With the year 2012 coming to an end, I have been thinking for quite some time about entrepreneurship now. In fact, currently I am thinking about bootstrapping my own setup with a friend. Having said that, it is interesting to note how entrepreneurship has changed its face in the society.
There used to be a time when having a government job would automatically include you in the elite of the society. Every family would aspire to raise their son to have a government job. To know that you are going to be having your own business would mean years of hardship and minimal chances of making it big ahead.
However, as the License Raj has come to an end and the government has slowly liberalized over the past decades, entrepreneurship has changed over a new leaf. It has started becoming synonymous with capitalism and everyone who goes to the IITs or IIMs dreams of starting their own firm and making it big one day. I share that dream – a dream which I hope to make real some day.
The infographic below shows how entrepreneurship was in the year 2012. Almost half of the entrepreneurs who had managed to survive and scale into becoming SMEs are optimistic about the year ahead. Yes, 2013 is going to be a good year.
But being optimistic does not mean taking inadvertent risks. It means being prepared … being prepared for the good, and being prepared for the bad as well. Yes, it means insuring against the bad, and thinking along the lines of business insurance.
The thing about start-ups is that many firms do not realize the sheer amount of business risks they face day-in day-out. All these risks are called as operational risks. The risk we face in day to day operations. It could be a simple thing such as forgetting to file the taxes, or neglecting to buy the software license of some critical software that you require. In India, start-ups do tend to cut corners … not to make the quick buck, but to avoid the load of paperwork that comes with it. I am sure that would be the case in other countries as well.
Take a look at this infographic I found through Hiscox Business Insurance. It was here that I learnt about the myriad of business risks. Now the question is, why entrepreneurship is the road to success? Well, take a look at the top internet billionaires list. Almost all of them have touched their first million in the past to years, and their first billion in the past 5. That clearly displays the power of a good idea can launch a start-up to stardom.
These things cannot happen without proper preparations. Take a look at the top 4 billionaires on that list, 3 of them work for Google, one is the CEO (the man with the plan), the two others are the founders. A good idea will attract funds, yes … but a good idea requires excellent execution skills and proper risk mitigation tactics to avert calamities. So entrepreneurs, dream big and prepare for the worst!!