How do expert entrepreneurs make decisions? Part 2

7.2.12 posted by Sabrina

We love discussions, because they force you to take a whole lot of information, contextualise it and evaluate it relating to you and based on your experience what you make of it.

Because my last blog post on this topic sparked so much discussion, I decided to write up a follow up one.

The key issue we have here is: are we prepared and are we open enough to accept the learnings that come from serial entrepreneurs? If we accept the fact that most serial entrepreneurs had many apparent ‘failures’ but have learned from such apparent failures to later on become successful, then why aren’t we prepared to piggy-back on their experience? The fact that we seem to believe that Mark Zuckerberg and Jamie Oliver are somewhat unique and ‘special’ flies in the face of entrepreneurial research, is actually a distortion from the truth. Discussing this with Daniel Vidal, a researcher in this field, I learned that current research has not been able to find any cognitive or psycho-graphic difference between entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs. The cognitive differences only appear after they become entrepreneurs. There may be some demographic differences, but that’s all.

Which means that successful entrepreneurs do not start with a goal in mind. Pierre Omidyar (eBay founder) did not start with the goal of replacing the American garage sale, neither did Mark Zuckerberg start with the goal of becoming a worldwide phenomenon. Omidyar developed a web site to help his wife trade lolly dispensers with other collectors, and we all know how Zuckerberg started. AJ Hackett did not start wanting to head a global adventure-travel activity – he just wanted to share with others an activity he felt very passionate about.

Most entrepreneurs start by having a goal like retirement at a young age or sailing to the Bahamas or a lot of entrepreneurs to be, especially in my generation, want to make a difference and they try to achieve it by using what they know and leveraging their relationships. However, because our traditional education system serves the usual large-corporate environment where equity holders and bondholders do not release funds unless there is a clear indication of what the end-game is, we believe that in any setting an ultimate goal is necessary. In fact, new research in strategy (e.g., dynamic capabilities) clearly shows that higher level of performance is achieved by having an inside-out perspective (e.g., how to leverage capabilities), rather than an outside-in perspective (e.g., what capabilities are necessary to achieve a goal).

I guess some entrepreneurs are in the category of ‘novice’ entrepreneurs simply because they have not had the chance of building insights into what really works and what doesn’t. Possibly, novice entrepreneurs have to go through the path of setting a goal and then thinking what is needed to get there. This is not uncommon as novice entrepreneurs think like corporate managers, rather than true entrepreneurs. I suspect that serial entrepreneurs, who have had many apparent ‘failures’ but then adopted a different way of acting, used to think like novice entrepreneurs at the beginning of their journey.

But this brings me back to the start, why wouldn’t we learn off other people’s mistakes?

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