To succeed as an entrepreneur, the thing obligatory is passion. If someone has passion and courage, he can find all the resources necessary for success. Traditional perceptions about successful entrepreneurship include;
- Successful entrepreneurship is linked to special family background.
- It is not possible without or limited amount of finance.
- Prosperity is guaranteed only through good government job or working abroad and not through entrepreneurship.
First and most important point here is that we will have to differentiate between traditional business and entrepreneurship. Business is undertaking any activity to earn profit, for example, setting up a cloth house and earning profit through selling clothes. But if we take the same business on the internet and sell clothes online, provide option to the customers to choose and purchase clothes while sitting at home; then it becomes entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is an innovative job. One takes a risk by establishing an entrepreneurship as there is no existence of such idea in market before and you never know that people will like it or not. Let’s talk on finance now. There are too many examples in today’s world who became successful entrepreneurs despite financial problems. Smith is one of the examples who established FedEx, a global courier delivery service and another example is Bezos the founder and CEO of online company Amazon.com, the largest retailer on the Internet. He was also the Time Person of the Year in 1999 and becomes the wealthiest persons of the world. Does the mind accept the fact that the profitability of a factory on some square meters can be more than the profitability of a trade that covers thousands of acres? Or the production success of some individuals can be more than that of thousands of labor? Simple reason is that the prior ones are offering innovation while the later ones keep the traditional track. The founder and Executive Director of Facebook is a great example who brought innovation in the market and reached the peak of success. Similar is the case with the founders of Instagram, WhatsApp etc. They were only groups of some people who on the base of their innovative ideas succeeded. Schultz is the chairman and chief executive of Starbucks, the world’s largest coffee chain, which has over 20,000 stores in 61 countries. Now think about it. An old man with zero finance, what he has is only a recipe. If after retirement he had done another job, would anyone know him? The answer is a simple NO. By mentioned examples, a clear result can be derived that to become wealthy and popular the most important thing is not finance but it is innovative thinking. One should be able to bring such idea or product in the market that is unknown to the others. Such ideas and products will be enlisted in the market changing products list. Pakistan is also no exception on this ground. Many Pakistani youngsters have been successful in establishing successful entrepreneurships. Shaukat Raza Mirza wrote a book “from Exxon to Engro” which chronicles and documents his endeavors as he orchestrated the first employee buyout in Pakistan’s corporate history. This employee buyout was unique in many ways and was an unprecedented concepts for many of stakeholders from Pakistan. Mr. Shaukat Mirza not only handled it well but took all stakeholders on board and created a success story, Engro. Today, Engro is one of the largest business entities of Pakistan and it was all possible because of his visionary leadership. He didn’t start a business on his own like many other entrepreneurs but his work in creating Engro from Exxon is nothing short of what entrepreneurs do. Musadaq Zulqarnain, C.E.O. of Interloop. He founded the hosiery which is now completely vertically integrated, and interloop is also carrying out its operations in Bangladesh because of increasing demand from buyers pointing to the riskiness in Pakistan. The company is only exporting its produce to clients like Macy’s etc. In my view, importance of finance is secondary for successful entrepreneurship. Finance, Human Resource, skills and education can be used as tools but they are not primary. The primary thing is passion, if there is no passion for success, the mentioned tools cannot serve to success. What is the reason that a finance company or a bank provides loans to or develops partnership with entrepreneurs though they have all the resources to undertake a plan? They do not only know but have faith that their plan is feasible and their investment will be doubled or tripled within a limited span of time. They also know that their profits will be shared with entrepreneurs if they make partnership with them. Then why do they not opt for implementing the plans themselves instead of making partnership with entrepreneurs? The reason is that despite availability of all resources to undertake a plan the finance companies or banks do not have that passion which is necessary for implementation of the certain project. They do not have those passionate people which endanger the success of the project. Therefore, they make partnership with the entrepreneurs that have the required level of passion. Passion, desire, hope develop in humans automatically. They are the flames that are essential for success. In my view, it is impossible to inculcate these emotions in another person. It is also not a product that could be purchased from a market. However, it can be increased and further developed in any person if the quantity is low.