In order to become a successful entrepreneur it is essential to start as young as possible. The ideas have to come in school, in college and not by waiting to finish graduation and then planning an internship followed by a plan to make money. Simply put, the earlier you start, the sooner you will be a success, no matter how small the idea or how difficult the path.
Starting young means focusing any entrepreneurial efforts on something which has meaning and which will enable you to earn a living. It is essential to take this idea further while adding meaning to business sense and social progress, eventually building a world class company.
Jason is a friend of mine in China who wanted to do something of his own after working as a merchandiser for a foreign company. All he knew was basic English and had made a few contacts in the industry. He was determined to establish his own company but limited capital and lack of knowledge in this particular field posed the primary challenges. He thought about meeting friends from other markets, made some contacts through social networks and started learning about the business in different geographies, made appointments with visitors who came to see him in China for short work such as travel guidance, asking for local support on translation and negotiation. Jason knew immediately that he had to improve his English in order to better communicate and made his first trip to Europe followed by Australia and India to figure out the taste of people in the furniture industry. He also conducted research on price and services in various markets. Today, Jason runs a successful business, exporting almost 6 containers of various furniture including board room pieces and leather recliners to various parts of the world.
Investing is a lifelong process. You can only become an “overnight” success after years of hard work. So invest in working in the present, and don’t worry about the future.
It reminds me that at this moment, where we are right now, everything we have or don’t have in our life right now, is a result of everything we have thought and everything we have done before this very moment. It also reminds me that what I do in this very moment will affect my tomorrow. This begs the question:
If you know what you want your tomorrow or your three years from tomorrow to essentially look like, what do you need to do today to help make that into a reality?
This brings us to another success story. Zhang Lei, the Hong Kong-based founder of the fundamental equity manager with over $14 billion assets. Zhang founded Hillhouse in 2005 with backing from the Yale University. Hillhouse has been a long-time investor in Tencent Holdings Ltd., Asia’s largest Internet Company, and a stakeholder in JD.com Inc., China’s second-largest e-commerce site. Shares in Tencent have increased six fold in the five years to May 2014.
Looking at this data, what you will see is that all Business-to Business( B2B) and Business-to-Consumer ( B2C) companies globally are founded by 25-35 year olds. This new generation of entrepreneurs is running billion dollar companies with a track record of less than 5 years and funding from a range of investors, examples include snap deal, flipkart, cartrade, redbus, rocket internet and many more. The point here is that each of these companies followed a single idea, carried out research and believed in their business idea and worked on it to make it a success.
The path to entrepreneurship can go hand in hand with education, you don’t need to believe that only after finishing the formal graduation you are eligible for a startup, the ideas and vision can go together while you are getting education.
The education system in Europe, especially in Germany, focuses more on practical training. Germany follows a dual Vocational Education System whereby the education system pairs hands-on learning with classroom learning to give young people an introduction to joining a workforce.
