Innovative entrepreneurship is entrepreneurship based on extreme passion, profound experience and cutting-edge technology, creating innovative models and products that achieve breakthroughs in growth and competitive superiority to meet one or more market needs.
It is easy to say, but how can we actually do it? What must we prepare? Billions of difficult questions need answering at once. Below is a story, an experience, and some conclusions that I think may help you.
5 WONDERFUL PHILOSOPHIES FOR STARTUPS
I have been fortunate to hear and read about SoftBank's founding history and the philosophies applied at this renowned company, founded and chaired by Son Masayoshi. I have also gathered further insights from experts. Personally, I believe these offer many meaningful and useful lessons for entrepreneurs and business managers.
Today, drawing on my knowledge and real entrepreneurial experience, I have compiled and distilled these 5 philosophies as broadly and clearly as possible so you can understand them better, hoping they will help you on your journey of starting and managing a business. To me, these 5 philosophies are like the “Five Elements of Entrepreneurship.”
5 valuable philosophies for entrepreneurship: “The Way–Heaven–Earth–People–Method”
#Tao
Đạo here can be understood as the company's philosophy, mission and reason for existing—the big picture. A business without its own mission and philosophy will struggle to go far. Đạo connects everything: management principles, thinking, vision, product philosophy and business philosophy. It is the company's belief and aspiration. The founder must embody and believe most deeply in the Đạo they pursue, and be its best advocate to everyone. All co-founders and key people must share that belief. You cannot lead, inspire or guide people in your startup if they do not believe in its mission and deepest aspirations. Without it, we give up easily, co-founders lose their way, we cannot unite our collective strength, and the business has no reason to exist.
#Heaven
“Thiên” here can mean favorable timing, opportunity, or a market opening. If you start a business at the market's golden moment, it already makes success much easier than for others. For example, in my view, those starting in Mobile Internet from 2012 would have “Thiên” on their side: the Mobile Internet market truly began booming in 2012 and will continue growing rapidly for many years. Hundreds of traditional models can be‘solve it again’ with new thinking and methods thanks to the technological revolution. Uber exemplifies applying technological superiority to solve passenger transportation anew: a sharing economy model that mobilizes society's idle resources and cuts all unnecessary costs to benefit consumers, with great scalability and flexibility, managed extremely intelligently through ML & Data-driven approaches. It would therefore be surprising if it did not destroy the traditional passenger transport industry. However hard Mai Linh and Vietnamese taxi companies try, their cumbersome structures, limited technology adoption, outdated thinking and old habits will not enable them to escape this overthrow. In October 2013, I had the opportunity to travel by Uber and Lyft (a service similar to Uber) in San Francisco, and the driver told me:I’m a taxi killer. It happened in the US, and now it will in Vietnam.
#Earth
Địa here can be understood as the business environment, relationships with customers, partners and investors, geopolitical relationships, industry networks, finance, knowledge, users, infrastructure, policies, …. When you understand and build up knowledge, money and relationships and develop real expertise in the field where you intend to start a business (such as working continuously in it for 10 thousand hours—the 10 thousand flight-hours principle), you will naturally sense the creativity and breakthroughs in the venture you plan to pursue. An ultimate desire, determination to see it through and turn it into reality, and a truly creative idea will be crucial to your success. You will feel as though you were born to do it, that if it were not you, nobody else could. As though God chose you, you become chosen people, surrounding resources naturally support you, media naturally cover you, investors fund you, and talented people come to you… How can a startup achieve this? It happens when you are ready! Those who are not ready find it truly difficult to understand.
#Human
‘People’ here means everything related to human beings, such as the startup team, ethics and so on. You cannot do everything yourself, and you certainly cannot go far alone. As the saying goes, ‘If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, you need a team.’ From a more practical perspective, each person has a particular strength, while a business needs many kinds of expertise to survive and succeed. You do not have to do everything to do well; being a good leader may be enough. Accepting entrepreneurship means accepting risk and having to succeed from nothing—an extraordinarily difficult task. So if you want to persuade people to join and trust you absolutely, you are selling yourself. You need the Way described above and must communicate it well. Your followers must fully believe in what you are pursuing, and you must instill absolute confidence that you can achieve it together. Former US First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt once said: “A good leader inspires others to believe in the leader. A great leader inspires others to believe in themselves.”.
#Dharma
Pháp can mean methods, formations, tactics or management approaches. Internally, it is the management and operating system, culture, organizational behavior and internal communication, and the principles enabling the business to operate enthusiastically, creatively and effectively. Externally, it is market development tactics, formations for competing and defeating rivals, and the business’s market position. Pháp must remain constant based on The Way, transforming according to Heaven (Thiên) and Location, harmonizing according to Nhân. Dharma is the wonderful method of connecting everything into an unbreakable whole, making a business strong in attack, flexible and harmonious in daily operations, solid in defense, and sustainably enduring.
You may be breaking into a sweat by now. It sounds intimidating, but nobody starts a business with all of the above. I have taken plenty of knocks on my entrepreneurial journey, and everything mentioned above has only been achieved to some degree. I write this hoping you will keep these things in mind and gradually build them throughout your journey. Start up intelligently and creatively, rather than merely starting a business!
I do not know whether this will help you, but writing this first article certainly took some time :)
‘FIND THE RIGHT PERSON, ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS, DO THE RIGHT WORK!’
Collected
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Chương trình liên quan tại YUP Education: X-Startup – khóa học khởi nghiệp «Khởi Chánh Nghiệp» · The Journey – lộ trình phát triển doanh nhân
