Four Lessons When Becoming an Entrepreneur

Starting Your Own Business
August 1, 2013 By Ankur Patel
Ankur is a college grad who recently started his own business venture after having worked for someone else. There are many new challenges one faces when becoming an entrepreneur (especially if you did not study it in school). All of a sudden, an entrepreneur is faced with many tasks that he or she didn’t necessarily have to worry about when working for a company. Ankur shares four lessons that he has learned when switching from being employed to employing himself.
 


Starting My Own Business

My name is Ankur, and I recently moved from Chicago to the San Francisco Bay Area to start my first company. The company focuses on a database solution for large company knowledge. And I have founded the company with my business partner. The most common question I get asked is

“But do you know how to start a company?”

I don’t, but I’ve always wanted to. The truth to this is that I haven’t formerly been trained in the art of starting a company. In fact, as of this moment I am only a few months into this project! Even though I’m still new, there are four key things I’ve learned already that I think would be useful to share.



Four Lessons I’ve Learned When Starting my Company

I decided to write down the four lessons I have learned in hopes to help others who may be starting their own business. If you have more suggestions, please include them in the comments below.


Lesson 1: Become Adaptable to any Situation

Adaptability has been my best friend. Being an entrepreneur is all about floating a line between adapting and persevering – and more importantly, when to use more of one or the other. I’m constantly adapting to new people, ideas, and environments. If I can’t adapt – I’m setting myself up for failure from the get go.


Lesson 2: Always Keep the Larger Picture in Mind

Get good at abstracting! What I mean by this is get good at seeing the larger picture. Whether it’s at meetings, events, prospective client engagements, being able to abstract the key points/notes from each event is SO KEY. It’s helped me a ton to keep my momentum going.


Lesson 3: Mentally Prepare Yourself for the Highs and Lows

It’s always good to be mentally prepared. My team and I go through highs and lows constantly – but I’m learning to gear my expectations from the start so I’m not constantly mood swinging about things throughout the day. There will constantly be ups and downs, but it’s how you deal with them that matters.


Lesson 4: Keep Focused On Your Vision

Don’t be afraid to make the call. There will be a time when there are too many cooks, and you’re going to have to keep the broth from spoiling. Almost everyday you’re going to be bombarded with several different viewpoints, decisions, and options. But at the end of the day, it’s up to you to pull the trigger. In scenarios like this – it’s best to go with your best instinct. If your decision was incorrect, or could have been better – make it a great learning point and move on.


Learning from My Business Venture

Lessons for Entrepreneurs For me, starting my own business venture is very exciting. I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, and our company has already been aquired by an accelerator. (An accelerator in the Bay Area is an investor who provides resources for businesses to launch effectively. In order to get sponsored by one, the company must go through a rigorous proposal and approval process). These four points have been my entrepreneurial swiss army knife. It’s been a great start so far, and I’m going to keep my head up and march on!



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Article by Ankur Patel
Ankur’s Life After College Profile is Coming Soon