OMG, She is an Entrepreneur! Such an effortless life – making big bucks and surrounded by people working at her tips, what more would anyone ask for! Often people think and look at me this way but I feel like requesting such people to live life of an entrepreneur for a day.
In reality, if you choose to be an entrepreneur, it’s a scream – you’re about to open the Pandora’s Box. The eyes that widen at an entrepreneurship’s fruits will turn blind to the entrepreneur’s basket … which is undoubtedly full of struggles, travails, sacrifices and unstinted devotion.
How does the world at large look at an Entrepreneur?
For a common man – A Mogul
For Clients – A Contestant in a rat-race
For the Government – A Vendor
For Investors & Venture Capitalists – Just another Businesswoman (unless you’re tagged and stalked on virtual space)
Life of an ordinary entrepreneur is much different than a pigeonholed entrepreneur… no straight faces intended but yes if you don’t belong to the Mecca of schools, your ideas are a no-no for the elevator pitch (no matter how brilliant they are).
To this I must say had I been from some famous Design school or B-school, things would have been apparently painless. The journey would have shortened, I’d have had a high chance to collaborate with national brands, present my business plans and spread sheets to top honchos, got venture/angel funds infused in my production house; even the crowd would have been a big fan, literally eating out of my hand at my desire. If I were an NIDan or IITian or IIMite I could’ve made an easy living by writing campus stories, may be have got my novella converted into on-screen show and build myself as a brand, with time into a well-known brand… but again, things change brutally when you are not a labelled entrepreneur from a pedigreed alumnus. I’m pretty confident once in a lifetime most of we, non-labelled entrepreneurs, would comprehend this.
Capitalists might show thumbs up to some sub-standard solar power startup of selling green batteries to the developing world of Asian & African countries. It is an all together an another issue that the so called pedigreed start up hardly sold a few thousand pieces in the first few years and such young entrepreneurs got millions for it only because they hung on their necks some top-notch University board; while we – Dear Ordinary Entrepreneurs are refused to be backed and I guess you know why. Yes absolutely because we don’t have a branded degree and an en number of spread sheets fully loaded with projected profits to give strong wings to our subtle but significant business ideas. Although later those very investors’ eyewitness their boat of funds and such fullproof plans sink. Now you know how ‘label’ is a short-cut to almost every but not all entrepreneurship successes. I, in no way intend to criticize labelled entrepreneurs but at the same time I favour logic, hard work and fanaticism as my working style.
And this is not all that is in store for Entrepreneurs!
Hello, Wake Up! Get ready to be treated as ‘Vendors’. And you may ask who is going to do that – treat you a ‘Vendor’???
The answer is most of the clients including the government ones.
To be loosely termed as a ‘Vendor’ does bring you back to earth sans gravity!!! Trust me it pinches hard. And to add to this we keep fading away to get our monies released, moving hitherto and spending almost all the overdue in to & fro trips continuously for days if not months.
The big question then for us as entrepreneurs is – are we really secured that our people are working for us? It so happens many a times, colleagues at work take decent experiences so as to shift to newer pastures or build their own, this is predominantly seen in the creative media industry I am in and more so in Gujarat – the mecca of Entrepreneurs.
If entrepreneurial problems are fried, you bet for women they’re deeply fried. We leave our houses, kids and family life behind; to be devoted to our work and after some years what we’re left with is rising expenses, lowering profits, burgeoning competition and kids almost grown-up, flown out of the Nest!
The big question then is has it been a worthwhile experience? Does the world feel like a better place after becoming an entrepreneur? Would we leave foot prints behind for future generations to associate and perhaps admire?
AND THE ANSWER TO ALL OF THIS IS A BIG YES. The pensive mood of an entrepreneur takes a complete “U” turn when the most powerful person in the country recommends the world to check out our latest offering from a Vibrant Gujarat platform, when highly respected organisations put you in front of 20,000 plus audiences to take them through your career path or when a client reposes faith in your capabilities and says that he would fund you to build a showcase space for fetching new work or simply when relatively unknown people compliment you on reading your thoughts…errrr blogs. And the highest adrenaline rush is when your loved ones feel the pride in them swelling hearing from outsiders your success stories!
Well, this is the buried life of an ostensibly on the move entrepreneur, thanks for spending time being acquainted with my reality… 🙂
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