November 2022 (1) – Keeping the entrepreneurial spirit alive!

Entrepreneur (noun) : person who jumps off a cliff and builds a parachute on the way down, sells it to another hapless jumper and then builds himself a para-glider to surf the winds; see also wizard, magician.

Entrepreneurial ventures are often the result of a bold and passionate bridging of market opportunities with innovations that differentiate the newcomer from the incumbents. But most often the entrepreneurial story loses steam after sometime. The danger of losing the entrepreneurial spirit and the ability to innovate as a company grows, must concern every genuine entrepreneur.

So what causes many small firms to lose the spark? There is sufficient evidence to suggest three reasons.

Existing Customers – once a company has customers, a syndrome known as ‘the tyranny of served market’ sets in, and this can block the company’s capacity to innovate in an agile manner to other non-served customer segments. It oftentimes also does not even allow exploration of undefined needs of the current customer segment!

Size – necessitates the creation of functions, control systems and communication hierarchies; all of which frustrate creativity and ideas-development and gives a disproportionate importance to risk avoidance as a key aspect of risk management.

Complacency – Early success is often confused with ‘being right’ about everything from markets to pricing, from vendors to staff, from technology to regulations; this leads to complacency which is antithetical to true entrepreneurial spirit.

So what can help keep the entrepreneurial spirit alive even as the firm continues to grow? Getting back the spark requires constant efforts to stretch out and to snap out!

 

Here are six tips that can help maintain the aggressive, innovative and responsive characteristics that defined the early and adrenalin-filled days of the firm.

 

#1 – work continuously in creating and perfecting an ambidextrous organisation that is effective in two things – (a) getting today’s operations to grow and succeed, and (b) anticipating and designing the operations for the future.	#2 – establish the strategic direction of the firm; more importantly ensure the rest of the team do not lose sight of this vision and ensure the creative ones are able to efficiently pursue ideas that fit this strategic purpose.
#3 - don’t allow the requirements of operational management take over and detach you from spending adequate time in innovating for the future.	#4 – you have done this once before, but continuous improvement of the idea-to-market process needs to take center stage; this means that you and key team members need to unlearn and relearn many aspects based on emerging trends.
#5 – use new approaches to evaluate projects vis-à-vis growth. Diverse range of opportunities that can benefit from core competence, designing and positioning the firm’s offers for a range of uncertain or complex market situations.	#6 – rethink about team competencies and recruit diverse range of entrepreneurial skill sets that can collaborate for the future.

 How ready are you to stretch out and snap out?