Secrets of Successful Entrepreneurs
In his book "Theory of Economic Development", Joseph Schumpeter articulated that an enterprise carries out new combinations of ideas and an entrepreneur is the one implementing them. When starting a new venture, one is looking for new ideas, re-orienting old ones, working alone or with partners to carry out the radical thoughts. Ventures are difficult with respect to the degree of difficulty, the time and effort involved, thorough analysis to be conducted, the detailed planning, and lastly for the correct bearing of risk involved.
The two important ingredients in a successful venture are the people involved, and the focal idea. A poor idea can't be implemented by the best people, and the best idea would not stand a chance on its own. The organization must start with a clearly defined set of goals highlighting what it would like to achieve in its future. While setting goals, one must realize that if the goal is flawed it will stay afloat simply because of the time and hard work put in by the entrepreneurs. Instead, flawed goals must be identified and terminated before consuming valuable resources.
To have a successful entrepreurial idea, it must create disequilibrium in the marketplace. To protect from failure and create a strategic competitive advantage, one must ensure that the idea is radical in nature. Once it enters the marketplace, you would like it to capture an leadership position in as many of Porter's "Five Forces" variables as possible. The only way to ensure great success in the venture is to strive to create a monopoly, with high barriers to entry.
To be sucessful in the long run, the venture requires scientific methods of forecasting. The belief that the future is created, not predicted must run strongly in the enterprise. Information key to entrepreneurial success must be stores, reviewed, and easily accessible to all parts of the organization. One must be careful though to ensure that the quality of such information is top notch. One must verify all data and disregard all the noise. When it comes to creating innovative ideas, one must follow a detailed and logical algorithm to end up with the most likely successful product portfolio.
Innovative solutions art with an area of interest common to the participants. The starting point should be a search for 'vacant fields'; that is areas where there is no competition. In such a situation the entrepreneur has the flexibility of creating barriers to entry. 'Vacant fields' are found through research and uncovering knowledge often overlooked by society. Before jumping into this metaphorical field, one must analyze the situation within the industry. There are three possible explanations to a lack of competition. There could be a known solution but no action; the solution might not be known; or the area has never been explored. For the frst case, one must research why no action has been taken. Has it been overlooked? Have others tried and failed? In the second case, we must identify the ignorance of the mistake. The thrid scenerio shows a lack of effort on the part of the competition. Results from this 'ignorance profile' should be evaluated to identify the problem, possible solutions, or to pursue further research. All information is important and must be analyzed fully.
There are other areas that must also be examined when creating successful ventures. Keynes in "General Theory of Employment, Interest & Money", believed that successful enterprises need the reasonable calculations mentioned above along with a set of 'animal spirits'. The entrepreneur is a very interesting being and as per Solomon & Winslow in "Towards a Descriptive Profile of an Entrepreneur", has been described historically as a risk taker, risk avoider, dispaced, passionate, social deviate, etc. But they emphasise the confidence, logical thinking, optimism and self-reliance of entrepreneurs as a key to their success. In a successful entrepreneurial venture, it is imperitive that everyone involved believes in these values and respects them. The venture must be lead by someone as described by Evan in "Hollow the Leader"; they must have good communication and inteaction skill and would not enforce conformity.
In conclusion, a successful entrepreneurial venture must have certain key properties. It must be a mixture of logic in servicing the laws of economics, the ability and desire to lead, common sense, creativity, and the mental fortitude to make key decisions.