Sunday, July 25, 2010

Be Happy – Be Entrepreneur

In one of the articles I was going through yesterday, I found the following figures indicating the status of the economy in US, considered as the super power of the world:

• 83 percent of all U.S. stocks are in the hands of 1 percent of the people.
• 61 percent of Americans "always or usually" live paycheck to paycheck, which was up from 49 percent in 2008 and 43 percent in 2007. • 66 percent of the income growth between 2001 and 2007 went to the top 1% of all Americans.
• 36 percent of Americans say that they don't contribute anything to retirement savings.

• A staggering 43 percent of Americans have less than $10,000 saved up for retirement.
• 24 percent of American workers say that they have postponed their planned retirement age in the past year.
• Over 1.4 million Americans filed for personal bankruptcy in 2009, which represented a 32 percent increase over 2008.
• Only the top 5 percent of U.S. households have earned enough additional income to match the rise in housing costs since 1975.
• For the first time in U.S. history, banks own a greater share of residential housing net worth in the United States than all individual Americans put together.
• In 1950, the ratio of the average executive's paycheck to the average worker's paycheck was about 30 to 1. Since the year 2000, that ratio has exploded to between 300 to 500 to one.
• As of 2007, the bottom 80 percent of American households held about 7% of the liquid financial assets.
• The bottom 50 percent of income earners in the United States now collectively own less than 1 percent of the nation’s wealth.
• Average Wall Street bonuses for 2009 were up 17 percent when compared with 2008.
• In the United States, the average federal worker now earns 60% MORE than the average worker in the private sector.
• The top 1 percent of U.S. households own nearly twice as much of America's corporate wealth as they did just 15 years ago.
• In America today, the average time needed to find a job has risen to a record 35.2 weeks.
• More than 40 percent of Americans who actually are employed are now working in service jobs, which are often very low paying.
• The first time in U.S. history, more than 40 million Americans are on food stamps, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture projects that number will go up to 43 million Americans in 2011.
• This is what American workers now must compete against: in China a garment worker makes approximately 86 cents an hour and in Cambodia a garment worker makes approximately 22 cents an hour.
• Approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010 - the highest rate in 20 years.
• Despite the financial crisis, the number of millionaires in the United States rose a whopping 16 percent to 7.8 million in 2009.

• The top 10 percent of Americans now earn around 50 percent of the national income.


Why are so dismal figures there? It appears that US has forgotten to develop entrepreneurship in its next generations to handle the business and manufacturing sector and concentrated upon the consumption or enjoyment by importing the stuff and now, manpower to handle the jobs there due to lower payment of the labor costs comparatively. You can reverse the downfall and become of one of the saviors of progress for the whole world. You should become Entrepreneur, it will be in your own interest.

What do you understand about the word “Entrepreneur”? If we may make analysis of the word, we find that the word entrepreneur comes from Latin. Entre-enter; pre-before; neur-nerve center. Taking its derivation we could understand entrepreneur as someone who enters the nerve center of a business that no one entered before and then makes changes to it that results in a paradigm shift in the whole process. An entrepreneur is the one who is willing to take risk in any business endeavor and entrepreneurship is the art of finding an opportunity and then pursuing it to success.

When you wish to earn something for you, you have the following options, most widely accepted throughout the world:

-You may become an employee to some one.
-You may become self employed, as a professional.
-You may become a manufacturer, a businessman and/or an entrepreneur as defined above.
-You may become an investor.


All the above four capacities have their own merits and demerits.

As an employee, you would sell out your time or caliber for some consideration to be given to you partly as advance and the balance after the job or the specified time is over, or you may be kept on hourly, daily, weekly, fortnightly or monthly basis, or on the basis of the completion of the work. The payment terms can be defined by you and your employer as the circumstances prevail. Some time job opportunities are in plenty and some time manpower is available and for a single job, there we witness many applicants. However, whatever be there, you will be an employee to some one., it is immaterial whether your employer is an individual, firm, company, association, trust or the government authority. Mostly your employment can be at your employer’s pleasure keeping in view the rising unemployment world wide. Here, the employer will count on your performance as per the terms and conditions settled with you.

For becoming a self employed, professional, you need to make good achievements in your academic and vocational pursuits. Addition of some practical experience may make you sharp and you can render consultancy or work as an Engineer, Architect, Medical Practitioner, Lawyer, Artist, Accountant, Spiritual Guru, Teacher, Preacher, Craftsman, Master, Expert etc. Here too, your personal services are counted very much. If you are there, you would be paid for. Your client would like to listen to you only, if he engages you.

If you become a manufacturer, a businessman and/or an entrepreneur as defined above, you may take care of various elements required for becoming as such. You will have to gather your resources, your caliber, your contacts and your aptitude to work as a manufacturer, a businessman and/or an entrepreneur as defined above. You may develop some system, organize infrastructure, and recruit some staff even including some experts of the line, to support you. There can be some teething problems initially but once your system gets working to use your infrastructure and staff to achieve your aim, you need just some supervision to avoid any derailment or trouble in smooth running of the show.

If you choose to become an investor, you need to gather your capital to invest in other’s project and sit outside to watch the progress and count your income in shape of your interest, dividend or anything which the Project operator may pay as per the terms and conditions decided with you. Beyond that you can not go. If unluckily that project operator happens to be dishonest, value and recovery of your investment may not remain as much as when you had originally invested.

Here we see the third option seems to be best if you have courage to become an entrepreneur. How can you be an entrepreneur? And what should be done to be a successful entrepreneur? Why do you want to be an entrepreneur? Do you really want to be an entrepreneur? Ask these questions to yourself before thinking of starting any business venture?

As a saying goes “brilliant people also see the same things that others do but they observe things that others don’t.” It is the same with entrepreneurs also. They come out with ideas that others don’t think about and that is why they become successful.

Why entrepreneurship? Why are you thinking of being an entrepreneur? Do you really want to be an entrepreneur or is there some kind of compulsion to be an entrepreneur? Is it because you don’t have any job or you currently find yourself out of job? There are many who get into the field because that is what his father and forefathers have been doing. Well, after all, it is their family business. It is the one where people claim that they want to be entrepreneurs for the very simple reason that they want to be entrepreneurs. Entrepreneurship is in their blood.

It is for you to ask yourself. Why do you want to be an entrepreneur? I would like to tell you one thing. Entrepreneurship can really prove very rewarding but and this is a very big but, it is very risky and not easy. Until and unless you are ready to slug it out till the end, the chances of success are very limited. If you are fed up with you daily office routine and want to try your hands in entrepreneurship, let me tell you that the time you would have to spend for your own company would be far more. The effort that you would have to make would be far greater than what you have been making. There has never been any short cut to success and there would never be any. But yes, when you really become successful, the rewards compensate for everything.

The avenues open are many but you would have to make appropriate choices. The present time offers you opportunities where you can earn money and make a mark for yourself without actually investing too much of capital. Yes, in the process of globalization there is no political barriers and anyone and everyone can start a business of their own.

Most of us find ourselves trapped in nine to five jobs and even though the desire to do something worthwhile exists but job security and several other such considerations stop us from taking the one step that could change our future forever.

If you find that you are not in a position to leave your job, you can start some work in your part time without actually quitting your job. And that would groom up you to become an entrepreneur to start with a small idea but with a vision that could take him to the highest platform of success.

In the beginning you should not exactly need to spend all your time at it. After all, you must have liabilities with you and you could not risk it all. So, the best course of action would be to initiate some business in your part time and continue with your job. And the moment you feel your part time business has grown enough to occupy you full time, you can quit your job and start concentrating fully on your business.

If you are thinking of starting a new business venture of your own, you should asses yourself very objectively if you are game for it. For example, if you are thinking to be a technopreneur, you need to have some personal traits that include being ambitious, independent thinking, passionate about your work, self confidence to take bold decisions, commitment to your job, and creativity in good doses, having risk taking abilities, and having a vision for future.

So, if you want to be a technopreneur, start with assessing yourself, if you are really for it. And be very honest about it. You can’t cheat yourself. What are your interests? Are you really interested in being a technopreneur or are you joining the bandwagon? Do you have the aptitude to be a technopreneur? What are the relative advantages and the disadvantages of being a technopreneur?

You must be very sure of what you want. Another option could be of being a miniprenuer. The best thing about it is that you can continue in your present job and pursue your business in part time. And when you think that you are ready to pursue it full time you should leave your job and do it full time. It all depends on your personal choice and personal willingness.

If you get sufficient resources, capital and infrastructure with experienced hands, you can go to undertake big business and big projects. You can render social service by creating employment for the thousands of the people, add up to national wealth and have social symbol. But keep in mind, being an entrepreneur is something the best option but it needs to be handled very carefully. If you become an entrepreneur, you will work hard to make yourself successful and once successful, you will not be horrified with the figures which indicate rising unemployment.

Be Happy – Be Entrepreneur




No comments:

Post a Comment