The Job of an Entrepreneur Is to Make Mistakes

No one finds pleasure in making mistakes because the consequences of mistakes are most times unbearable. But why is it reasonable to come to a conclusion that an entrepreneurs job is to make mistakes?

Who Is an Entrepreneur

First we need to know who an entrepreneur really is. One of the best definitions of an entrepreneur is from a professor at Havard University – Howard H. Stevenson.

He says, “Entrepreneurship is an approach to management that we define as follows: the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled”. I guess this is brilliant.

When it comes to orientation, entrepreneurs have strategic orientation, they are driven by perception of opportunity without much regard to whether they have the resources or not.

This is one of the reasons why entrepreneurs differ from employees. Employees say, “How do I start my business? I don’t have the money”. An entrepreneur would say, “Seal the deal and then, we’ll find a way to get the money”.

With this in mind, entrepreneurs will definitely have to make mistakes because they launch into things without knowing fully what’s in the next bend.

The fear of making mistakes is common and a reason why so many people are not as successful as they would like to be.

Entrepreneurs are not afraid of failing, so they’re not afraid of making mistakes. In fact, among the top 28 traits of successful entrepreneurs, making mistakes is one of them

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The Job of An Entrepreneur

The job of an entrepreneur is to design a business that can grow, employ many people, add value to customers, bring prosperity to all those that work on the business.

But the underlying meaning is that entrepreneurs will have to be on the learning curve to achieve all these.

A true entrepreneur will need to learn how to design his business the right way, employ the right people, and how exactly to add value to his customers etc.

Even if he has mentors he will have to take a step to apply what he’s learned. There’s a place of luck but true success is based on efforts and countless trials, and failures.

Idea Is One Teacher, But Experience Is The Best

Experience is the best teacher they say, and I completely agree. There’s a difference between saying “I have an idea” and “I have the experience”. One is much deeper than the other.

By listening to mentors, an entrepreneur is got an idea, but by putting into practice (which in most cases, their first attempt yields no result) he gathers real experience.

About three years ago, I started my first full offline business in school. I was in my third year. It all looked so simple to conceive an idea, but it is really difficult to design, develop, execute and control it.

I made a lot of mistakes with some of my friends. The business could not stand 2 years of test and financial difficulties. To cut it short, we all realized we didn’t invest time in the most important aspects of the business. Among other mistakes, we came to know we were building a website and not a web business.

Did I learn anything at all? Yes I did, despite the fact that we had one of the best business locations, we found ourselves in debt, we skipped classes and this did tell on our results, our creditors on our neck and our office was gone.

We failed, we made mistakes and we have learnt. I have learned and I’m still on the learning curve. I don’t just have the idea of failure, I have the experience and I have been taught along the line.

Entrepreneurs are generalist and their approach gives no room for graduation

A full cup is useless to an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur is not an employee who is a specialist – knowing so much about one thing.

An entrepreneur is a generalist who knows a little about many things – his cup is never full, it’s always empty. An entrepreneur knows little about accounting, law, engineering, insurance, finance, product design, managing and dealing with different people, public speaking etc. – he keeps learning.

The job of an entrepreneur is to set new goals, crate a plan, design, strategize, re-strategize, make mistakes, fail, and risk failing.

He’s never afraid to fail because he believes the more mistakes he makes, the smarter he becomes from real life lessons learned and hopefully making his company grow. He simply sees failing or making mistakes as a strategy for success.

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