Without a doubt, to be an entrepreneur you must have, among other things, an enormous amount of patience.
Also, it is good to remember that undertaking is not blowing and making bottles.
Many times, when we have a business idea, we believe that we already have a business. If this were so simple, we would all be successful entrepreneurs.
A company, whatever it may be, is the product of an idea implemented correctly at the right time and place. With this somewhat pompous definition, I intend to express the need to socialize the idea, position it outside of us, even if it belongs to us. This avoids falling in love with our ideas and the blindness that this can cause us.
A business idea must undergo an operational and commercial feasibility test. It is of no use that we have ideas that are impossible to implement and / or that they do not have a demanding market.
When he spoke of "socializing" ideas, he wanted to express the importance of not falling into the temptation to evaluate them using self-reference. If this happens, it is very possible that we think it is great and that we imagine a long line of customers eager to purchase our product (good or service). It is worth clarifying that this has nothing to do with being optimistic.
At this stage of evaluation we have not invested money, we have simply dedicated ourselves to "playing at carrying it forward". By playing I literally mean playing like when we were kids. Ours was a sacred game. When we drove a bus we were bus drivers and there was nobody and nothing that could convince us otherwise.
Already grown-ups we are afraid of making mistakes and we take things seriously, so we stop playing and even end up "feeling like entrepreneurs of ideas." We shape business ideas. We make them so much, we make them so round, so perfect, that they become illusions. It is common for us to confuse seriousness with rigidity.
Once the idea has passed the feasibility tests, we can feel proud and happy to have a commercial project that should be analyzed again, in more detail, to assess whether it is commercially and operationally viable.
To whom will I offer my product, how will I make them know my offer, who will I be taking away from clients (competition), specific advantages and disadvantages compared to the current established businesses, what is the average market price of the product that I will offer. It is worth repeating that self-reference does not work.
It is also essential to know if I can sustain the project operatively. How many products can I make with my installed capacity, what would I need to be able to produce X quantity of my product, what do those who may be potential consumers think about my product, what is the total capital that would be required to start the project.
This stage prior to launching a venture is extremely creative, it is when the spirit of the entrepreneur appears. With what he has he manages to move forward on a path of uncertainty.
If an entrepreneur who wants to make shirts comes to see me, the least that entrepreneur should show me are some shirts that he has designed and made.
Words are useless.
The entrepreneur is the raw material of the project. Without it there is no entrepreneurship.
When we try to give it a lot of shape, our idea remains installed in us and we do not realize, or forget, that business is done in the market. The social force of beliefs on topics related to commercial activities is so great that many entrepreneurs get lost along the way trying to shape an idea taken as "the idea", making the process of recreating that idea impossible. Even at this stage it is also possible to kill ideas, to welcome new ones.
Working in an enterprise is similar to those times when we played with clay. We kneaded for a long time, without rushing. All entrepreneurship requires a maturation time that depends, obviously, on each entrepreneur.
A venture requires, above all, that we let go of beliefs that take for granted certain aspects that may not be as we think they are.
