Archive for the ‘Small business’ tag
What if they copy my idea?
Well, I will join them. I will tell them I will add value.
It seems like many business owners are afraid that a competitor or a new entrant will copy their idea and become successful. I can’t help but see the paradox here.
Your idea?
- If you are an innovator, you observed a market need. You applied your knowledge (that someone freely offered you) and you created a solution – USP
- Then you observed more and took more ideas from other sources and adapted them to work in your niche – Features
- Then, you took some more and did not even bother to change any of it and used it – Integration/Bells & whistles/Enhancements
- Then you worked with others who possess a USP in their niche to add value to yours – Partners
- Some more people saw something more than what you saw and joined you to help your cause – Employees
- You created Something – A company
And what do people like? Your company.
As you can see, most of what most of us are doing is someone else’s idea. Your USP is probably yours (most often, even that is not true). And what is it? An observation. A thought. Did you get it because you are a genius? Is that observation such a big deal? E=MC2?
If someone is executing your idea better than you, join them. What are you doing all of this for anyway? To help make someone’s life better and happier isi’nt?
What did you lose that you cry about? What did you bring with you, which you think you have lost? What did you produce, which you think got destroyed? whatever you have, you received from here. – Bhagvad Gita.
Related articles:
- Vision, Mission and Value Statements Help Business Success (businessmanagement.suite101.com)
Creation of wealth – An entrepreneur’s responsibility
- This dude is a real entrepreneur. India has tons of them. Image by orange tuesday via Flickr
All the human activities you see around were originally thought of and seeded by an entrepreneur – a person who ventures into an endeavor that nobody else before him did. Development can then be said to be an entrepreneur’s sole responsibility. And development, in most cases, is considered nice by our race at large.
Most salaried persons play a role in creation of wealth. A role, but not responsibility. I did something in creating every 1 re I earned as a salary, but I was a part of a larger scheme of things that created, maybe 10 Rupees. And I presumably got my rightful share of 1 Re from it.
In an absolute sense, every 1 rupee that you create as an entrepreneur is worth much more. I have read somewhere that for every IT job created in Bangalore, there are 72 other allied Jobs created (say folks working at coffee shops, Banking, house maid etc.). Drawing inspiration from the same line of thought, It is easy to see how the creation of every rupee seeded by you as an entrepreneur has a ripple effect throughout the society. This 1 rupee never existed before and you carefully seeded it’s creation which in turn will create, for example, 72 Rs for the people who are a part of it.
I am unable to decide if the flip side creates a network effect too. Will a loss of 1 Re that you incur wipe a lot more wealth in the society? I am not sure. What do you think?
Entrepreneurship is a little bit about all the glamor that people have purported it to have, but it is a lot more about things like this. As an entrepreneur, You are making this world a better place for a lot of people simply by being one. Keep that going. Or if you wondering if entrepreneurship is for you, this should give you an additional point of view to consider.
“With great power comes great responsibility” – Uncle Ben, Spiderman
Related articles:
- You’re Not a Real Entrepreneur (steveblank.com)
- My Thoughts on the State of Entrepreneurship (somewhatfrank.com)
