Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Top 5 Excuses People Will Use To Put You Down as an Entrepreneur

For some reason I increasingly see a lot of young people coming up to me and talking to me about their business ideas and how they want to take the leap and try doing something of their own.

Yet, they always somehow get discouraged by others with all sorts of excuses.

So I have finally decided to write this to clear the air of many of my readers so you all don't get discouraged ok.

A true entrepreneur does not get discouraged by what anyone says about him as long as he knows he's doing the right thing.

The Top 5 Excuses People Will Use To Put You Down as an Entrepreneur

Number 5

"Cannot wan lar your idea will never work!".

This is the very most basic excuse that you will face and if you feel discouraged after people put you down using that line, then maybe you don't believe in your idea as much as you need to and you should think of something else.

Number 4

"You don't know anything about running a business".

And you will NEVER know... unless you RUN one yourself.

Before a baby learns to walk, she watches other people around her walk but she never really really learns to do it until he/she tries. Very often she will stumble first before she walks, but that's just the way nature made us to be.

If I were to list all the billionaires today who jumped straight into business without working a day in their lives... I would start with Richard Branson of Virgin, Bill Gates and Paul Allen of Microsoft, Steve Jobs of Apple, Philip Green of Topman, Sergey Brin Larry Page of Google, Jerry Yang of Yahoo, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and the list goes on and on.
If I were to list all the billionaires today that DIDN'T jump straight into business and worked a few years from now... the list ALSO goes on and on and on...

Point is... whatever path you take, all that matters is what you do and not what you did.

Number 3

"Business is all about contacts and it's not like you know anyone in the industry."

Yes business is about contacts... whether it's ALL about contacts or not I can't say but I do know contacts play an important part.

That doesn't mean you can't go head in without any contacts. You make your own contacts.

When Ming and I started Nuffnang, neither one of us knew anyone in the advertising industry. Cold calling and begging for meetings was how we got any of our first ads but eventually after much persistence and some luck, our clients welcomed us through the door and today we run campaigns for Maxis, DiGi, Honda, Nokia, Nestle, Uniliver, HUGO, Air Asia... you name it.


Number 2

"You no money how to do business?"

Venture capitalists... there are so many around and so many who are willing to put money with you as long as they believe in you.

Notice I said BELIEVE IN YOU (NOT believe in your idea).

When you pitch to VCs, sure they'll like to see how your idea plans to generate revenue but there's only so much homework they can do. The rest of the weighting on their decisions are based on the entrepreneur... and that's YOU.

If they believe in your idea but don't believe in you... they won't invest in you (Trust me, I know many many VCs).

But if they do invest in you, they will sometimes even allow you to draw an allowance from the company so you can still run your own business and live with a salary.


Number 1

"For every one Google and Microsoft you have 100,000,000 failures.. what makes you think you can make it?"

That's right. That line is true. Very very true.

For every one success story there are a thousand or more other failures. What people forget to see however is that its the way everything else in life works.

For every one General Manager at Citibank there is at any point in time another 1,000 people who tried to get to that position at one point in their lives but failed.

For every one student studying Law at UCL, there are another 150 that tried to get that same spot but failed.

For every one employee at Maybank, there are another 100 who interviewed for that job but failed to get in.

So what's the difference?

Whatever you do in life, you are still going to be faced with the same challenge that obviously not everyone is going to make it where you want to go, short of you going to live in a Communist country.

So if you want to be an entrepreneur... NEVER let anyone put you down.

At the end of the day, whatever opinion anyone gives you is only as good as who that person is.

If a lowlife or nobody tells you that you suck or says that you're a failure, you won't take it seriously right?

But if Lee Kuan Yew says that you suck.. you'll believe ever word of it.
Hence, I have sought advice from a lot of very successful entrepreneurs in Malaysia, some of them among the richest men in Malaysia today... and when I ask them about going to be an entrepreneur, none of them ever once discouraged me.

The only ones that ever discouraged me are the ones that never tried.

You should never be discouraged yourself!

26 comments:

[fong88] said...

yeahh..its true..to be an entrepreneur you must be firm on your decision..do not let anyone influence you..^^cheerss..

Bigcityb said...

well-said tim.

Boss Stewie said...

fong: yes yes!!

big: thanksss :P

Genova said...

damn inspiring boss..

Phil said...

great post boss. I will never give up my dream to be an Entrepreneur like you. =)

Phil said...

great post boss. I will never give up my dream to be an Entrepreneur like you. =)

Boss Stewie said...

genova: aww... hopefully you'll inspire a lot of people yourself one day too

philip: ahh don't give up! the dream is worth chasing

Chocoanut said...

The ppl that always discourage me is the people that failed badly.... thank you for ur tips Mr Tim.

Boss Stewie said...

clement: that's true in some cases clement.. do take care.

Cerene Lim said...

An avid reader of yours :) Great to see that you are well enough to blog. Was on the verge of ****** because of self disappointed and terribly discouraged till I have an urge to find any updates for today on your blog. Thanks a lot for your writing! It really perks me up a lot!!

Keep up the good work.. :)

DO Take care =)

Unknown said...

Good going, boss! As long as you never stops.

Eh, it's been a while! XD

Boss Stewie said...

cerene: aww.. whatever your problem might be.. don't let it bring you down ok? u're better than that

chapree: yah.. a long long while! where u been?

Dan said...

let me ask you why you want encourage more people to become entrepreneurs?

and if a "lowlife or nobody" pitch to you and asks you to invest in him, would you still encourage him?

These are questions I dunno the answer to..mayeb u know. hehe

Jess said...

yes boss!! so correct!

get well soon :)

Boss Stewie said...

dan: well i'm not trying to encourage new people to be entrepreneurs but encouraging the people who already come to me with aspirations to be an entrepreneur.

as to whether i would invest in a lowlife, it all really depends on whether i believe in him or not.... others may not believe in him but i might...

jess: thank u jess :P

Twinkle said...

Boss Stewie... good luck. We need lots of young ppl like u who have guts, including usus, hati, limpa etc... to be an entrepreneur. Hope 2 see u to be one of the millionaires in 5 years time.. or maybe even less!

Evil Chica said...

youngster are easily discouraged esp wen de ppl who critisized thm are de ppl they look up to or respect...becos they keep de believes tat wen the elders said so, thn its hopeless...only de few independent, daring youngster will take de stride to be all de way successful n keep fighting for survival...being entrepeneurs needs more balls n brains..

Boss Stewie said...

twinkle: millionaire.. hahaha long time from now but i like doing what i do now

ricci: i'm sure that many already have the balls and brains.. they justt need a little encouragement.

~*Pumpkiin*~ said...

thanks for the inspiring post :)

Dan said...

boss stewie already pass millionaire mark long long time ago... hahaha got paparazi at Citigold report back to me. The balance many figures..LOL.

Chee Hsien said...

you have my support boss!
http://cheehsien.net/?p=37

Danny said...

For every idea, there is always someone who has the same one frolicking in their mind or have thought about it before. But it's who dares to fail in order to take that first step that will end up winning. :)

So what if you fail on the first try, think it through and plug your leaking bucket to start over again. Think of yourself being successful before you even fail.

Lasker said...

Stewie!! I heard you!
Haha .. if you still remember me that is :)

Not gonna stop what I am doing now. Your post just energized me that much more .. :)

Eh, get well soon. Health is just as important as reaching your first million :)

Horny Ang Moh said...

Ok from now on I am going to believed in muself! So can I start a pokeing advice site?
Have a nice day bossy!

TzeThon said...

great post you have there. i think it's really true that some people will try to discourage you by saying all those words. who knows what will or will not happen in the end? all we can do is give our ideas a try. no matter what turns out eventually. we can proudly say that we've tried our best.

bem69 said...

This is a great post. It should motivate a lot of people doing their own thing. It sure as hell inspired me. Thanks.