Are Entrepreneurs born or made?

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This question has been asked several times by several people and there hasn't been any definitive answer. I even asked this very question in the literature review section of the final long essay i wrote when i was in college. I think the real question we must ask ourselves is 'Can you teach an individual to take risk? My answer to this question is a big YES, no matter how risk averse an individual is, that person can be taught to take minimal amounts of risk till he/she is confident to take on the big ones. Entrepreneurship like any job, activity or pursuit is not limited to a single group of people with a defined genetic makeup. But the sad truth (may be not so sad) is that some naturally shine or are more successful than others because you don't expect everybody in the world to have the same levels of risk tolerance. This reminds me very much of when i was a university student. Professors usually divided the class into teams and gave us assignments. In groups that i was part off, i could see varying behaviours and characteristics that members in my team possessed. There is the group member who always wants to be a leader. This individual always assumes or nominates himself as the leader of the team and works very hard for the team to achieve it goals and i have also came into contact with team leaders who were just interested in the 'leadership' position and did not contribute much to the task at hand. I also came into contact with team members who're very hardworking and contribute greatly to the task at hand, tirelessly working for the team to make an 'A' in that project but shuns the limelight. Such team members even refuse for their names to be mentioned as standout contributors during team presentation to the faculty. Then finally is the last bunch of team members, those who do not really care about the project or task at hand. they contribute the barest minimum in the hopes that we all get a good grade, probably a 'pass' after which we all go our separate ways. Traits and characteristics differ from person to person therefore just like in numerous professional fields some people will be more successful as entrepreneurs than others. From personal experience traits that i've figured makes very good entrepreneurs and startup founders are the abilities to see opportunities and exploit them, a true desire to change peoples lives with your product or service, the ability/tolerance for hard work and when i say hard work i mean work that is physically, emotionally and financially draining and finally an ability to take criticism whether constructive or otherwise. 

I have always stated on this blog and i re-iterate here for emphasis that, we often start a business because we deeply feel like we can make a difference with our product otherwise why would anyone have bothered. I once heard a motivational speaker say "There is nothing like a new or novel idea" The idea and principles an entrepreneur has built his business on have been thought about by a million and one more people, but none of the people who thought of the idea sprang into action but the entrepreneur. I sat there thinking 'So how many people thought off facebook, instagram, twitter and all the successful social media networks that we see today. Every great product or service you notice around you was first an idea, apple products were an idea, your favourite supermarket was an idea, even your favourite brand of milk. The number of people who are thinking of writing about this same topic/idea as a blog post runs into the thousands. Therefore i strongly feel the successful entrepreneurs are the ones who are ready to take action and with action comes the risk. Henceforth i pray the the conversation moves from being born or made an entrepreneur to being able to take action. But there is no way we can talk about taking action without talking about risk which is the basis of this mind-boggling question. No matter how risk averse you are as an individual you can still be an entrepreneur and here's how.
I have already stated that the great products we see around us first of all began as ideas before anything else. If you have great idea but scared of taking action you can

• Collaborate; The continual opening of the human mind mind and civilization has currently brought us to a time where humans have come to the realise that risk is not too devastating when shared. The popularity of buzzwords like crowdfunding and sharing economy goes to buttress this point. Therefore if you have been thinking of an idea which will be great for business but afraid to take the risk, try and collaborate with other people who share in your vision. 
• Sell; You can always patent/copyright/protect or do anything that will very much secure your idea or invention and sell it to an already established organisation who are in that line of business and therefore could use your idea. 
• Donate: If your idea is so helpful for the social good you feel guilty making money of it you give it out for free. Remember Dr Jonas Salk didn't patent the polio vaccine.

Remember we were all born entrepreneurs because you are the standout spermatozoa that made it to the egg. Now its time to be an even more outstanding in the land of the living with your ideas...

Show Us Your Work

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I am internet addict no doubt, i love information and i always want to be a step a head of the pack when it comes to knowing the latest news, trends, information and what have you. I have always felt that 2 inventions in this life we're living have revolutionized the way we live and those 2 things are the aeroplane and the internet. But the latter i'm more in awe off. Since i discovered the internet, its been my go-to place for all the information i need. Its been my teacher, my counselor, my comedian and what have you. I seriously refuse to imagine what the world will look like without the internet. Heck you're reading this article because it's online. The internet has connected me to people all over the world. I get to share, create and experience in a global conversation on a global scale. when the world wide web started, i bet a lot of people didn't pereceive it could one day be a money making venture. As someone who makes a lot of noise about entrepreneurship and being your own boss, i'm always excited to know about the jobs the internet has created and how you can make money doing something you love without leaving your house. Indeed 10 years ago i don't think there were job titles such as Social media marketer, jobs such as web developing/designing, web content development, bloggers what have you. Indeed the internet is being infiltrated with so much information you need SEO experts to help you make your contributions unto the network stand out. I read about a young 18 year old lady yesterday and as part of her job description was written 'internet celebrity' which really amused me. Its quite interesting to note that for a network we all contribute to behind our computers and smart phones celebrities can come out of that. From bloggers whose dedicated followers surpass that of news websites and channels to youtube stars who have gradually curated a following and a brand image through viral videos.
So it got me thinking, if internet celebrities exist now, it wouldn't be long till i hear job description such as internet agent, internet lawyer, publicist and any other person with a job description a celebrity might need.The internet allows you to present what you can do to the world in a unique way. It helps everybody show what they're capable of to a global audience. I highly encourage you to show your work and whatever you're capable of doing to the world. Certain writers, artists,  musicians and entertainers have made it and are very successful because they dared to show their talents to the world out there.The internet will give you the exposure that you need which will give you that book deal, movie role or singing opportunity. Putting yourself out there is great torture but something will come out of it. The people who've made it big offline dared to put their skills to work.  If failure is what you're afraid of, i guarantee you're better off failing on a public and global stage than not do anything at all. Failing on a 'large scale' gives you a little bit of confidence to try again this time more knowledgeable than before. Every day a thousand and one blogs are created some make it big and majority fail. I personally think the blogs that failed are not the ones which had not-so-great content but those that gave up because the felt they compete or work their way to the top, Because the truth is no matter how good a blogs content is, it takes time and effort for the big websites and bloggers to recognize new blogs and start linking to them. The age of internet entrepreneurship is very ripe and there is something for everyone. In a time where data uploaded unto the internet is hitting record speeds, overnight success can happen but consistency, a deep desire to improve your craft and perseverance can help you win.

The Only Way You Can Travel Around the World

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I am travel obsessed. In my spare time i surf the net to check out tourist centres and places of interest all over the world. I have gone on countless holidays in my dreams from nice safari tours in Kenya, South Africa and Zambia to the beautiful streets of Marrakech. I spend donkey hours on kayak.com just checking out how much it will cost travelling from my country (Ghana) to places of interest i see online. After checking out the rates i spend extra hours trying to figure out how much i would have to save to go on these holiday. Interestingly, sometimes i see blog post and articles usually in the form of list, on how you can travel the world 'doing a job you love'. Indeed these 'listicles' most of the time encourage jobs such as working as a flight attendant, English teacher, Fisherman and what have you as jobs that will allow you travel the world whiles getting a paycheck.
Granted, these jobs will allow you to travel but in this case the travel part is highly integrated with the work part, therefore chances that you would focus on the work and not really pay attention to the travel is high. For example, the job of a flight attendant is supposed to be in the air therefore real wages will be calculated based on the number of hours she/he is flying and attending to passengers needs. This also applies to all the jobs that comes along with excessive travel. The pressure to work hard and make more money as well as move up the career ladder will reduce the appetite for tourist/travel experiences although technically the worker has traveled to most tourist hot spots. It is therefore little surprise when i see that airlines give free tickets to flight attendants as part of the compensation package and some of the airline workers will choose to visit countries they have visited a countless number of times for work and work related duties.

Now, for someone who is travel and entrepreneurship biased, i see being an entrepreneur and running your own schedule is the sure way to travel around the world like you want to. I advocate entrepreneurship to the person who wants to have so much free time in his or her life to do whatever  they are interested in doing. Be it travel or dedicating yourself to a cause or a special challenge. Travel is ostensibly about money and lots of free time. Successful entrepreneurs usually make more money than their paycheck counterparts in a majority of fields. Though one may not see the opportunity for travel in starting out as an entrepreneur or founding your own startup, the travel opportunities comes to bare once the business takes shape and its profitable. For example a successful entrepreneur may be invited to several conferences a year, may be called upon as a speaker (some paid others unpaid), will set up offices and factories in other parts of the world, will source certain key ingredients from other parts of the world and would therefore have to travel frequently.  Yet the thrill associated with the entrepreneurs travel is that she’s in charge of her own schedule and therefore can spare good time combining business with pleasure.
That is why it is observed that extremely successful billionaire (entrepreneurs) own their private jet which takes them wherever they want to go on any day they please. Every startup will not make its founder a billionaire but the entrepreneur who perseveres and succeeds is on his way to a good life. And one of the things associated with the ‘good life’ is travel and going to every place on your bucket list. If you have a good idea for a startup begin working on it today, if you’re afraid to go in alone look for people to invest in your idea There is power in collaboration and partnering with the right people. Don’t let your ideas go to waste, it might be the only way you can travel around the world

A New Look at New Years Resolution

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The new year is coming through very soon and the pressure to write resolutions is mounting gradually as the day goes by. I have written resolutions in the past and tried to follow and make it happen but instead i slacked and fell on the way side. What i have come to realise is that the reason why my resolutions do not fall through most of time is that i keep writing about what i wish i would become instead on writing on improving on what i actually am now. 

Take a standard new years resolution and you would see that what the person has written is a completely different aspiration than the life they live now. This trying to be 'a new person' seems far fetched from my point of view. Yes we all get into the holiday hullabaloo and are excited that a different year is approaching and we get to live our lives differently. but when you take a critical look at it the difference between 31st December 2014 and 1st January 2015 is a day. Unless something really extraordinary happens you will still be eating the same foods you normally eat, you'll have the same set of friends and family and will probably be wearing the same clothes and shoes you had from 2014. A new year is exactly what it is 'a new year'  and not 'new me' as a person therefore my wishes or desires for my life shouldn't really be about entering a new year, it should be about my innate desires and a good reason why certain things in my life has to change. That is why purpose is important in setting goals and targets. For example, if you need to lose weight because excessive weight is making you suffer all sorts of obesity related diseases, i guess you won't wait till the end of the year waiting for a new year till you start exercising and eating healthily. Therefore why must we wait till the latter part a year or the beginning to write things we should be doing now. Setting a target for 2015 seems like a good long term plan but on hindsight it is very vague because a year has 12 months therefore we keep pushing things on our list to the following month till it never gets done.
If something is important and has to be done today, start working on it now, if you find yourself waiting on it another week to set it as a 'new year resolution' begin to question your motives.

Entrepreneurship or Saving for Retirement (Which Way To Go)

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A few days ago, I was doing my usual search on the internet trying to find some information like any other day. I came across a banner ad on one of the popular websites i visit and thought that the ad was very interesting. It was an ad for a mutual fund or an investment account I couldn’t really tell which financial services the ad was trying to sell. But the ad simply stated that if you saved an amount of money say (X) over a period of time, you were going to make enough for your retirement and a substantial amount at that. This really got me wondering. For some time now I’ve been battling with the concept of ‘personal finance’ in my head. What does that term really mean? For me, anytime I hear the word personal finance my mind automatically goes to savings. Saving a portion of your salary/profits so that you can have a better future. I see retirement as something that is really far away because I think am not too old.  I see personal finance and savings as something which is mostly pondered upon by people ageing close to retirement. Because technically they are the ones going out of job soon so maybe they should be thinking about retirement/personal finance and savings. Not me a young blooded 20 something year old.  Though I trick myself into thinking that savings is for people who are ageing and for individual with family and children to look after, the pangs of personal finance comes to bite me one in a while. Because i go on a little guilt trip when i see how little my savings is so i tell myself i will start saving in my 30s. What i’m gradually realizing is that savings is a habit and if its not cultivated now i might never save.

But my obsession with entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship have made it clear to me how entrepreneurs find it difficult savings. An entrepreneurs quest to make a difference with their idea will go all lengths to make their ideas come to life. Sometimes this means investing most or all your savings into the idea in the hopes of making a return one day. That is why entrepreneurship is about risk its about being a bull or a bear. And i want to be the bull rather than the bear. I’m at a point in my life where my ideas matter more to me than the money i want to save. Because the supposed savings invested in my ideas as an entrepreneur may earn me a million fold return on my investments. I’ve read about entrepreneurs and successful people who risked it all financially to build something great and that is the type of risk i want to take at this stage in my life. For now, ‘saving towards retirement’ seems like a concept that’s almost laughable because i see it as something that is further away. The beauty of taking risk is that most of the time, it might not work but if works you get to build something successful and truly great. Entrepreneurship and startups is such a steep learning curve therefore failure can also be a great learningprocess.

Being a risk taker at heart and not having finances figured out whiles taking risk doesn’t seem like a good idea. But my ideas has to take centre stage before savings come to mind.

Dealing with anxiety (MY Way)

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Like any regular sized human being walking on the surface of this earth, i too get depressed once in a while. My depressions emanates from the anxiety that engulfs me anytime i think about the future. Where i’m going to end up in life, whether i will be able to achieve all that has been destined for me to achieve before I die. Whether this blog is even good enough and not a waste of my time. Will i make enough money to travel all over Africa like i want to? Anytime i look around i constantly see that there are indeed many things to be depressed about. Anxiety is such an uncomfortable feeling, it is that weird feeling that makes you want to have a peak at the future without necessarily being there. No wonder people visit psychics, mediums and prophets to know what would happen in the near future.

I’m gradually developing life hacks that help me deal with my anxiety and my irregular bouts of depression.

1.      My recommendation number one for you to do anxiety day one is to rest. Resting here does not necessarily sleep but if you have enough time to catch a good sleep the better. Lying in a couch watching a movie or tv show that has full of suspense and action does not help the anxiety situation in any way shape or form. You are better off reading a soothing books whiles relaxing in your favourite chair or listening to nice music. Deciding to use extreme physical force such as rigorous exercise or something excruciatingly painful to quell your anxiety and depression never works. Your heart ends up beating faster combined with the fact that the situation that makes you depressed keeps coming back to mind. Although I have stated that rigorous exercise and physical pain does not really help, going on a walk by yourself keeps you calm. I’m hardly anxious after a good nights’ rest. Waking up after a good sleep makes me energized and calm.

2.      Writing my anxiety and my fears really relaxes me, and writing here for me is a metaphor for anything that you like to do that relaxes you. So instead of writing, you can draw, work in your garden, playing on your keyboard or anything you generally enjoy doing. I write when I’m very anxious and i know writing my fears doesn’t necessarily make it go away, yet writing helps me feel like a heavy burden has been lifted off me. Writing makes me feel like somebody has listened. If you would like to write what’s causing your anxieties like i do, you can also further help yourself by writing how you can deal with what is making you anxious and depressed and how you’re going to deal with it.

3.      Get control of a part of your life: By getting control of a part of my life I mean, though you might be depressed or feeling the pangs of anxiety try as much as possible to get certain parts of your life in order.  For example feeling depressed and having an unkempt house or loads of dirty clothes to be laundered makes you further depressed and anxious. So have control of certain aspects of your everyday life such as finishing you work assignment, cleaning all the dirty dishes piled up in a sink or keeping a clean desk at your office, staying away from junk food. This goes a long way to tell you that at least you have control of certain parts of your life which eases you up a bit.

4.      Reach out to your family and friends to talk, there are certain people in everybody’s life who they feel better after talking to. It might be your best friend or your mother or your neighbor. Talking to these people does not necessarily means you relaying all your anxiety or negativity to them. You can reminisce and talk about the ‘good old days’ and all the good fun you have shared together over the years. It’s interesting that though you might be going through issues and anxiety of your own, if someone you’re close to shares their problems with you, encouraging and motivating that person help you feel better in the long run.

5.      These are all good life hacks i use to deal with my intemperate bouts of anxiety and depression. But there are anxiety, depression and panic attacks which are chronic and engulfs you to the brim this sought of makes living almost impossible. When it happens that way, i advise that you seek professional help immediately. 

3 Lies I Tell Myself When Am Not Productive

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When i'm not particularly motivated to do anything with my life, there are some petty little lies i tell myself to make me feel better. Because a deep part of me knows life is not supposed to be this mundane and boring. Wake up, take a shower, eat, sleep and repeat. These are some of the lies i tell myself just to feel better.

1. I am too young: This is the premier lie i tell myself almost everyday. If i'm young, then it means i have more years ahead of me to do whatever i want to do right? No! Have you heard about the Anzisha prize? These are awards given to young people here in Africa who are doing amazing things in the tech and entrepreneurship. I would never receive the Anzisha prize because i'm 'too old' to qualify. So if people younger than i am are doing amazing things out there, what excuse do i have not to. I know i'm not that young i'm actually old. And as i get older i find more and more people in my age group who are doing amazing things. Nobody is too young to start.
2. I will do {Insert something important here} tomorrow: Its really easy to postpone a task to the next hour, day, year, because i'm literally telling myself that this important task is scheduled for the next time therefore its still very important on my agenda. Because honestly speaking, the next hour doesn't seem so far away. Neither does the next day, week or month. Then the time comes to do whatever important i scheduled to do. That is when i realise a previous task i put on hold needs more attention than the one i promised to work on at that very moment. Which means the task automatically gets postponed to the next time and the proposed next time becomes another next time and on and on it goes. 
3. Am not as privileged: Yes i'm not as rich, knowledgeable and educated as the next person. This is the slimy excuse i give to cut myself some slack. The are are a thousand and one social yardstick i can use to put myself down  but deep down i know this is not really an excuse for me not to do anything. 

The choices you make has alternatives. Think about it.

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From previous posts, i mentioned that i majored in economics at the university and have been learning economics since senior high school. Two of the many theories in economics that really struck a chord with me is the concept of choice and opportunity cost. People with no basic knowledge of economics will wonder what these two theories are about. I will therefore try and explain these concepts in a best way possible. 

Opportunity cost is basically what you have to give up to acquire something. There are several ways we can use our resources be it money, energy, time etc but these resources are limited that is why we are forced to make a choice. Opportunity cost can therefore be seen as the best immediate alternative you could have spent you resources on had you not spent it on something else. Therefore the things you decide to spend your limited resources on is your 'choice'. From face value, this concept does not seem extraordinary or eye opening but i've personally come to respect this theory as i grow up and begin to make choices. Because economics theories tell me that for every little thing i've spent money, energy and time on, there are other important alternatives i could have used those resources on. In this blog post i have separated my 'resources into three key areas that is time, money and energy. Time because as humans, we have fashioned our lives according to a certain O'clock by which we function. There is time to go to bed, time to rise, time to go to work/school, time to come back home and so on. Majority of us are paid by the number of hours and days we are willing to work. Hence the higher the number of hours we are willing to work, the higher the wages we expect. Time is such a valuable resource whose importance can never be underestimated. How many times have you heard a couple or people in a relationship having an argument and one of them say "you don't spend time with me like you used to" or "we don't spend time together any more". In this sentence we have seen the word "time" associated with "spend". Which means the fact that you can "spend time" shows it's a limited resource. How i spend my time is beginning to matter to me these past few weeks because once in a while the question of how i'm spending my time pops up in my head and i sincerely hope i'm spending my time the right way. 

I classify money as another important part of my resources because it's almost impossible to live without money. The basic things you need to exist on earth have to be bought with money. It is therefore little wonder money is tightly associated with time. "Time is money" its often said. We wake up everyday trading our time for money because we have to survive and after we have paid for our survival, we also want nicer cars, phones, clothes not forgetting the occasional holiday. I personally love entrepreneurs and startup founders and i always wish there were more entrepreneurs. But i ask a lot of young people why they haven't turned their great ideas and skills into business and the response i usually get is. "I don't have the capital (money) to start" or "i am barely getting by" therefore it looks like money as a resource can act as a stumbling block between someone who has a great business idea and actually starting a business and enjoying success. 

My third and final resource i consider vital is energy. The energy to wake up everyday and get something done be it writing a blog post, speaking to startup founders and entrepreneurs and how best i can help them, connecting with my family and friends and even the energy to resist junk food. How i spend my energy is now a prime concern to me because there is an opportunity cost and a best alternative to whatever i'm spending my energy on at the moment. For example, the time and energy i spend wondering whether a blog post would be successful could be used to do further writing and research to make the blog post and the blog even better.

If my opportunity costs are the best alternate ways i can use my resources (time, money and energy). Then it is imperative that whatever these resources go into must offer me the best in value and returns. But the question is how do i know that i'm spending my resources on things that have value? And the simple answer i use to determine that is "regret". Do i regret how i spent the day when i'm retiring to bed at night? Or how i spent money on things i didn't really need. If i continuously regret how i'm spending my resources then it means something has to change.

4 Quotes Entrepreneurs Must Live By

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I am a big fan of quotes. For me, quotes help me enter the minds of geniuses and people whom i know i would never meet because they are dead or people i have not had the opportunity of meeting yet. I respect entrepreneurs. This is because i see entrepreneurs as dreamers, creators, marketers and leaders. Everything we see around us was initially an idea. Apple was an idea, Facebook was an idea cars were first an idea. It took an individual to sit down and say "i can really bring this idea to life" then he started creating or inventing whatever it is you see today. One interesting thing about an idea is, the one who brings it to life or makes something out of it is not the only person who has actually thought of it. I bet there were thousand and one others who also thought of the same idea. But that is what differentiates the entrepreneur from others. An entrepreneur is willing to create something when everybody has had the same thought and discarded it. They end up working extremely hard to bring their ideas be it a service or a product to fruition. Therefore it is little wonder that the idea that succeeds makes these entrepreneurs extremely rich. We enjoy the goods and services we have to day thanks to the creative thinking of entrepreneurs. But entrepreneurship is not easy that is why many startups fail. Therefore as an aspiring entrepreneur i have some great quotes by successful people i live by. Here are a few of them.

I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.-Thomas Edison

Thomas Edison is a storied entrepreneur and inventor of the light bulb and this quote by him really strikes a chord with me. I mean 10,000 ways? seriously? this by any means is is too large a number for failure that a lot of people would give up. If a perceived genius is failing this number of times then what hope is there for the rest of us. Because whatever idea it is the entrepreneur is not succeeding at costs money, time energy and the emotional pain. Hell! by the 5th or 6th try and it's not working i'm done not to talk of 10,000 (that is why i have not played lumosity for a while now). But the core of this quote is noteworthy. In that, it teaches the tenets of hard work, perseverance, focus and agility. Which are all must haves if you want to be a successful entrepreneur. 

A man who wants to lead the orchestra must turn his back on the crowd-Max Lucado

This is such a powerful quote that really sums up the entrepreneurs relationship with naysayers. I know by now you've read or heard countless stories by entrepreneurs who said initially their ideas were discouraged and rejected. There are many stories out there especially in the book/publishing industry where some of the best selling books were rejected by renowned publishing houses. This quote therefore is powerful for me in the sense that, since most ideas shared by entrepreneurs to his friends, family, associates among others are usually new and unheard of, it is bound to receive some level of resistance. But most times successful entrepreneurs have to go with their gut and intuition therefore expect as an entrepreneur or an aspiring entrepreneur "this would not work"  sentence when you share your idea with family and friends. A lot of close relations say this to you because they feel they care about you to see sink your money, time and energy into something that might not work out. This quote therefore is all about your determination to make a difference with your idea. One way to measure whether you idea will be successful is to evaluate whether it would solve a social problem . This quote and "if i had asked people what they wanted" quote by Henry Ford are cousins.

I was dyslexic, i had no understanding of schoolwork whatsoever. I certainly would have failed IQ tests. And it was one of the reasons why i left school. And if i'm not interested in something i don't grasp it.- Sir Richard Branson

I heard of Sir Branson because he's the founder of Virgin Airlines and i honestly thought of him as an airline industry veteran. i figured, for someone who owned a successful airline he had worked in the airline industry for years and after he had mastered the art of running an airline he started Virgin. It wasn't until i read his bio that i learnt how he dropped out of school to start working on his own. For someone who did not even finish high school how did he become so successful?  That is when i noticed his bio said he started doing business at age 16, virgin was founded in 1984 which means he had had 18 years of training working as an entrepreneur before founding Virgin airlines. This is a long period of education and personal training again throw in the 10,000 hour rule and you have a successful entrepreneur. The quote has an emphasis on "interest" which i think is key because developing interest for something be it a sport, skill or an art would make you want to learn more about it and if you fail your passion for that interest would likely make you want to try again and that is how you gradually build knowledge and stamina as an individual. Be prepared for failure if you want to be an entrepreneur and see failure not as a problem but rather as a learning curve  and a challenge.

We face neither East nor West: We face forward-Kwame Nkrumah 

This is a great quote from Dr. Kwame Nkrumah one of Africas' greatest leaders of all time and a proud national of Ghana my country. Ask who Dr Nkrumah was and you would get responses such as 'visionary', 'strong-willed' etc and i would like to add 'entrepreneur'. A lot of projects and things he did in Ghana are still being enjoyed today just like we enjoy Thomas Edisons' light bulb. I love this quote from this great leader because it is about focus and having a sense of direction. Usually when an entrepreneur has no sense of direction, he/she can be easily swayed to unimportant matters that is not part of his mission. Having a sense of focus also gives stamina and perseverance.

Doing a Startup, Are you a Bull or a Bear?

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When i was in school, i took a banking and financial markets course where i was taught the concept of bulls and bears when it comes to investing. The bull is the optimistic one who takes chances when it comes to investing because there is hope that stock and bond prices will continue to rise. The risk lover, the risk taker the one who is not afraid to make the bold decisions and that is the bull for you. Whereas the bear is the one who is risk averse and would take a minimum level of risk. Since the bear is quite the pessimist and does not believe stocks and bonds will rise there is 'safe' investment on his part. So i asked my lecturer is it good to be a bull or a bear? He said both has its advantages and disadvantages. 

You can easily liken the bull and bear situation to entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is about taking risk which lies more on the 'bull' side of the spectrum. But even if you are a 'bear' you can gradually teach yourself to take some calculated level of risk. Because though bulls often crash and burn, they are also the ones who reach icon status. Even if you do not want to be an icon or multi-billionaire or whatever. You still have plans to be a successful entrepreneur who does not have to worry about money anymore and is making a real impact in society. Therefore it is imperative to get your bull instinct right even if you are a bear.

To develop your bull instinct you don't have to discard any crazy/silly idea that comes to mind that you feel can help people. Our minds have been trained to immediately discard certain thoughts as garbage and not right therefore we easily forget it even if it can help people.  But guess what, all the great businesses and startups you see all around started as an idea. I imagine how insane the twitter idea was when the founder was telling his friends and family about it. A social  media platform that allows you to communicate in 140 characters or less. I know pre-twitter, many people who were pitched the idea would have said it won't work because people need more than 140 characters to have a meaningful conversation. Ideas are very important, never discard any idea that you have as stupid (especially the ones that can help people and solve a societal problem).

Therefore if you have toss certain ideas off your friends and family and you receive comments like. "I don't think it will work" or "Is there something like that? Or "this looks like a waste of time". By all means seriously consider it because the fact that someone is asking 'whether there is something like that' means your idea is genuine and novel. This is a simple way to tell whether your idea is great because you're investing your time, money and energy you could have used for other things into working on the project. Interesting enough, ideas that everybody hales as great and feasible usually don't work.

 Here are some ways to protect your bear instincts whiles diving into the bull (risk) pool.

• As much as possible try and see whether your idea would solve a social problem. If your idea or startup solves a problem there is a higher chance of sucess
• Bears can also decide to have a plan B in case everything does not go as planned. therefore it would be good to specialise in a field or go the other route of being a professional or an expert. An experts opinion will always in demand. I strongly believe you can be an expert in anything as long as you are willing to do the hardwork
• You can partner with like minded people if you are afraid to go into a venture alone. I recommend partnerships for first timers. Take a cue from tech entrepreneurs on how they are able to come together and create awesome products. Ask your spouse, boyfriend or girlfriend to help you with some of the mundane task and rally your family and friends around your startup/idea.
• Don't give up if the first attempt at a business or a startup fails. Believe it or not a startup that fails is actually normal. If your startup succeeds at the first attempt and becomes a huge success, that is rather abnormal. Worry more about your startup making an impact and find creative ways that your business can help people. With entrepreneurship, failure is a steep learning curve which will serve you well as you grow.

So here is an idea i thought of, even though i really enjoy travelling, i hate packing for a trip. Is there a business that specializes in packing your suitcase whiles you're getting ready to travel?