After analysing the most common startup mistakes last week, let's look at the common entrepreneur traits, this time based on the analysis of the 25 Asia's youngest entrepreneurs.
- Start young: Ofcourse this list describes young entrepreneurs, but it is noteworthy that they started at a very young age (17 for some). As we grow up, have families, kids and all, it becomes difficult to manage night-outs, and giving 100% each day to your enterprise. Also when we are young, we are a bit reckless, and will take up any risks (What's the worst that can happen?). Taking risks is the foremost mantra of entrepreneurship. With family, we have dependents and maturity brings in caution and decisions are biased towards the safer side. But believe me, its always better to be late than never, and inspite of your age, go ahead and do something if you have plans to do so.
- Discover a niche: None of these 25 people have tried to conquer the world. Discovering your niche is very important. Firstly, because you want to need to understand the market dynamics of this niche population. Secondly, because you want to stay abreast with the latest happenings in the domain to be a step ahead of your competition.
- Constant innovation: In the cut-throat competition of the internet, you need to be constantly innovating, adding new features to your services. It doesn't matter if your competitor came up with a newer offering, what matters is can you do better in a short span of time?
- Dedication & Hard work: Needless to say, dedication and hard-work are the cornerstones of any successful activity.
- Self-taught: Most of the people are not even graduates. While most people worry that they do not have the complete education, these people are self-learned, probably worthy of PhD's in entrepreneurship. In any case, who says PhD's are completely educated? PhD's are meant to groom a person to study/research himself. So, dont worry if you are not a graduate. Got a dream idea? Grab those books and join those online communities, and understand how to turn that dream project into a reality.
- Don't just dream: Many of us have these flashes of brilliance once in a while when we think up cool new ideas. And then we also dream how if that idea is implemented, we will become millionaires. But it is important to do something about those dreams. Do you keep having newer "bigger idea" dreams which make you lose focus/interest in your current older "smaller" dream? Well, bigger dream should probably wait in a logbook, cause if it doesn't, then you will never have a project completed! Bigger dreams will always keep coming.
- Discover opportunities: Be observant and spot opportunities. Many a times, we try to do something and get frustrated. Well, don't get frustrated, decide to do something about it. Probably many people are facing the same problem, building a whole new niche segment for you.
- Take on multiple roles: In startups, the founder is everything: CEO, CTO, CIO, software programmer, PR officer, analyst, ... . If you have a home based business, you will probably also be the office-cleaner. Even with multiple founders, each one has to take on additional roles, cause the CTO cannot alone be responsible for getting the company behind bleeding-edge of innovation. Later, when you have ample funding/money, some tasks may be delegated, but never on the onset.
- Learn from your mistakes: Try to understand what went wrong, instead of just blaming your stars. Always acknowledge a mistake when you see one, instead of ignoring it (and then repeating it again). But, never repeat the same mistake again, ever!
- Don't do it for money: Do it because you will enjoy doing it.
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