Entrepreneur takes a leap of faith

A lot of my friends come to me. They want to be entrepreneurs. They are otherwise working for somebody. They want to break the shackle and unleash their possibilities. Pursue their own dreams.

We meet, we exchange ideas, we analyze feasibility, we figure out financial details, and touch almost all aspects of a business plan. They listen, they show interest, they ask questions, they doubt and they dwindle.

They often look for security. Guarantee, or some kind of assurance that their invested time and money would pay off.

They fail to take the leap of faith. There is no guarantee of anything in this imperfect world, my friend! To be an entrepreneur, more than any thing else, you need to take a leap of faith.

Are you ready for this?

Note: Inspired by a talk of Rubana Huq titled: "Perceptions and Realities of a Garment Wallah" at ULAB. 

Understanding the heart of USA

It's a land of wealth, innovation, teamwork, freedom and individuality. It's hard to understand how they work in a team, and still retain their personal space and enormous individual freedom.

Life, liberty and in pursuit of happiness -- that's what USA stands for. USA do not guarantee happiness, with the race of super-materialistic life very few should be happy here. I can imagine people in Bhutan are happier than people in USA. What USA guarantee is, you can really pursuit happiness, however flawed your recipe of happiness is.

My friend, Ashfaq, flew to USA 18 years back. He was broke, didn't have money to bear tuition fee, pay rent and even to pay for food. Uncle Sam wouldn't allow him to work legally. His monthly food cost was 15 dollars. It's hard to imagine for both of us while we are talking about this sitting in a fine suburb restaurant, sipping in home brewed beer, each of us haggling to pay the check, which came around $50 -- only for we two.

USA offered him a lot. Offered him enough to live a decent life, chase the girls of her choice, drive a 5,000 cc truck capable to haul a yacht, own most of the gadgets and tools an American adult can think of but a Bangladeshi person would never imagine of -- buy stuff like steam mop and inflatable bed, upgrade home theater for his bedroom and living room every five years, and plan for early retirement.

He is pursuing happiness, however flawed the recipe is.

Focus, or Not

I have been working and studying in USA for a couple of weeks now. I revisited USA after a decade. I am looking at the country with more experienced and educated eyes now.

I don’t see these guys are genius. They are not more hard working either. But each individual here does very good at what he does. They focus on a single area, and be expert of that. When you have a working system based on trust, when components add up to form synergy, you are better off focusing on your niche.

In a developing economy where almost nothing is built you need to build everything from the scratch. You almost end up building every component of the system to reach to a sustainable model. Is this efficient? Surely not. But you have no other choice. That is why Muhammad Yunus, starting with micro credit, ended up founding so many businesses, and now talking about even more. That is why great entrepreneurs like Sir Abed, Akij and Samson H Choudhury built so many businesses. That is why Henry Ford ended up integrating from mining to retailing.

Now that they have other pieces of the system working, they can really focus on a single piece. Keep doing whatever they are good at. Excel on that.

We, on the other hand, are still at the Henry Ford phase. We got to be generalist, keep integrating forward and backward. You can’t imagine the first human being on earth, Adam, was a specialist, can you? He was a generalist!

When no working system exists you need a good number of generalists to build one.

বেঁচে থাকার আনন্দ

নব্বই-এর কোনো এক বিকেল। আমি বিমানের আভ্যান্তরীণ ফ্লাইটে উঠে বসেছি। আইলের পাশে সিট আমার। বিমান রানওয়ে ছেড়ে ওঠার পরে তখন ধূমপান করা যেত।

হঠাৎ দেখি পরিচিত মুখ ওপাশ থেকে হেঁটে আসছে। স্যান্ডেল পরা, ছেড়ে দেওয়া সাদা সার্ট, হাতা কনুই পর্যন্ত গোটানো। বিমানে সচারচর এরকম সাধারণ পোষাকে সেইসময়ে মানুষ চড়ত না। কিন্তু মানুষটা সাধারণ নন। হুমায়ূন ফরিদী।

আইলের ওধারে এসে সে বসল। একটা সিগারেট ধরালো। সহযাত্রী, তার পরিচিত, ধূমপান বিষয়ে কিছু বলল। “ডাক্তার বলেছে, সিগারেট না ছাড়লে বাঁচব না”, ফরিদী বললেন, “আমি বলেছি, সিগারেট ছাড়লে বেঁচে কী লাভ?”

কুড়ি বছর আগের ঘটনা। ফরিদীকে অবশেষে সিগারেট ছাড়তে হল। সেই সাথে বাঁচাটাও।

তাঁর মত অসাধারণ এদেশে বেঁচে থেকেই বা কী লাভ করত? হয় প্যাকেজ নাটক বানাও, সোপ অপেরা, নয়ত বিজ্ঞাপন বানাও। পেটে ক্ষুধা নিয়ে সংস্কৃতির গুষ্টি উদ্ধার কর, অথবা অপসংস্কৃতির দাসত্ব কর। ফরিদী শেষেরটা বেছে নিয়েছিলেন। কিন্তু সেটা করতে গিয়ে হয়তো তিনি বেঁচে থাকার আনন্দটাই হারিয়ে ফেলেছিলেন।

আমি অভিনয় বিশেষজ্ঞ নই। তবে ফরিদীকে কেন জানি আমার ডাস্টিন হফম্যানের মত মনে হয়। জায়গা মত জন্মালে নির্ঘাৎ এক জোড়া অস্কার জিতে নিতেন।

আল্লাহ তাঁর আত্মাকে শান্তি দিক।

What happened is happened, why can’t we move forward?

Couple of weeks ago I met one of my relatives who was actively involved in Chhatro Shibir, a student politics wing of Jamaat-e-Islam. Many of the leaders of Jamaat-e-Islam supported West Pakistan during 1971 liberation war in Bangladesh.

My relative was born after 1971, same like me. He showed his frustration of recent war crime trial and oppression of ruling party on Islamic activists and madrasah students. “What happened 40 years back, is happened. Why can’t we move forward?”

I thought he was a good guy in heart, but had a different view. I thought it was easy to comment, “ What happened is happened,” while you or any of your family was not directly affected. I thought if I killed your family and after 40 years ask you to forget and move ahead, you can’t. I thought if someone’s entire family except him is murdered, you can’t expect him to think rationally. I thought we can’t go ahead unless we resolve old issues. I thought precedence of justice is necessary to build an atmosphere of trust and brotherhood. I thought righteousness, law and order is a prerequisite for business and prosperity.

A killing ground in Dhaka during 1971 genocide, that  killed 300,000 or more. 

Recently I read an article where Pakistani cricketer Imran Khan voiced a similar concern. Past unresolved issue hinders future progress. It is true for Pakistan. It is true for Bangladesh. It is true for individuals.

You can’t live, love and move ahead with hatred in your heart.

God wants us to use technology

Whatever are essential for human race to survive and grow are abundant in the nature. The most available and free resource on the earth is air, which is absolutely free, without need of any effort to collect. That’s the most important ingredient for us to live. The second most valuable thing for us is water. This is also fairly available, but not as much as air is. After all that’s the second most required ingredient for us to survive. The list can go down to carbohydrate, to protein, to fat, to mineral, to cotton, to silk and so on.

How about the least most important element for us to live? Diamond? This is mostly used as ornament, as a luxury item. Unsurprisingly extremely rare. Uranium, or gold for example. Not that essential, not that abundant either. Iron, on the other hand, is very essential mineral. Moderately available too. And iron is recyclable.

How about electronic goods? The hardware those are required to push the civilization in this information age? Elements of information technology? Ingredients to make silicon chips? Hmmm, they are fairly abundant, too.

So, I was thinking on the other day, maybe God wants us to use technology. It was all in His plan, I guess.

Well, I am just suggesting. Think about it!

Entrepreneurship is like painting: Interview of Richard Branson

Here is the bullet point take away from the 40 min rendezvous with Sir Richard Branson.

• Entrepreneurship is an art. Painting on a huge canvas, filling up the blanks and combining the bits and pieces. Similar thought was expressed by Mohammad Yunus recently. He said there is no legal relationship among the different concerns named as Grameen and founded by him. He just had to build different ventures to fill the gaps. And here Richard founded 300+ businesses under Virgin group to fill in the blanks on his canvas. A ‘wow’ is even an under statement!
• Entrepreneurs are not managers, save Steve Jobs. Entrepreneurs should be good at delegation, and move on to grabbing the next opportunity.
• The cheapest way of promotion is to make sure you have a good product to talk about.
• The inspiring way of promotion is the Chairman to talk about the product from the forefront! Who does it better than Richard Branson and Steve Jobs?
• It is an easier and faster way of knowing people in a fun environment than in formal meetings. Joe Polish mentioned form Peter Drucker: “Either you are working, or you are in meeting.” That’s bold! Richard said that he makes sure his employees have fun in work and after. By the way “don’t drink and fly a plane” rule applies to Virgin Airlines, too. No wonder!
• Creating business is one of the best ways to solve problems in the modern world. So do think Mohamamd Yunus (Social Business and Creating World without Poverty) and NR Narayana Murthy (A better India: A Better World). For some of the issues, however, business might not work. That’s where Virgin Unite plays role for Richard. For Yunus Social Business works.
• Prepare for the worst. That’s the most common preparations startups fail to make. 8 out of 10 fails, remember? Keep and exit strategy handy. Be flexible to sway from your initial plan.
• Use modern communication to stay close to your dear ones. That means, stay close physically to your family, and stay connected to your business using technology; as much as is practical. That’s the secret recipe form Richard for work-life balancing.

That’s it! It meant to be bullet point, right?

In case you are hungry for more, go ahead watch the the full video. You might have a different set of take away. If you do, share them on the comment box.

Richard Branson with Marie Forleo, Joe Polish and Yanik Silver on Necker Island talking about entrepreneurship at large.