‘There is no evidence of an ideal entrepreneurial personality. Great entrepreneurs can be either gregarious or low key, analytical or intuitive, charisma...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• WHY YOU SHOULD BUY THIS BOOK
• PREFACE
• Acknowledgements
• Dedication
• SO YOU WANT TO BE AN ENTREPRENEUR?
• Mentor Session 1 - Introduction to Entrepreneurship
• Mentor Session 2 - Entrepreneurs Uncovered
• Mentor Session 3 - Entrepreneurial Lifestyle
• Mentor Session 4 - Deconstructing You - Part 1
• Mentor Session 5 - Deconstructing You-Part 2
• Mentor Session 6 - Is it Really for Me?
• Mentor Session 7 - Make Sure you Take your Loved Ones with You
• Mentor Session 8 - Are You Ready to be an Entrepreneur?
• Epilogue
• Answer key
• Index