Entrepreneur's Handbook
MYTHS OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP
As with many issues about entrepreneurship, there is a lot of old or false information. Most of this information reaches large masses either by word of mouth or via the Internet and can distort people's perception of entrepreneurship. For this reason, entrepreneurs as well as those who want to be entrepreneurs should be informed about these well-known mistakes. Below are myths about entrepreneurship.
Myth 1: The most important issue in the entrepreneurship process is the business idea.
The entrepreneurship process, of course, starts with the development of a business idea. In this respect, it would not be correct to say that the business idea is insignificant. However, for entrepreneurship success, characteristics such as the quality of the business idea, its strikingness, its high potential are more prominent, such as the quality of the entrepreneur team, the ability to work in harmony and the environment. Even angel investors, who have to constantly listen to new business ideas, state that the quality of the entrepreneur's team is more important than the business idea.
In addition, the business idea is valuable as long as it comes to life, and what makes a person an entrepreneur is bringing together the necessary resources and creating value. Therefore, the business idea alone has no value, no matter how valuable it is.
Myth 2: If the business idea is too complex, success is guaranteed
When successful enterprises are examined, it is seen that simplicity is at the forefront in terms of business idea. By taking this further, it can be said that the business idea gains value as long as it is simple and understandable. The basic rationale here is that the buyer of the business idea can understand the product / service without much effort. Because when the entrepreneur promotes his product, he has a very limited time to introduce his product to a person in the target audience. Therefore, no one will make an effort to sit down and understand a complex business idea. When successful business ideas are examined, it can be seen that the same situation is in question. For example, Dropbox is file, Instagram photo sharing system.
Yemeksepeti.com is for online food ordering, and Hepsiburada.com is for online ordering of many products needed under its name. The business ideas and value promises of these companies are fairly simple, and a potential customer who has never heard of them will not need to make much effort to understand what these companies do. For this reason, it is important that the business idea is simple rather than complex and clearly states what value it promises.
Myth 3: If no one has the product, success is guaranteed
As emphasized in this chapter, the most important function of the entrepreneur is to innovate and create a business structure with innovative features. However, it should be kept in mind that innovation is not just a product / service that no one else had before. Of course, every entrepreneur wants to have a product that has no competitor in the market or even meets a need that has not been met before. Of course, the company that introduced products such as computers, mobile phones, Internet and automobiles to the market has gained a significant advantage over its competitors. However, the number of such products is not many, and the cost of revealing them is not low. The number of entrepreneurs who destroyed their business to create such an important and never existing product in the market is not a few. For example, the firm named Airware, which designed an innovative drone, sank this fund because it could not produce a competitive product despite receiving an investment of 118 million dollars (techcrunch.com). In addition, companies such as Amazon, Apple and Tesla, which are world giants today, have been successful with the innovative applications they have brought to the market, although they are not companies that can use the advantage of being the first in the market.
Myth 4: It is unnecessary to prepare a business plan if the business will be established with equity.
The business plan is generally a road map that can be prepared for different purposes as mentioned above. These include receiving a grant from a government agency, an investment from an angel investor, or a loan from a bank. In this case, it is impossible for the entrepreneur to create an enterprise without preparing a business plan. Here, a false belief is that if the entrepreneur does not need funding from any person or institution, it is an unnecessary effort to prepare a business plan. However, this approach is suggested by those who do not know enough about why the business plan is actually prepared. A business plan is made to reveal and investigate all aspects of a business in detail, and the business plan reduces the risks that may arise at the beginning of the business. For this reason, the sensitivity shown when using someone else's money should also be shown when using our own money and a business plan should be prepared.
Myth 5: Do not share your business idea with anyone
The nature of the business idea may be important to success, but even that is not always enough. Many successful business ideas stand out not just because they are new, but because they have successfully implemented this idea. For example, Starbucks firm discovered neither coffee nor coffee making. All he has done is to adapt the coffee culture in Italy to the needs of the American consumer and to successfully export the format he has developed to the whole world. It is often seen that people who develop an innovative and highly technological business idea work on them by keeping these ideas to themselves and do not share their business idea with anyone until they start the business and put the product on the market. These entrepreneur candidates often fall in love with these ideas and because they do not share them with anyone, they cannot see their shortcomings and mistakes and cannot develop their ideas. For this reason, ideas either cannot go to the market or fail to come out.
In fact, shared ideas can be developed both through common wisdom and bring brand new opportunities. Incubation centers, which play an important role in the development of ideas, also work on this logic. A potential business idea is developed in such centers by sharing it with many competent people. Thus, both the concept and customer tests of the business idea are carried out and it is easier for the entrepreneur to access the necessary resources. Therefore, it is necessary not to hesitate to share the business idea with the relevant people. If you are worried that this will be stolen and better done by others, it should be known that when the product comes to the market, it will already be known to everyone. Therefore, it should not be worried that the features of the products other than the characteristics of trade secrets are shared with the relevant persons.
Myth 6: Failed entrepreneur cannot be trusted
Since the most important aspect of entrepreneurship is innovation, it should be accepted that failure is as important as success. In all researches on entrepreneurship culture, it reveals the importance of high tolerance level to failure in high innovative level of the enterprise. İlk denemede her şeyin yolunda gitme ihtimali çok düşüktür. For this reason, a successful entrepreneur must be a person who does not give up on failure and moves towards his goal systematically and decisively. Important entrepreneurs such as Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba com, or Vehbi Koç, the founder of Koç Holding, have had bankruptcy experiences at the beginning or after the end of their business life. Of course, an approach should not be taken from this as one must fail first in order to be successful. However, it should be known that failure in entrepreneurship is only a learning process.
Myth 7: Entrepreneurs like to take risks
Many aspects of entrepreneurship related to risk are described in this section or in every entrepreneurship book. It would not be wrong to say that entrepreneurs take risks. However, as in the 18th century, defining entrepreneurship only on the basis of risk and emphasizing that the entrepreneur always takes risks, just like a gambler, can lead to the perception of entrepreneurship in wrong places. In some publications, when the entrepreneur is defined, unrealistic comments can be made such as the entrepreneur should like to take risks. Entrepreneurs, of course, take risks just like people from other segments. However, this is not a distinctive feature for the entrepreneur. Risk, by its very nature, is a function of decision making. So anyone who has to choose one of several options takes certain levels of risk. In fact, if we examine it in more detail, no entrepreneur can make a decision on a particular issue without making an account book. Research measures the risk it takes through obtaining information and tries to minimize it, and makes its decision when conditions mature. Therefore, taking risks is not about being an entrepreneur but a decision maker..
Myth 8: Entrepreneurship is the business of those with money
An enterprise is of course established with a certain amount of capital. However, the ownership of this capital is the subject of a separate discussion. Conversely, it is not a very logical inference to think that anyone with money can be an entrepreneur. Because in entrepreneurship, it is necessary to have other features than money. The most important factor that leads an individual to be an entrepreneur is "entrepreneurship capacity" (Alpuan, 1998). In the absence of this capacity, it will not matter much how much money an individual has. Individuals with high entrepreneurial capacity will find the necessary capital from different financing sources (public institutions, angel investors, banks, close environment) as well as obtain the production tools required for the business idea and will make strategic planning according to the capital they find.