Is Entrepreneurship Age Restricted?
There are multiple studies and surveys that have attempted to define the ideal age range for successful entrepreneurs. However, all you need to do it look at the entrepreneurs who are at the peak of success and you’ll realize it’s practically impossible to narrow it down to one age group.
For example, Evan Williams who was 35 when Twitter rose to fame. However, Mark Pincus was 41 when Zynga became a renowned brand, and Arianna Huffington was 54 when Huffington Post became an extremely famous news and blogging site.
Moreover, it is commonly believed that when it comes to innovative startups that revolutionize an industry, younger founders tend to excel. On the other hand, to build a sustainable business, older entrepreneurs find more success. However, that truly doesn’t hold much credibility.
It’s no secret that multiple young individuals launch ‘me too’ businesses after learning and adopting practices from successful businesses. And, older entrepreneurs like Dean Kamen and Elon Musk continue to provide revolutionary products that disrupt the industry they’re working in.
Hence, it goes without saying that there is no ‘right’ age to chase after your entrepreneurial dream. All you need is a fire in your belly to bring your billion-dollar idea to reality, and the motivation needed to overcome all the challenges that you will face.
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Importance of Entrepreneurship in India
There’s no doubt that entrepreneurship can greatly impact the economy of a nation, hence, entrepreneurs are often considered to be national assets, who are motivated and remunerated through various Government policies. This is primarily because a great entrepreneur has the capability to completely change the way we live and work. They can not only improve our standard of living but they also actively contribute to the growth of the economy.
Mentioned below are some of the various reasons why entrepreneurship is extremely important and is highly encouraged by the Indian government.
Creates Job Opportunities
It’s no secret that entrepreneurship greatly contributes to increasing job opportunities in the country. Moreover, as they provide entry-level jobs, it creates a great benefit of unskilled workers to get trained and gained experience.
Hence, entrepreneurial ventures essentially prepare and enhance the skills of the workforce for large industries.
The Social Impact
Most entrepreneurs are ‘givers.’ They have struggled and worked hard to attain success, and hence, try to make the life of others easier. For example, many seasoned entrepreneurs regularly nurture other upcoming business ventures to help them in their journey. Not only does this help the young businesses, but it also gives the seasoned entrepreneurs a chance to extend their own ventures.
Additionally, they also invest in various community projects and provide financial support to charities.
The most famous entrepreneurs who have made a huge social impact are Bill Gates, Azim Premji, Warren Buffet, and Manoj Padaiyachi.
Boosts The Economy
When new products and services are introduced in the market through entrepreneurship, a cascading effect takes place. This causes related businesses and sectors an opportunity to grow, thereby boosting economic development.
For example, in the 1990s, just a few information technology companies comprised of the entire IT industry in India. However, the industry quickly expanded, which not only benefited the IT industry, but other sectors as well, like call center operations, network maintenance companies, and hardware providers. Moreover, education and training institutes too flourished as they launched a new class for IT workers, who could attain higher-paying jobs after completing these classes.
Hence, entrepreneurship not only benefits the sector but the multiple sectors, which in turn leads to the growth of the economy. Moreover, in a developing country like India, further developments require robust logistics support, capital investment, and qualified workers. So, there is no shortage of opportunities for budding entrepreneurs, who can provide employment for not just a qualified programmer, but to a construction worker as well.
Increases The Standard of Living
The definition of the standard of living concept is the ability to consume an amount of a variety of goods and services by a household, which is gauged over a period of time. The more the number of goods the household is able to afford, the higher their standard of living.
Through entrepreneurship, people get job opportunities, which increases their standard of living as they are more capable of consuming the available goods and services.
However, besides just individual earning, which also plays a huge role in increase the standard of living is the availability of diversified products in the market. Through innovation and a drive to launch something new, entrepreneurship provides the market with multiple new and improved products and services that can help improve their standard of life.
Hence, there’s no doubt that entrepreneurship increases the standard of living of the people of a country.
Encourages Innovation
There is no argument that innovation is the crux of entrepreneurship. No matter the industry, product or service, or market, without innovation and creativity, any entrepreneurial venture cannot be successful.
Hence, with new ventures, products, technologies, markets, increased quality of goods, and others that are a product of innovation and entrepreneurship, the Gross Domestic Product increases considerably as it has a positive impact on the economy.
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Why Millennials Prefer Entrepreneurship in India Over Traditional working
Millennials have entered the workforce in an age that is ruled by the products of entrepreneurs, includes Steve Jobs, Dhirubhai Ambani, Azim Premji, and many others. Moreover, shows like Shark Tank, wherein aspirational and potential entrepreneurs are given a chance to succeed garner audiences of over 6 million from all over the globe.
In addition to this, in the 2008 recession, the stability of traditional career paths came into question. Hence, it’s no surprise that millennials prefer entrepreneurship over traditional working. Mentioned below are some of the main reasons for this change in career approach and preferences in the new generation.
Independence Over The C-Suite
In today’s day and age, very few millennials proclaim their career goals to be climbing the corporate ladder of a corporation or to be part of their C-Suite, which includes positions like CEO, CFO, COO, and others. Instead, this young generation is more interested in building their own business and donning the founder cap, instead.
The primary cause for this shift in career goals is essential that millennials are eager to forge their own pathway as they suspect that their efforts will lead to nothing in the traditional ones. Moreover, they tend to see chaos, distrust of management, breaking of contracts and bad news when it comes to being employed at a company. After all, they have seen their relatives get fired out of the blue, or their peers spend their entire lives locked in a cubicle.
Hence, they tend to go down the challenging yet fulfilling path of entrepreneurship instead of playing by the rules of traditional working.
Flexibility Over the 9-to-5 Jobs
Millennials love their independence and love to work during hours they deem most productive. According to a study, 77% of millennials states that flexible work hours are key to boosting productivity in their generation. While some companies see the benefits of providing employees with flexible hours, most of them believe that this will hamper work ethics and professionalism.
Hence, millennials turn to entrepreneurship wherein they determine the best time to work and are often successful and more productive. This has become easier considering we are living in the age of smartphones, hence, millennials are “always-on,” with many checking their emails outside of work or lazing around the entire day and working in the night when they are most productive.
Prefer an Adventiours life
Surrounded by innovative concepts and technology, millennials are risk-takers, adventurous, and are always looking for new opportunities. This urges them to forsake their regular, well-paid jobs and opt for starting their venture, which is woven by the threads of their visions and ideas.
Basically, instead of being holed up in a corner of their office doing the same task every day in the lure of a stable income, they prefer to take on the challenge of starting their own business wherein they need to carry out multiple roles and responsibilities.
In the words of a fellow millennial entrepreneur, Vivekananda Hallekere, who co-founded Bounce, “Millennials are a different breed of humans, who believe in knowing and exploring things on their own. They don’t like to own things, be it a home or a car. Settling down is not much of an option for them which means they take and are more ready to fight risks. And this is helpful for the startup ecosystem.”
Also Read – Why Every Entrepreneur Needs A Mentor
5 Traits That Ignite Entrepreneurship In Individuals
In the entrepreneurial world, success isn’t defined by the grades you got in school or how many degrees you have. Contrary to popular belief you don’t need to be a scholar or an A-student to be a successful entrepreneur. In fact, the best entrepreneurs are considered to be more street smart than book smart.
Neither is success in this world defined by who your parents are, your religion or where you grew up. All that matters is your personality, mindset, skillset, and lastly your outlook on life.
The two primary personality traits you must have to be a successful entrepreneur are perception and intuition, as a success only comes to those who are able to see an opportunity and have the ability to grasp on to it.
Think you may have what it takes to be an entrepreneur? Here are five other personality traits entrepreneurs must have:
Passion
Money cannot be a driving force for an entrepreneur to succeed. Money can be made from more conventional practices that involved lesser effort, minimal risks and challenges. To be able to endure all the hardships that come with the entrepreneurial lifestyle, you must love what you do and be extremely passionate about your product or service.
Being an entrepreneur involves rigorous effort, multiple sleepless nights and uncountable risks, especially in the initial stages. But, true entrepreneurs don’t fret about any of these challenges as they are so focused on their dream and vision.
They don’t give up when a challenge arises, instead, they face the storm and stick with their dream and passion. A great example of this Steve Jobs, who said, “I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.”
Solution-Driven
When you’re working in a traditional workplace, you always have the option to look to your superiors or peer to help you when you’re stuck with a problem. Entrepreneurs mostly don’t have this liberty, hence, they need to be extremely solution-driven if they want to overcome the challenges they are facing.
In his book, “Leaders Eat Last: Why Some Teams Pull Together and Others Don’t,” motivational speaker Simon Sinek writes, “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.”
Essentially, a true entrepreneur knows how to solve a problem and motivate their team to work together toward a common goal.
Mission
Most startups fail due one primary reason; lack of focus and a mission. It’s probable that after you launch your first venture, you might lose hope and feel that your business will never take off. However, successful entrepreneurs don’t feel that. Not only are they optimistic about the future and are always looking ahead, but they also have a definite path and plan in place for their business.
In his essay “Thoughts on Various Subjects,” Jonathan Swift wrote, “Vision is the art of seeing things invisible.” Entrepreneurs have a vision and mission they share with others. Their team understands why they do what they do, what the goal is and what their role is on the path to success.
Innovation
Their mindset and creativity are what sets great entrepreneurs apart from everyone else. They have a knack for seeing the world differently and are able to think outside the box. By thinking this way, they are able to come up with great ideas, which are then executed in the form of products or services.
In “Conversations with Maya Angelou,” Jeffrey M. Elliot quoted Maya Angelou as saying, “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”
Entrepreneurs always need to be on the lookout for a new and efficient way of doing things, and how they can make existing products better. They shouldn’t be satisfied with the status quo and should be creative enough to be able to come up with ideas that change the world.
Lifestyle
The lifestyle of an entrepreneur can be extremely tricky. While you need to essentially run the entire company and carry out multiple roles and responsibilities, you also need to ensure you’re maintaining a healthy work-life balance.
It’s easy to get lost in the complexities of growing your business and forget about your personal life and health. However, this is not a healthy or scalable practice. Hence, you must chalk out a plan to ensure you’re spending sufficient time with your company, and with your family and loved ones. Flexible hours are great, but ensure you are able to shut off from work and take a breather once a while.
Moreover, you need to take the utmost care of you health as your business is entirely dependent on you and if you are unwell, there will be no one to replace you to drive your company forward.
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Are You The Next Big Thing In The Entrepreneurial World of India?
With multiple government policies and many successful entrepreneurs to consider as role models, there is no shortage of support you will receive if you decide to go down the entrepreneurial role.
Also Read – List of 15 Successful Indian entrepreneurs
