There is a myth that entrepreneurial success is all about innovative thinking and breakthrough ideas. Here's what success truly means. I've been an entrepreneur since I was in primary boarding school in Abothuguchi boarding primary school where as much as I was the best student in my class, topping in almost all the subjects, I used to sell sweets and biscuits and salt!!!!!! You will be shocked, yes salt! My former school mates can attest to these. We used the salt to make our morning porridge tastier. One spoonful would go for a1bob,’biscuitos’ for 1bob when selling the 300 pack carton which I was getting at ksh.130 per carton. This was roughly like 15years back. Nkubu High school is where my life turned to be not only the most disorganized student but also I relegated to an average in my academics. Interestingly, I continued with my entrepreneurship spirit which was guided by my short term vision of getting cash to finance my alcoholic life .I can comfortably say that this is where my alcoholic life started. I used to sell ‘ngumu’,‘avocadoes’, ‘ mugaca’ name them. It was neither rosy nor sustainable because of the objectives of doing the business. After High school due to the nature my dad’s business, I became his sales representative, distributing bread for a commission of 1bob per bread.......Why all these information? Entrepreneurship is a long journey! Recently, many people have wondered where I get all these ideas to start these business ventures. This has motivated me to come up with what it entails to make a successful entrepreneur.
But what else does it take to succeed as an entrepreneur, and how should an entrepreneur define success? In my entrepreneurship journey, I have come up with some rules that I would advise other upcoming entrepreneurs to try......
RULE NUMBER 1: INVOLVE GOD AND KEEP HIM FIRST
When I started Shade Systems(E.A) Ltd, I registered it as shade systems Kenya but because My self-esteem at the moment was low, I had to look for a partner who would be a beautiful lady to cut deals on my behalf. Instead of involving God I trusted human beings. Things became very tough especially because of the empty promises by prospective clients it was. Here I was with a lady but no returns. It was some difficult 2 years I have ever experienced. That is why in 2009, I took leap of faith and decided to go on my own and involve God in whatever I did. Involving God in my operations my strengthened my vision, and determination was constant...I have seen God turnaround situations that are impossible in the eyes of human being ....involve God in all you do. According to the bible he says that he knows and has plans for you........and also he is not a human being to lie to.
RULE NUMBER 2: ENTREPRENUERS ARE RISK TAKERS
Take calculated risks. The higher the risk, the higher the returns. I had ksh.60, 000 when I decide to settle. It was in 26th October 2009 when I found an office. The landlady had asked for Ksh.10000 as the rent and 50000k as the goodwill. Reason being the office had the furniture and a computer. My monthly expenses were about 60k for the company and myself another 60k.Though it was very difficult, it gave me the spirit of thinking Big. So I had to work for a profit of 120k and more. For instance, If you rent a 5k house, you will be working for a 5k limit. If you rent a 20k house, you will be working to get the 20k.
RULE NUMBER 3: STAY AWAY FROM SHYLOCKS
When I started Shade Systems(E.A) Ltd, I registered it as shade systems Kenya but because My self-esteem at the moment was low, I had to look for a partner who would be a beautiful lady to cut deals on my behalf. Instead of involving God I trusted human beings. Things became very tough especially because of the empty promises by prospective clients it was. Here I was with a lady but no returns. It was some difficult 2 years I have ever experienced. That is why in 2009, I took leap of faith and decided to go on my own and involve God in whatever I did. Involving God in my operations my strengthened my vision, and determination was constant...I have seen God turnaround situations that are impossible in the eyes of human being ....involve God in all you do. According to the bible he says that he knows and has plans for you........and also he is not a human being to lie to.
RULE NUMBER 2: ENTREPRENUERS ARE RISK TAKERS
Take calculated risks. The higher the risk, the higher the returns. I had ksh.60, 000 when I decide to settle. It was in 26th October 2009 when I found an office. The landlady had asked for Ksh.10000 as the rent and 50000k as the goodwill. Reason being the office had the furniture and a computer. My monthly expenses were about 60k for the company and myself another 60k.Though it was very difficult, it gave me the spirit of thinking Big. So I had to work for a profit of 120k and more. For instance, If you rent a 5k house, you will be working for a 5k limit. If you rent a 20k house, you will be working to get the 20k.
RULE NUMBER 3: STAY AWAY FROM SHYLOCKS
In the first quarter of 2010, my business had started to do well. I was very excited and carried away by the move. This saw me end up in the shylocks.(I felt I needed more money to take up big deals) I was to repay at a weekly, fortnight or monthly period and with high interest rates of about 30% to 100%. Shylocks are opportunists very inhuman. It was one of the biggest blunders in my entrepreneurship journey; I spent a lot of sleepless nights my health deteriorated used to panic a lot. Each and every time I saw their calls I would freeze! It went from worse to worst. My households were auctioned and most friends ran away. But I was left with God! Something surprisingly, the passion and determination never died. Lesson learnt; learn to manage your resources and make them productive. There is no shortcut. Instant cash is just like a gamble!
RULE NUMBER 4: BE PASSIONATE
Be passionate about what you do and follow what you are trying to achieve.
That means you’re willing to sacrifice a large part of your waking hours to the idea you’ve come up with. Passion will ignite the same intensity in others who join you as you build a team to succeed in that endeavor. And with passion, you and your team together with your clients are more likely to believe in what you are trying to achieve. Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion!
RULE NUMBER 5: BE FOCUSED
RULE NUMBER 4: BE PASSIONATE
Be passionate about what you do and follow what you are trying to achieve.
That means you’re willing to sacrifice a large part of your waking hours to the idea you’ve come up with. Passion will ignite the same intensity in others who join you as you build a team to succeed in that endeavor. And with passion, you and your team together with your clients are more likely to believe in what you are trying to achieve. Great dancers are not great because of their technique, they are great because of their passion!
RULE NUMBER 5: BE FOCUSED
Great entrepreneurs focus intensely on an opportunity where others don’t see anything.
This focus and intensity helps in eliminating wasted effort and distractions. Stay focused on the mission.
RULE NUMBER 6: HARDWORK, DISCIPLINE,COMMITMENT & PERSISTENCE
Success in entrepreneurship comes only from hard work.
We all know that there is no such thing as overnight success. Behind every overnight success lie years of hard work and sweat. People with luck will tell you there’s no easy way to achieve success--and that luck comes to those who work hard. Successful entrepreneurs always give 100% of their efforts to everything they do. If you know you are giving your best effort, you’ll never have any reason to regret. Focus on things you can control; stay focused on your efforts, and let the results be what they will be.
RULE NUMBER 7: BE PATIENTThe road to success is going to be long, so remember to enjoy the journey.
Everyone will teach you to focus on goals, but successful people focus on the journey and celebrate the milestones along the way. Is it worth spending a large part of your life trying to reach the destination if you do not enjoy the journey? Does the team you attract to join you on your mission also enjoy the journey? Wouldn’t it be better if all of you had a great time of your life during the journey, even if the destination is never reached? Success is a journey, celebrate the small achievements you meet on the way; they will eventually change your perspective on success.
RULE NUMBER 8: TRUST YOUR INSTINCTIVE FEELING. BE ILLOGICAL
There are too many variables in the real world that you simply can’t put into a spreadsheet. Spreadsheets spit out results from your inexact assumptions and give you a false sense of security. In most cases, your heart and gut is still your best guide. The human brain works as a binary computer and can analyze only the exact information-based zeros and ones (or black and white). Our heart is more like a chemical computer that uses fuzzy logic to analyze information that can’t be easily defined in zeros and ones. We’ve all had experiences in business where our heart told us something was wrong while our brain was still trying to use logic to figure it all out. Sometimes a faint voice based on instinct resonates far more strongly than overpowering logic.
RULE NUMBERT9: BE FLEXIBLE
You have to continuously learn and adapt as new information becomes available. At the same time, you have to remain persistent to the cause and mission of your enterprise. That’s where that faint voice becomes so important, especially when it is giving you early warning signals that things are going off track. Successful entrepreneurs find the balance between listening to that voice and staying persistent in driving for success--because sometimes success is waiting right across from the transitional bump that’s disguised as failure.
RULE NUMBER 10: TEAMWORK
Rely on your team. It’s a simple fact: No individual can be good at everything.
Everyone needs people who have complementary sets of skills. Entrepreneurs are an optimistic bunch, and it’s very hard for them to believe that they are not good at certain things. It takes a lot of soul searching to find your own core skills and strengths. After that, find the smartest people you can who complement your strengths. It’s easy to get attracted to people who are like you; the trick is to find people who are not like you but who are good at what they do--and what you can’t do.
RULE NUMBER 11: EXECUTION, EXECUTION, EXECUTION.
Unless you are the smartest person on earth (and who is), it’s likely that many others have thought about doing the same thing you’re trying to do. Success doesn’t necessarily come from breakthrough innovation but from flawless execution. A great strategy alone won’t win a game or a battle; the win comes from basic blocking and tackling. All of us have seen entrepreneurs who waste too much time writing business plans and preparing Power Points. I believe that a business plan is too long if it’s more than one page. Besides, things never turn out exactly the way you envisioned them. No matter how much time you spend perfecting the plan, you still have to adapt according to the ground realities. You’re going to learn a lot more useful information from taking action rather than hypothesizing. Remember: Stay flexible, and adapt as new information becomes available.
Everybody has a conscience, but too many people stop listening to it. There is always that faint voice that warns you when you are not being completely honest or even slightly off track from the path of integrity. Be sure to listen to that voice.
Success is a long journey and much more rewarding if you give back.
By the time you get to success, lots of people will have helped you along the way. You’ll learn, as I have, that you rarely get a chance to help the people who helped you, because in most cases, you don’t even know who they were. The only way to pay back the debts we owe is to help people we can help--and hope they will go on to help more people. When we are successful, we draw so much from the community and society that we live in that we should think in terms of how we can help others in return. Sometimes it’s just a matter of being kind to people. Other times, offering a sympathetic ear or a kind word is all that’s needed. It’s our responsibility to do “good” with the resources we have available.
Measuring Success
I hope you have internalized the secrets of becoming a successful entrepreneur. The next question you are likely to ask yourself is: How do we measure success? Success, of course, is very personal; there is no universal way of measuring success. What do successful people like Bill Gates and Mother Teresa have in common? On the surface, it’s hard to find anything they share-; and yet both are successful. I personally believe the real metric of success isn’t the size of your bank account. It’s the number of lives in which you might be able to make a positive difference. This is the measure of success we need to apply while we are on our journey to success.
This focus and intensity helps in eliminating wasted effort and distractions. Stay focused on the mission.
RULE NUMBER 6: HARDWORK, DISCIPLINE,COMMITMENT & PERSISTENCE
Success in entrepreneurship comes only from hard work.
We all know that there is no such thing as overnight success. Behind every overnight success lie years of hard work and sweat. People with luck will tell you there’s no easy way to achieve success--and that luck comes to those who work hard. Successful entrepreneurs always give 100% of their efforts to everything they do. If you know you are giving your best effort, you’ll never have any reason to regret. Focus on things you can control; stay focused on your efforts, and let the results be what they will be.
RULE NUMBER 7: BE PATIENTThe road to success is going to be long, so remember to enjoy the journey.
Everyone will teach you to focus on goals, but successful people focus on the journey and celebrate the milestones along the way. Is it worth spending a large part of your life trying to reach the destination if you do not enjoy the journey? Does the team you attract to join you on your mission also enjoy the journey? Wouldn’t it be better if all of you had a great time of your life during the journey, even if the destination is never reached? Success is a journey, celebrate the small achievements you meet on the way; they will eventually change your perspective on success.
RULE NUMBER 8: TRUST YOUR INSTINCTIVE FEELING. BE ILLOGICAL
There are too many variables in the real world that you simply can’t put into a spreadsheet. Spreadsheets spit out results from your inexact assumptions and give you a false sense of security. In most cases, your heart and gut is still your best guide. The human brain works as a binary computer and can analyze only the exact information-based zeros and ones (or black and white). Our heart is more like a chemical computer that uses fuzzy logic to analyze information that can’t be easily defined in zeros and ones. We’ve all had experiences in business where our heart told us something was wrong while our brain was still trying to use logic to figure it all out. Sometimes a faint voice based on instinct resonates far more strongly than overpowering logic.
RULE NUMBERT9: BE FLEXIBLE
You have to continuously learn and adapt as new information becomes available. At the same time, you have to remain persistent to the cause and mission of your enterprise. That’s where that faint voice becomes so important, especially when it is giving you early warning signals that things are going off track. Successful entrepreneurs find the balance between listening to that voice and staying persistent in driving for success--because sometimes success is waiting right across from the transitional bump that’s disguised as failure.
RULE NUMBER 10: TEAMWORK
Rely on your team. It’s a simple fact: No individual can be good at everything.
Everyone needs people who have complementary sets of skills. Entrepreneurs are an optimistic bunch, and it’s very hard for them to believe that they are not good at certain things. It takes a lot of soul searching to find your own core skills and strengths. After that, find the smartest people you can who complement your strengths. It’s easy to get attracted to people who are like you; the trick is to find people who are not like you but who are good at what they do--and what you can’t do.
RULE NUMBER 11: EXECUTION, EXECUTION, EXECUTION.
Unless you are the smartest person on earth (and who is), it’s likely that many others have thought about doing the same thing you’re trying to do. Success doesn’t necessarily come from breakthrough innovation but from flawless execution. A great strategy alone won’t win a game or a battle; the win comes from basic blocking and tackling. All of us have seen entrepreneurs who waste too much time writing business plans and preparing Power Points. I believe that a business plan is too long if it’s more than one page. Besides, things never turn out exactly the way you envisioned them. No matter how much time you spend perfecting the plan, you still have to adapt according to the ground realities. You’re going to learn a lot more useful information from taking action rather than hypothesizing. Remember: Stay flexible, and adapt as new information becomes available.
Everybody has a conscience, but too many people stop listening to it. There is always that faint voice that warns you when you are not being completely honest or even slightly off track from the path of integrity. Be sure to listen to that voice.
Success is a long journey and much more rewarding if you give back.
By the time you get to success, lots of people will have helped you along the way. You’ll learn, as I have, that you rarely get a chance to help the people who helped you, because in most cases, you don’t even know who they were. The only way to pay back the debts we owe is to help people we can help--and hope they will go on to help more people. When we are successful, we draw so much from the community and society that we live in that we should think in terms of how we can help others in return. Sometimes it’s just a matter of being kind to people. Other times, offering a sympathetic ear or a kind word is all that’s needed. It’s our responsibility to do “good” with the resources we have available.
Measuring Success
I hope you have internalized the secrets of becoming a successful entrepreneur. The next question you are likely to ask yourself is: How do we measure success? Success, of course, is very personal; there is no universal way of measuring success. What do successful people like Bill Gates and Mother Teresa have in common? On the surface, it’s hard to find anything they share-; and yet both are successful. I personally believe the real metric of success isn’t the size of your bank account. It’s the number of lives in which you might be able to make a positive difference. This is the measure of success we need to apply while we are on our journey to success.
