5 COUNTERINTUITIVE LESSONS ABOUT ENTREPRENEURSHIP

The marketplace is like a battlefield where businesses, “young” or “old,” must compete to survive. Yet some businesses continue to exist and succeed in their own ways without needing “risk,” “opportunity,” or “passion.” 

Let’s see who they are and how they did it.

1. NO BREAKTHROUGH NEEDED

In fact, many entrepreneurs have succeeded merely by changing a tiny feature of an existing product, service, or business model. Cinemex is a prime example, achieving great success by bringing the U.S. multiplex cinema model to Mexico. Its co-founder said: “The only difference is that we use lime juice instead of butter on popcorn.”

That alone enabled them to transform the local cinema-going culture, completely dominate the market, and generate USD 300 million in profit.

2. NO RISK REQUIRED

Entrepreneurship often carries the risk of losing money or failing. Yet even a stable salaried job has risks, such as dismissal, an incompetent boss or poor benefits. Once they decide to go into business, entrepreneurs try to minimize risk, partly by forming partnerships to spread it and making high-risk moves less dangerous so they have time to learn and adapt gradually.

Mary Gadams, founder of RacingThePlanet in Hong Kong, has been very successful in organizing commercial sporting events and ultramarathons. She uses volunteers, keeps fixed costs low, runs multiple events at once and requires participants to pay thousands of USD upfront, providing a substantial cash reserve to organize the events.

3. NO NEED TO PURSUE OPPORTUNITIES

Opportunity is not something that can be pursued. Yet most of us think opportunities are ripe fruits hanging on a vine, waiting to be picked. In reality, opportunity is subjective and arises only when entrepreneurs believe they possess a special capability, piece of information, or asset.

Legal consultancy Clutch Group grew out of Abhi Shahi's outstanding sales skills, acquired while selling Bibles throughout his student years. Those skills helped him persuade leaders in several major industries to partner with and invest in his company. As a result, ClutchGroup is consistently rated a leading legal consulting service provider in the market.

4. NO PASSION REQUIRED

Loyalty, enthusiasm, diligence, persistence, and the ability to bring people together are indeed necessary. But what about passion? It is an emotion that distorts and blinds people. In reality, a new entrepreneur's hardest task is to act decisively when something is wrong while remaining self-critical and receptive to new knowledge.

Gabriel Meron, founder of Given Imaging, took the Israeli capsule-endoscopy manufacturer onto Nasdaq in 2001. Since leaving the thriving business in 2006, Meron has worked in a new field based on a simple test supporting coronary artery disease diagnosis. Clearly, he was convinced this would be a major success worth investing time and money in, and there were evidently scientific grounds supporting the test's success too.

But Meron knew there would be many surprises. He followed FDA rules to demonstrate the experiment’s effectiveness and understood that commercializing a drug is a long process. Cool-headedness, clarity, persistence and mastery describe Meron and his method; passion is not among them. So the advice for aspiring entrepreneurs is to leave passion in the bedroom, open the curtains and let bright sunlight illuminate your business plan.

5. BUSINESS IS BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH

Although a recent poll showed that 80% of Polish people think Polish entrepreneurs are fraudsters, the image of American entrepreneurs, by contrast, exemplifies intelligence, ethics, and health.

However, the dark side is that a considerable number of entrepreneurs suffer from an obsession with challenges, achievements, and awards. They keep seeking bigger challenges, escaping one only to become caught in another. Bert Twaalfhoven, 45, has undertaken a total of 54 business ventures, mostly in aerospace. He is not poor; his wife's large inheritance funded his first venture, so he is not doing this for money. He is passionate about business. The danger is that most enthusiasts want to draw in more people like themselves to

After selling his last company in 2001, Bert took over the European Entrepreneurship Research Forum—a program spreading a passion for business across Europe through education and political reform.

The farther we are from something, the simpler it seems. Real entrepreneurs know that starting a business involves a complex set of activities and attitudes that defies simplistic explanations. A realistic view of what entrepreneurship actually is will therefore help us all succeed in our chosen fields.