Just like our advice to the class of 2003, we hurl this challenge to the class of 2004. Why not be future employers? Be the start-up entrepreneur of today, so you can be the employer of the future.
Opportunities are around you–seek them!
Opportunities are around you–screen them!
Opportunities are around you–seize them!
Your neighborhood is not strictly your home address. It can be any area that the person is familiar with. It can be the school vicinity, for, after all, a student spends more waking hours in school relative to the home. Familiarity with the demand in the area will reveal opportunities. Therefore, a new graduate could simply continue this statement: "How I wish something like this were available in school while I was a student! And this is …"
Similarly, one could say this about home: "How I wish that something like this were available near the place where I stay. And this is . . ."
Statements like these indicate a desire for something that is not yet available in the area. This approach is based on one’s familiarity with the demand.
An example of this is a school supply store that is open after the big book and school supplies stores have closed for the day. How often has it happened that a student needed a set of index cards or colored paper for the following school day but the stores had either closed by the time it could be purchased or was still closed by the time the class started?
Another example is the need for a particular type of food that is available at a time and at quite a distance from the residential area of the people wanting it, e.g. students needing snacks during midnight cramming sessions.
The other way to start is to look at what you can supply and see if there is a demand for it in your neighborhood or school. This approach is based on familiarity with a product/service.
For example, you are into baking cakes. Why not check if there is an opportunity to supply the school canteen with your baked products? Find out if the neighborhood needs another supplier of pastries. If there is no demand in your familiar area, look for another area where your supply has a demand.
In general, it is always advisable to do the familiarity-with-demand approach. Even if the wannabe-entrepreneur does not know how to supply the item, he/she can learn and eventually be competent. This is addressed in opportunity-seizing.
However, before choosing the opportunity, spend some time defining your personal vision, mission, and values. This is a key foundation of great entrepreneurs. They know what they want for themselves (personal vision). They know what they live for (personal mission). They know what they live by (personal values). These three items constitute the foundation of passion.
Likewise, do a personal assessment. What are you good at? What are you not good at? This personal assessment presents the current reality. In other words, you must know yourself. Great entrepreneurs know themselves very well.
It is only after this that you can decide which opportunities are to be seized. Note that when opportunity-seeking is made, it is not pre-screened by personal wants and capabilities. Do not screen out opportunities just because you do not have the capability to do it. Seek and identify the opportunities that are present/available in your area. Then, screen them against your personal vision, mission, and values. These screened opportunities are those that you can be passionate about. You will be passionate about it because it will be a vehicle for you to achieve your personal vision, mission, and values.
Use your personal assessment to guide you to determine how the opportunity can be seized quickly. If you have the capabilities to do it by yourself, then do not wait any further. Implement it at once. And, if you do not have all the necessary capabilities to do it, identify, source, and mobilize them right away. Implement at once.
Do not be big right away. Start small, relative to your resources and capabilities. When your business model works, there will be plenty of people willing to lend money to you. Implement at once.
People who wait for somebody else to successfully operate the business before proceeding on their own are not entrepreneurs. They are investors and are not necessarily entrepreneurs. Real entrepreneurs do not wait for somebody else to start moving. Real entrepreneurs are pioneering. They are entrepioneers.
The graduates of 2004 who follow this lead shall be the entrepreneurs of the present and the future employers of Batch 2005 and other batches in the future who will have failed to seize the entrepreneurial moment.
(Alejandrino J. Ferreria is the dean of the Asian Center for Entrepreneurship of the Asian Institute of Management. For further comments and inquiries, you may contact him at: ace@aim.edu.ph. Published "Entrepreneur’s Helpline" columns can be viewed on the AIM website at http//:www.aim.edu.ph).