How About Becoming An Entrepreneur? – Rosemary Apon, Assistant Professor, Department of Commerce



“If we have an entrepreneur in every family, India’s economy would sky rocket. We would then be able to take our rightful place as an economic super powerin the community of nations. Entrepreneurs create jobs. They create wealth. They create  products and services.”
 – Rahul Bajaj, Chairman &Managing Director, Bajaj Auto.
How About Becoming An Entrepreneur?
There are hundreds of students passing out from colleges and universities each year. Now, the question is, what do they do after the completion of their formal education? Usually, deciding one’s own profession is one of the most crucial tasks. Each individual has their own dream and aspiration. A dream can be anything big or small. As Azim Premji said,“People wonder if having unrealistic dreams is foolish” To this he replied “dreams can never be realistic or safe. If they were, they would not be dreams. But one must have strategies to execute dreams and slog to transform them into reality.”To achieve the desired goals and dreams of life one has two career options, i.e. wage employment and self employment. Wage employment refers to those jobs in the government, public and private sectors earning a fixed amount of wages or salaries. Self employment on the other hand, is pursuing one’s own endeavour or enterprise, where the income is also flexible. In other words, it is becoming an entrepreneur. Entrepreneur is one who starts a business and is willing to take risks. An entrepreneur can be an artist, home maker, restaurant owner or an inventor. What defines an entrepreneur is the desire and courage to strike out on one’s own, in the world of business, instead of working for someone else. Accordingly, self-employment has a larger scope and a higher capacity of earning than wage employment, which is the charm of becoming an entrepreneur.
An entrepreneur does not only generate income for oneself but also provides employment opportunities to our society. In order to be an entrepreneur one need not necessarily have the entire so called complete package for venturing into a new establishment. Our experiences along the way will be in itself a guiding star for us. The general perception of our society about a successful entrepreneur depends on one’s financial security and the many other resources needed for starting a business. We wait for the perfect opportunity to start a business instead of striving for it. We are too reluctant to come out from our comfort zone and face the challenges. In regard to this, I want to cite an example from my own experience with a couple of friends who aspire to be entrepreneurs. One of them has a strong financial status but with no definite business plan where as the other friend has no financial aid but a fine business plan ;however both are not enthusiastic and ready to take the risk to execute their dreams into reality, which might include meeting different and unexpected challenges.  There are also certain other criteria besides financial securities and a good business plan like willingness to take risk, determination to achieve the goals, good public relations and many more. A good business plan should be feasible accompanied by a good nature of business, purpose and execution. As Shri Hari Shankar Singhania stated,“I have always followed the dictum that success comes only with 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. There is no substitute for hard work. One must have the focus to achieve his or her vision. Nobody gets a clean slate to write on and has to start with the dirty slate he gets. If one waits for the ideal situation the time will never come.”
We want to earn but are not ready to put in effort. We become lethargic to work. To accomplish big, sometimes we need to have a humble beginning with hard work and perseverance. In fact most of the famous businessmen had their own humble beginning of their business. Some of which are like- Lakshmi Mittal, son of a scrap dealer, who is today  one of the world’s largest producer of steel having its plants in 15 countries including India producing 18 times more steel than Tata Steel Co.; Shri Dhiru Bhai Ambani one of the India’s top business tycoons has inspired many to dream and dare. He went to Mumbai to start his business with just Rs 15,000 and lived in a one rented room with his family of seven. Today the family owns India’s largest private sector organisation; Kiran Mazumdar- Shaw started her business with a capital of Rs 10,000 from her car garage. Today she is the chief executive officer of Biocon Group. She is recognised as India’s Bio tech Queen by The Economist and India’s mother of innovation by New York Times and the list goes on. The beginning of a business is important but where it stands in the end is more important. Talking about this I remember an accomplishment in this area which was initiated by the Youthnet through a program called the ‘first cut’ which provided a platform for students to develop their entrepreneurial skills and talents. Students from different colleges participated by coming up with a business plan and executing it. It may be a miniature program but it had a positive impact on the students to have real life experiences on how to run a business. It helps in exploring talent among the youths as well as producing skilled personnel who would be responsible for our economic progress. In our present society this is the type of opportunity we have to create to have a stable economy and self -reliant individuals.
“Degree of Thought is a weekly community column initiated by Tetso College in partnership with The Morung Express. Degree of Thought will delve into the social, cultural, political and educational issues around us. The views expressed here do not reflect the opinion of the institution. Tetso College is a NAAC Accredited UGC recognised Commerce and Arts College. For feedback or comments please email: admin@tetsocollege.org”

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