The Lack of Caring

“There’s a lot of guitar players out there. They just play, they just play fast. They don’t concentrate on no soul…” Albert King in Pride and Joy with Stevie Ray Vaughan

When was the last time you just heard music without doing anything else? Just sitting and paying attention. I thought about for a while and, even been mad about music, it’s very rare that I stop everything and just hear it. Normally it happens when I’m trying to learn the track on the guitar, trying to get its vocals or going into a concert. The same thing happens in other parts of our live and, mostly, because society was convinced, in the last 30 years, that multi-tasking is a good thing. The first downside of , is lack of concentration, our brain is not used to focus in just one thing anymore, so every time it is looking for “something” else, but, for me, the worst downside is that we never enjoy completely what we are doing. One example is the movement of Slow Food, created by Carlo Petrini in 1989 that has, among its goals, the Taste Education an idea to convince people to eat more slowly with the purpose of enjoying the taste of food.

The implication, is that a lot of, especially, young people (Y Generation) have trouble finding something they like. But how can we find something truly fulfilling if we just try things for some months and few hours per week? The world wants everything as fast as possible and has created the Minimum Knowledge Possible movement that tells people “When you have learnt the necessary for your task, stop and go for something else”. People forgot that going from average to good or great is very important and that this has a huge impact, for instance, in entrepreneurship. People became hollow and superficial in knowledge, so just really caring about something is a huge advantage. It’s not about total focus is just about caring.

Like hearing music, if you say you really like a band go through the whole album and not just the “radio ones”.

Cheers!

Keep on Rocking in the Free World

Go step by step

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” Lao Tzu

Don’t underestimate the power of meeting new people, because there is a chance they will change the way you move and think.

I had, again, the pleasure meeting a guy that, after a talk of 3 hours, changed the way I thinking about the planning and creation of my venture. I wish I had met him a few years ago, but I’m very happy and thankful that at least it happened now.

That is how I was acting (wrongly)

As you may remember, I was thinking about going into the cosmetic market and specially into the natural/organic segment, here in Brazil, and mostly, at least in the beginning, because of my personal preferences. After making the choice I started looking and some weeks later, I found something interesting, at first glance, and was full of energy to start digging deeper and deeper.

My first movement, a correct one, was to talk with people and visit foundations that have something related with cosmetics, natural products or entrepreneurship as a whole and in an entrepreneurship foundation I took some free courses about themes like “How to Begin”, “Start your venture in the right way” and “How to plan your new venture”. In those courses a lot of questions were put on the table and I was a little bit overwhelmed with all this new information. There were so many questions I needed (and need) to answer that I didn’t know how to continue. “Should I plan what type of product I want to produce?”or “Should I decide if I want to produce or use a third-party?” or “Should I study my customer?” and etc.

Some days, after researching for random information, I’ve got sick of it. I wanted and needed to have a plan, something I could have the feeling if I has evolving or procrastinating. So, after thinking a bit, I had a brilliant idea (beware of brilliant ideas!!!!), that turned out to be a stupid one. “I will start my business plan, I will follow it step by step” seems perfect doesn’t it?!! I needed something to guide me so I used the structure of the business plan as this guide.

The problem was that I never thought about it and never looked if, before the business plan, there was something to be done. I was so happy I had found guidance, that nothing mattered. So every day, since then, I researched all the information that the business plan was asking me, like an university test (duh!).

Luckily, before going into this crazy cycle, I registered myself in lots of courses, so one day after a couple of weeks I was meant to go in a course about “How to start right”, a course I wanted to skip because I thought I knew what I wanted and how to do it. Anyway, I went, because I didn’t want to cancel something I wanted so badly in the beginning. Thank God

Now things got interesting

In the first 50 minutes I was hearing I guy talk about things that were important to know before starting a company and avoid mistakes. After hearing obvious but not unimportant things, I raised my hand and asked, what I thought was, a rhetoric question. “All those questions are indeed important, but isn’t it simpler to put those questions in the business plan structure? Because in the business plan you will need to answer those questions anyway” and the answer after a few seconds was a clear and loud “No! That is a huge mistake”…………………………………………………………..

“WTF???….$##^!!!&$”. So, I asked back why and again very naturally he replied “Because we are a step before the business plan”.

The next hour I drifted off and couldn’t help being totally confused. After the class, I went directly to this guy and asked to have a conversation with him and he agreed right away, so we went to a desk and started to talk in private and, later, I left mind-changed.

Getting smashed

I told him about my last 6 months, what happened last week about my business plan idea and asked him the same question I’ve made in class, hoping to hear something different (Yeah yeah I know…Albert Einstein said “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results). He smiled and spoke back without answering my question “Do you know what is one of the toughest things for an entrepreneur?…..(time)……..Frustration (I heard this before) and, in your case, frustration means finishing your business plan after a lot of work and realizing that it will not work” he continued “…and worst if you realize that you could easily foreseen it. Don’t you think?”. I was paralyzed.

He continued “So, you should answer all those questions I talked up stairs before doing the business plan. To start a business plan you need to have the deep feeling that what you are planning is going to work. ”. The problem for me again was that there were a lot of questions and I didn’t knew how to plan my learning process. How I can know if I’m not making progress?, he answered “You know when you are not evolving when you skip questions”

The (simple) technique

“You need to follow the logic of your business and to help you, you can use the ideas of the 5W’s technique. But, you can’t follow a formula, you need to ask questions and follow the steps that are important to your business alone”. I knew the 5W’s technique, but I never really thought that I needed to create my own steps, my own process. I needed to think freely. I was quiet, looking to the blank paper in front of me, thinking and starting to understand what he meant, but I didn’t say anything.

So he started to write down on a paper:

What?

Cosmetic Company – Why? Because you like consumer good products, it’s an everlasting market (You like that), it’s an industry that grows a lot in Brazil, Brazilian people consume a lot of beauty products and etc.

Natural Products – Why? There is a new wave of natural and sustainable products in the world, in Brazil those products are growing a lot and for personal choices.

Is there any important questions to be answered about these two things? No…so keep going!

“Now comes the time when you need to pay attention.” he said.

Is it time to answer if you are going to produce or sell or both? Or is it time to think if you are going to sell shampoo or lipsticks?

None of them, right?

We know, after reading a little of Steve Blank and Eric Ries, that first you need to understand the customer before going into product development. So, no, it’s not time to think about those two things. Instead, it’s time to think about the “Who?” isn’t it?. (Can you see that the steps we need to follow are logical?)

Who?

Women – Why? More than 80% of the people that consume cosmetics are women. Men consuming cosmetics is a new trend and you don’t want to depend from two trends to succeed (natural and men using cosmetics).

****Thinking Pause****Look, some questions don’t have a single answer, but we need to make a decision, always based on facts. I could have, instead, chosen the masculine industry, but I didn’t and I know why. That is a decision and if you are not satisfied with the “Why?” you need to keep learning. Oh, and there is nothing wrong in going back and changing a premise ****Thinking Pause****

What social class? – You want to deal with middle class, but you don’t have enough information to make this decision, so you are going to stop here until you answered it and then keep going,. Remember, If you skip a why question you are in the wrong way.

That is when he stopped.

I left the meeting thinking different and now I’m really feeling that I’m on track.
I just finished a survey I’m going to give prospect customers to see on what type of client I will focus. “Is there a type of customer that cares about natural cosmetics? I’m sure, I just need to find her.”

Cheers!

Keep on Rocking in the Free World

P.S 1 A tribute to the free thinking Free as a Bird – The Beatles

P.S 2 Here are some main things you should think about, that this guy told me. And remember, you should always think for important question for your business. They are not in order, that is something you need to think about.

Clients

1. Who will buy your products and why?
2. Where are they located?
3. How much they buy?
4. How often do they buy?
5. How to influence those costumers?

Product

1. What product will you offer?
2. How many types of products need to be available?
3. What are main necessities you are offering?

Location

1. What is the most appropriate location for your business?
2. Are there legal issues involved?

Competition

1. Who is competition?
2. Where are they located?
3. What are their main strengths and weaknesses?
4. How are you differentiating yourself?

Employees

1. What type of employees does your business need?
2. Are there ways to employ that kind of people?

Suppliers

1. Who are they?
2. Where are they?
3. How can you get what you need?
4. What are their terms?

Distribution

1. How to sell your products or services?
2. What are the costs?

Legal issues

1. What are they?
2. What are the main taxes?
3. What are the obligations of the entrepreneur?

Equipments

1. What are the main equipments needed?
2. How do they work?
3. Who are the suppliers and where are they?

Investments

1. How much initial money do you need?
2. Is it available?
3. Will it be a partnership? What are the main activities of each partner?

Help yourself

“That which does not destroy, strengthens.” Friedrich Nietzsche

Everybody knows that the need of resilience or tenacity is a must when going into entrepreneurship, but before really living it nobody can really know how it feels like.

People when planning to enter this world first begin to think about the possibilities and at this time, normally, everybody is very supportive. “If it is your dream, you should go after it” is something I heard a lot, but when you break through the wall of common sense and begin to change your life to follow your dream, things change a lot. First people who already work don’t recognize that you are doing something valuable, especially if you in the early stages, and second, everybody will expect results as soon as possible. In short words, lots of pressure.

Then comes the time when things are not so good. You really don’t know how to continue, the planning is a mess and things you’ve tried out showed that what you thought in the beginning is completely different in the real world. That’s the time when you need people around you to be supportive, but that’s something you, probably, will never receive. Don’t expect to hear “Hey, don’t back up. It happens” or “What is your problem? Tell me!”, you will hear “You wanted this, now don’t come with problems” and “Aren’t you following your dream?”. They are not wrong and that’s part of life, but it is hard anyway. So…

…that’s the time when you will need to stand up and fight your way up again. Take a shower, relax 30 min with a good music and then begin to re-plan. Start over and over again, someday it will work the way it should. The secret is: a good entrepreneur is the person that can help himself.

Look everyday in the mirror, that is all you got when things become difficult. So, never surrender and keep rocking.

Cheers!

Keep on Rocking in the Free World

P.S Good music that tells you to keep going
Everybody Hurts – R.E.M

The problem of love

In one of the first posts, we talked about the love and in the last post we talked about some rationality, with an intrinsic thought that love could confuse our decisions. Everybody talks about love in the process of creating something new, but I rarely see a text about the downside of love. Yeah….nothing is for free.

Anyway, I want to say that I continue to support this feeling, however I just want to make you think about some bad consequences that you can avoid in the future.

Can you set it free?

Everyone knows that the person that raised you as a kid loves you, in the most part, unconditionally and if you have already left home you know that most parents (especially moms) suffer a lot. Why? Because they were used to this life and they love you a lot….ok that is normal. The problem is when parent don’t allow kids to leave because they can’t accept it, thinking that the kid belongs to them, what leads to great suffer for both parts in most cases. What I’m trying to show you is that if you love what you are doing, your startup for instance, you can easily start acting with the heart and not with the brain.

A great deal of entrepreneurs fall in love with their product/service and can’t accept, for instance, that clients want something a little different from the original. So they fail because he or she forgot to think what other people want, allowing personal feelings to play the bigger role. We need to understand that, like kids, we are not “raising” the companies for us, but for themselves.

If you are able to see the company as something independent (tell me how first) you will take the best actions and all your efforts will flourish. Is it easy? No…Can we think 100% for the company itself? I doubt it….

But….if we pursue it and manage to become less selfish, we will be able to go even farther. Remember…

“A man is called selfish not for pursuing his own good, but for neglecting his neighbor’s.” Richard Whately

Cheers and Keep on Rocking in the Free World

Choose Reality

Entrepreneurship is a cool topic, lots of people dream about it’s mystic and hope to once become the successful entrepreneur that covers the magazines and is now enjoying the reward of hard work, but we know that life isn’t that simple. Remember when we talked about priority and when bootstrapping was mentioned? So, if you have read the text of Guy Kawasaki you saw a small list of things we have to notice if we want to bootstrap, however the last advice was more for all entrepreneurs “Take the red pill” and for me this is the most important thing to remember.

We read and talk a lot about love, relentless, courage and other necessarily attributes, but once in a while we lose ourselves in a dream of perfection, where we can achieve everything. That’s is very dangerous and I will tell you why, because failure in a dream is very far away. As Seth Godin said, Entrepreneurship, especially bootstrapping, is about survival and forgetting how close failure is is the first step to downfall. You have to be honest to yourself 100% of the time and live in reality.

Something to share with you

My grandmother, one of the person I admire the most in this world, always said to me that “The most important thing is to be honest with yourself. Lying to other people is a bad thing, but lying to yourself if far worse , because one day you will start to believe in your own lies and that’s when you drown.”. So, everyday, choose reality, as Guy said, and make your decision based on facts.

My little example

As you may know, I love products and I’m focused in studying the cosmetic market. The problem about products is that they are the most difficult type of business to bootstrap, because of the investment they normally require. I would love to say “I don’t care about that I will do it anyway”, but obviously I will not be thinking rationally as we discussed above. The thing is, that I will continue to pursue a product company and I’m sure that someday I will build one, but I need to be open to other opportunities that are easier to implement. Forgetting about love a bit I came to the conclusion that the best thing to do is trying to start something easier that came give me experience to succeed in building later the company I really want. So, in my case, studying the cosmetic sector will continue, but I’m strongly considering starting something related, like a service business in the same market, that can give me the first traction.

Your time

You on the other side of the screen are surely a dreamer of some type, because entrepreneurs are all dreamers; this is great and needs to be maintained. However true entrepreneurs are constantly doing a reality check with themselves, because being completely honest is what makes the “magic” happens. When entrepreneurs realise that something can’t be done with the resources they have, they find alternatives, but this only happens when they know what they don’t have and need. If you are a pure dreamer (without self-knowledge) it is most likely that you will be traveling alone on a boat, forgetting to ask help and sinking somewhere. Ok, I think you got me, but how to manage this? Are we able to achieve this kind of honesty?

Well, that is very difficult and even for me, that received a direct punch of reality with this backpack trip trough Europe, it’s damn hard. People think that this kind of “state” we only achieve later in life, but that is bullshit. What common sense means is that most people don’t pursue their dreams and learn to accept life as it comes, BUT WE DON’T WANT THAT. We have decided long ago to choose our own way, face reality and bend it into the way we think is best for the greater good.

If you want to follow your dream, the best way to start is to talk with someone that loves you a lot and really knows you, it can be family, friend or a spouse. These people will tell you things they think about you, even the bad things, and from this conversation you can learn a lot. Don’t underestimate the person if she sees a different reality (that’s is what you are looking for), because good advice comes from the most unexpected sources. Listen, listen and listen. Shut your mouth and listen, that is the key. Try this and I’m sure it will help you become a better entrepreneur and, most importantly, a better person.

Cheers and Keep on Rocking in the Free World

That’s how you keep going

“Go that extra mile that failures refuse to travel. It is far better to be exhausted from success than to be rested from failure.” Mary Kay Ash

Three posts ago we talked about getting started after choosing a market that we have some affinity, but after a while, trying different things, it wasn’t as easy as I thought in the beginning. After deciding for the Cosmetic Industry, I tried to start researching related things about the process of making shampoo, soap, liquid soap and etc, but I felt a little bit lost. “Am I starting where I need to start?” and “Am I using my time in the best way possible?” were constant thoughts, but, even then, I continued with the goal of getting the big picture of the market, as I always did in my job in the first couple of days. A week later, however, I understood that this was a different type of analysis and the approach I used before wouldn’t get this done, I needed to find another way and I did.

Think about priority

Different from anything I had experienced, thinking as an entrepreneur, even after studying business, is very hard, because the possibilities are infinite, so you will never be sure if you are on the right path. That’s why we need to accept this feeling and learn to deal with it.

The closest feeling I had with this was arriving in Budapest in the middle of the night without a booked hostel and not knowing more than 5 words in hungarian (lot of people couldn’t understand any of the languages I spoke). That night, the only thing I was thinking was getting a place to stay, it was the priority, and this is the way we need to think to keep going in our entrepreneurial quest. What is your top priority ? In my case, for instance, my top priority is making the company sustainable as soon as possible (pay itself). I can’t afford to think to much about my attempt in entering the beauty industry, because money wont last much longer. So, researching my options I discovered that I need to bootstrap my startup and probably most of the people reading this blog are in the same position. Other priorities could be lack of technical knowledge or lack regulation knowledge. 

In short words, It’s like thinking about survival and, amazingly, after researching about Anita Roddick (founder of The Body Shop) I found a quote that gave me confidence.

“Nobody talks of entrepreneurship as survival, but that’s exactly what it is and what nurtures creative thinking.” Anita Roddick

Now you know what to do

If you know what your top priority is you know where to start and if you are in the same position as I’m you should take a look on this post from Guy Kawasaki about bootstrapping (http://tinyurl.com/38j7l5m). This post is from 2006 and it’s very known, but, even if you know it, take a look again and read it with the eyes of an cosmetic producer or whatever market you have chosen. After this, you will have a good idea on how to think about your business.

For instance, Guy writes that when bootstrapping it is better to ofer your product directly to your costumer, because it’s faster and you learn more. Thinking about this, I understood that I could, in the beginning, forget about stores and that I needed to try different kind of distribution models, like the Avon model or an online store. I don’t know what is the best way yet, but it led me into other types of thinking and I’m sure that the same will happen to you. That will give you huge confidence in designing the first pillars of your business.

Want more?

After having some thoughts about your business, the first thing you need to do is write it down and then you can start developing it, but the problem again is “How to continue?”. There are a lot of business models that can help you with this and a very good one is from the very well known Michael Porter. Take a look at his value chain model (specially at the image) when trying to come up with what else you need to think about, but keep your priority in mind. This model is obviously not perfect, but it helps you organise your thoughts. After it, again, right it down!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_chain

It is important to notice that, even if you couldn’t think about priority, you can still use this kind of model to help you!

Conclusion

In the beginning it is hard to think about those things, I’m feeling it, but that’s what makes it so beautiful. Entrepreneurship is a way to achieve freedom, but most of the people can’t deal with it, they just freeze. Get over this first shock, because I’m sure you will get used to it sooner or later.

Cheers and Keep on Rocking in the Free World

What I hate about “How to become an entrepreneur”

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will…” Charlotte Bronte

It’s not the first time I read it, but last week I became very annoyed about a post, “How to become an entrepreneur” and things related to it. Once in a while I see the topic “Take this test to see if you are an entrepreneur” or “What makes a great entrepreneur?” and, for you and for me that want to become an entrepreneur, this is rubbish.

The thing is that you only need to ask yourself two questions: “Do I really want to be an entrepreneur?” and “Am I doing it for the right reason?”. If the answer for those two questions is “Yes”, congratulations you are an entrepreneur. 

We could try to discuss what is the right reason, but we would never get to an ending point, because there isn’t a single answer to it, nevertheless there are the wrong reasons. For instance, if you are going for entrepreneurship because of the money you are making it for the wrong reason, actually it is a very stupid decision, because your chances to earn money having a 9-5 job are much higher. Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that, you will know if you are doing it for the right reason if you know that you are not doing it for the wrong ones.
 
Watch out for the Sophists

I love psychology and, because of that, I have downloaded a bunch of lectures from a psychology professor from Yale called Paul Bloom (check out this site www.academicearth.org it’s amazing). In one of them he is talking about Freud and how it is possible to tell that many of his theories are wrong. 

The problem about most of his theories is that they are so vague and wide that it is never wrong, you can’t really test them, like those blogs that write “To be an successful entrepreneur you need to be smart”. So if you can’t test them they are not theories, so they are essentially wrong.

First, for instance, what the hell is smart? Can someone explain to me? I can’t say that this statement is wrong, but this is so vague that is worthless for us. If they are trying to discuss what makes a entrepreneur successful they should talk about the state of mind and the resources you need to succeed and not “being smart” subjects. I wonder if someone would ever think “Well, I really want to become an entrepreneur, but, after reading this post, I don’t think I’m smart, so I’m going for something else”. The same thing happens when people discuss if we are born as entrepreneurs or we are shaped into entrepreneurs during our life. Does it really matters? If you want it, you want it and period.

Anyway, if you want to study a little more about what make a good entrepreneur there are very good stuff out there, like some posts of the DNA Series from Mark Suster. 

Conclusion

I’m backpacking for more than two months and one thing I have learned is that you can do whatever you want, you are free. There are, of course, restrictions, but there is always a way to acomplish your dreams. So if you really want to become an entrepreneur go for it and be happy.

Cheers and Keep on Rocking in the Free World

What about the idea?

“My ideas usually come not at my desk writing but in the midst of living.” – Anais Nin

If you read the last post and thought a little about the challenge I proposed you could be asking yourself “Where is the idea? You can’t just start something without a good idea”. However, you can and I want to convince you of this, because I’m always meeting people that want to become an entrepreneur and think that they need a 1 billion dollar idea.

Actually, if you go after the entrepreneurial history of many successful companies you will realize that, most likely, the first idea was very different from what you are seeing now (e.g Google, Paypal, Starbucks, Coca Cola and many others). However, I’m sure that you already know this and that you have already read somewhere “You don’t need a great idea, you have to find an unsatisfied need”. That’s correct, but this also doesn’t help us get any further so I want to help you to find this, almost mystical, “unsatisfied need”.

That’s how it works

Think about how many times it happened to you that you were looking for a product in a store, for instance T-Shirt, there were many types but actually you wanted a mix of them none really satisfied you entirely, so you left the store disappointed. THAT IS AN UNSATISFIED NEED (!!!) and you only could realize it because you lived that problem or sometimes because someone told you. So, you can’t just expect that someday you will think, for instance,  “Wow, I think I could replace solid wood with MDF in the furniture market” if you never thought or had any connections with the furniture market. You need to live it, you need to put yourself in the shoes of the costumer.

So first, as said before, find something you love or something you could possible love in the future and then put yourself as an real costumer (probably if you, at least, like your market you won’t have any problem with this). After experimenting, you will easily find lots of things you want to change (no product or service is perfect) and thinking deeper you will come up with a bunch of new solutions. I’m certain that you already know a lot of things you don’t like in actual products, but you never thought about it like an opportunity. You don’t need something revolutionary to be an entrepreneur.

Now you have a possible unsatisfied need and the next step is to know if people think like you (validate it). The best way to do this is telling people around you your idea. Don’t be afraid to share it, because, as we know, the hard thing is to implement the idea not to create it.

Look what happened with me this week

As I told you before, I decided to dedicate myself to the cosmetic market and so I came up with some ideas, mostly looking people complain. I took these ideas, shared it with two entrepreneurs  in a pub in London and after 20 min talking about it we came up with a hole new concept. It was amazing seeing how an idea can be developed in a short period of time. Try it and you won’t regret.

The important thing is that, after the validation with some friends, you get confident about your concept and gain the courage to get your hands dirty, even knowing that your final business will, almost certainly, be different from what you had planned. 

Conclusion

So, you don’t need an idea, you need a validated concept that, different from an idea, can give you, at least a little bit, the feeling that you are in the right way. But, again, don’t lose to much time on it, because you will only be sure that it will work if you go for real.

Cheers and Keep on Rocking in the Free World.

Choose your market and start doing

     
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” by Howard Thurman

As we began to talk about our self-discovery process three weeks ago, I promised I would send emails to people that could possibly help us to answer one of our remaining question (What would be the main differences for someone to notice when choosing between a B2C and a B2B company) and I did. Basically I sent emails to venture capitalist and serial entrepreneurs and the answers were somehow disappointing, but made me think. The main answers were “Sorry, I don’t know” and others like “In B2C you have to have good selling skills”. The first thought was “Damn!!! How in the earth they don’t know?”, but now I have realised that the question was wrong or, more precisely, not important.

In short words,  there are some things you can’t choose because they are just tied with the opportunity or you shouldn’t bother because they will only create unnecessarily restrictions. So, because of that, we should concentrate ourselves only  in answering the questions that really matters to us. 

Now, I will give you my example to give you some direction how to do that. First, as I said, working with products is really important to me because of the feeling that I’m producing something and because I can deal with all knowledge tied with it (logistics for example) and, second, I wanna act in a market that is more stable. These two things are really important to me and probably I couldn’t make something different.

Some secondary thing is that I wanna have the possibility of dealing with natural things and that’s it. Now comes the part when we need to make a decision and begin to work in something. I, for instance, was very fortunate to work as an analyst in a very serious company and there I got in touch with many different companies and the ones I enjoyed the most were consumer good companies. But, if don’t have any background, don’t worry you just need to make a decision and stick to it, its easier than you think.

Look at my case, two markets, in consumer goods, that I liked a lot when I was working and can be related somehow to those questions mentioned above are; the food industry and the cosmetic industry, but I really can’t decide between those two and that’s the time when you need to act. So now I’m going to choose the cosmetic industry and begin my market studies in search for opportunities, because I don’t want to waste more time planning.

So, for now one, some post will explain the procedure of how to make this market research step by step with examples of the cosmetics industry.
 
Now it is your time to choose and work on it, stop planning and do it. Make your list of things that can drive your decision and lets start doing what entrepreneurs were born for. 

Cheers and Keep on Rocking in the Free World

Categories: Uncategorized

The Power of Frustration

“Our fatigue is often caused not by work, but by worry, frustration and resentment.” – Dale Carnegie

If you really want to be an entrepreneur or if you already are one, you probably noticed that a lot of people are talking and writing about the need of love, but have you thought about the importance of this subject? Probably, now, your first thought is “Yeah, it gives you extra-strength to endure the process of creating a venture, like you wrote two post ago…duh” that is right indeed. But the hole is much more deeper…

There is something else that, if not more, has the same importance of the characteristic mentioned above and to explain it I will tell you about a conversation I had with a friend 3 months ago, that just made big sense these days.

At that time, when I was planing to make my backpack trip and wasn’t sure about it, I was thinking about another option: starting a company. As you may noticed in my about page, I was thinking a lot about entrepreneurship and thought that I could just try to start “something” (Brazil has great opportunities) for the learning experience and was convinced that in the process, then, I could find love for this startup . I was ,now obviously, jumping the gun,  but I was thinking of getting my hands dirty right away.

When I told this to a friend, that has lots of entrepreneurship experiences, she was wondering if I was mad. First because, for a guy that had no idea what to do,  the trip was definitely the best option and second, she said, “That’s not how you plan to open a company, you will, most likely, fail and probably become frustrate. Your love for entrepreneurship could vanish and that would be very sad”. Frustrate!!!??? Lose my love for entrepreneurship!!?? I never thought about it this way, but after a reflexion I realised that this was true.

Love for the venture you are building gives you the strength to wake up every morning and live with a minimal budget for a long time and also helps you to maintain your love for entrepreneurship as a whole, that is, for the entrepreneur, one of the most important things.

If you want to be a entrepreneur, at least, you need to love entrepreneurship for a good reason ( I’m probably picking a fight here, but I’m willing to sustain my position) and like any love in your life you need to preserve it. So, if you believe in what you are doing, you can devote yourself entirely and if it fails you can stand up and start something else with more ease. The love for trying and doing will be preserved.

Don’t overestimate your love for entrepreneurship, think about when you wanted so badly to learn an instrument (or something else), but your teacher sucked so much that you gave up and became frustrated. So every time you start something make it with real love to mitigate the risk of losing something more than just a company.

Cheers and Keep on Rocking in the Free World.