As a result of the last recessionary period, we have all seen an increase in the number of individuals who have started businesses. More and more, professionals are tapping into their own resources to build the future that they envision for themselves.
Instead of pursuing a traditional job that may be less fulfilling, or that may come with parameters that don’t fit within their ideal lifestyle or goals, many today just make a run for it and set up shop. And many of these new businesses are also a result of our youth. Graduated or not, the brave, risk-taking individuals who have ideas simply put them into fruition – and it’s much like a breath of fresh air to see what ensues from these minds.
While it is critical for potential entrepreneurs to do their homework before starting a new, independent venture, I believe that not knowing everything can be a good thing, a competitive advantage of sorts. Often, more traditional business folk would labor over the potential for failure or think about what could go wrong, leading to fear and a willingness to give up before they even start.
When the human mind is at work to develop innovative new technologies, or drive more efficiency in how services are created and used, for example, advancement occurs at all levels. The ‘not knowing’ becomes a project and challenge within itself to drive growth and success. This not only improves the efficiency and effectiveness of the human mind, but it also drives the potential to change (for the better) how current business is conducted. Many corporate environments still run in a stifled, un-inviting, non-creative manner. In fact, I have observed that jobs have become increasingly more one-dimensional, which encourages an ‘it’s not my job’ mindset among employees when challenged to work above a current level of engagement. Further, companies who do not provide incentives for employees to think outside of the existing mindset and infrastructure or who, worse still, reprimand employees who challenge the status quo are doing the greatest harm.
Thankfully today, as a result of the negative influences taking shape in some companies, a positive aspect has emerged. Individuals and even business partners are becoming more closely intertwined with shared synergies that lead to new growth and new opportunities. Today more than ever, there are more resources, workshops, seminars, networking events, innovative start-up incubators and other avenues that lead to helping all of us who are entrepreneurial minded to seek answers to how to make our ideas come alive and live an expanded life for ourselves.
Over the past few years we have seen more new products, services and innovations come to market than ever before. I can bet that there is now an ‘app’ for every human need imaginable. Further, YouTube offers information and entertainment on every topic one could possibly conceive. Today, smart phones can do practically everything short of making your dinner. This expansion into new frontiers happened because of a hungry desire to change the existing infrastructure, demand, ability and perhaps available time, to now become more innovative than ever before – and these resources are being effortlessly shared and expanded upon.
We live in a world driven by a ‘now’ mentality that, in turn, drives the need for growth. We all want what we want, when we want it and how we want it. Entrepreneurs across the globe are scrambling daily to search for answers that will quickly give us the next best thing.
As the scope of activity grows, so will new businesses, which will spur new ideas, new jobs and new ways of doing things. Everything will be impacted, including how we work, how much, how often, where we work and for whom. And think about it. It’s not so much the experienced leading the inexperienced anymore, but the innovation leading the stagnation. And much of it is driven by the youth, who are learning in radical, revolutionary and world-shattering ways, and who pay no mind to the way that things were – even if how things were, was just last month, last week or even yesterday. They are blazing ahead and not looking back.
I can only hope that we continue to break it apart, break it down and rebuild with urgency, drive, ambition, innovation and most of all passion. It is only with these important tools, will we continue to successfully pilot new ideas so that ‘we’, the entrepreneurs, begin to surpass those that tried but failed in large numbers. This means that all minds will blend, cooperate and learn from such failings and use the excitement and fresh thinking to build larger, more complex innovations. It is only then can we proudly claim statistically that these ideas and success stories have surpassed the number of failed entities, year over year.