FAST and FURIOUS- The accelerator converting innovation to entrepreneurship

ByF.C. Dawkins

Indisputable: We live in a global work space – an economy where timing is everything and competition comes from every which direction, blindsiding us, especially where Tech is concerned. There is tremendous pressure to be first out to fill a market niche and tremendous pressure on innovators around the world to become instant entrepreneurs OR to give up the lion’s share of the economic benefit of their innovation to others who can get them to market in a hurry.

If there is a lesson from the Blackberry debacle it’s that being first gives you a head start but the pack quickly turns to finding ways to do it different and better. There is no time to rest on your laurels. Your advantage is short lived- even much less than ten years ago when Blackberry was first riding high.

Are the expectations of the market achievable or are we simply seeing a new reality where companies come and go with a greatly reduced life expectancy. Apple did fail once. How much longer will it stay at the top this time?

When you visit an incubator/accelerator you will often see tired young people committed to a 24/7 work ethic, working in small space shared with other start-ups focused on perfecting their innovation with little understanding of the fundamentals required to operate a business or build a foundation for a company that can last. Did Blackberry ever establish that foundation? After all it was always in a dynamic state of rapid change initially positive but for the past three years negative.

Can humans really continue to cope with the rate of change that technology allows? Are we being forced to abandon stability in favour of short term success? Overall we find ourselves in an integrated global economy, still wrestling with the ongoing effects of the Great Recession, managed by leaders who are challenged at best, incompetent at worst, where the only sure thing is uncertainty.

For all of these reasons becoming an entrepreneur is an important option. The economic world will place increasing value on resilience and adaptability. In the face of instability and uncertainty the most important skill we may develop will be the ability to create our own job. Big will not be better. Small and flexible will become the key to individual success.

Similar Posts

  • What aspiring entrepreneurs can learn from the Alberta election

    ByF.C. Dawkins

    Yesterday’s Alberta election produced a dramatic change but more than anything else it resulted from change and the inability of the PC party in Alberta to manage change.  One of the reasons so many experts maintain that failure is an integral part of succeeding as an entrepreneur is because we do learn from failure. We have to learn in order to recover so we take the time to analyze what we did wrong in order to avoid repeating the same mistake. Success masks our faults. It is rare for most of us to understand our weaknesses when we are getting results. Unfortunately for the electorate for a political party getting results means maintaining power as opposed to effective performance. When things are going well as they did for Alberta under the boom of the oil industry it was easy for politicians to look good and to develop some bad management practices. When a serious problem developed with falling oil revenues there was a huge need to adjust. We will never know whether the proposed budget was appropriate or not but remember when you have to provide customers, suppliers or employees with a bitter pill for the longer run good don’t turn around and immediately give them control to vote the new policy in or not.

    My mantra for the individual in today’s dynamic world is that the number one skill you can learn is the ability to create and manage your own career, with managing being the key to sustain meaningful success. We face an unprecedented rate of change. Every one of us must have the ability to recreate ourselves in the face of this one certainty: change is a constant, by definition the only thing we can count on besides death and taxes. Despite the perception of many that entrepreneurship requires risk this need not mean reckless risk but instead should refer to managed risk. The PCs had the time and needed it to prove that their budget could work in an economy under duress rather than risking a quick election on the outside chance they would get another majority giving them even more time. So among the small business lessons from yesterday’s election results are the following:

    1. Nothing lasts forever including good times in the oil industry

    2. Sustained success requires a relentless commitment to adapt even after a long track record of doing so.

    3. Managed risk produces results while reckless risk invites failure

    4. Knowing your weaknesses in good times and bad will sustain your success

    5. A change in leadership does not guarantee renewal of an organization

    I’ m sure there are more.

    Fred Dawkins is a serial entrepreneur and the author of a series entitled The Entrepreneurial Edge. The third book in that series Ageless Entrepreneur is available from booksellers across North America on May 9th 2015

     

     

     

     

  • Entrepreneurship and Globalization

    ByF.C. Dawkins

    Our economy can best be characterized as fast and furious. The combination of globalization and the technological revolution ensure that the one constant in our economic lives is change. This is an environment
    well suited for entrepreneurs who by definition are flexible, adaptable and resilient, unlike big business which has become entrenched and slow to adapt. Big entities grow through acquisition increasingly depending on entrepreneurial enterprise to produce start-ups with potential to feed their growth needs.

    Small business entrepreneurs need to get in on the action. Most think that global trade opportunities accrue to the large corporations that can deal in the volumes required by manufacturing giants like China. However there are large numbers of likeminded entrepreneurs in countries like India, Malaysia and Viet Nam that want to network and connect with entrepreneurs here in North America. Entrepreneurship starts with opportunity and there are many around the world that big business will miss or ignore. Oh they will capitalize on the obvious ones like cheap labour in certain countries but it will take energy and determination common to entrepreneurs who disrupt and challenge the status quo to find the myriad of less obvious opportunities.

    ‘Everyday Entrepreneur’ encourages entrepreneurs to strike out and look for these relationships. They are there to be had. Anecdotes outline experiences in dealing off shore and give insight into different economies and some of the advantages on which entrepreneurs can capitalize.

    Praise for Everyday Entrepreneur:
    “I just finished reading [this] book and enjoyed it immensely. [Fred has] pulled together a wealth of knowledge and advice crucial to the successful entrepreneur in a highly readable fashion. It is a
    must-read for aspiring and seasoned entrepreneurs who are facing today’s complex, volatile, and uncertain world. I especially appreciate the emphasis on thinking globally and adapting proactively.
    We have seen too many examples of yesterday’s winner relying on old models to their detriment. It isn’t easy … but it is exciting and gratifying to create your own business and work to see it flourish. The summary at the end of the book should be bookmarked on every entrepreneur’s computer.”
    — Dr. Sherry Cooper, former executive VP and chief economist for BMO
    and author of three books, including The New Retirement: How it Will Change Our Future.

  • Why Entrepreneurs must have an end game

    ByF.C. Dawkins

    Much as we would like to, we never really love our parents as much as we do our children. Your business is exactly like a child. In the early or startup years it will depend completely upon you, looking to you for all the answers. You will always supply them with confidence, belying the uncertainty that you may feel as a first time owner just as you do as a first time parent. The child will look to you 24/7 in sickness and in health and as the parent you will always be there regardless of the problem, dropping everything else in the process. Your business and its components from customers to your team will do the same and like the parent you will be ready and willing to oblige. You cannot easily walkout on your children. Oh some due but for the majority it’s a non-starter. Same thing with your business. You are your business but try to remember your business is not you.

    The middle years are the best when you have become comfortable within your developing family and confident in the decisions that must be made. Neither your child or your business will question you during this peak period. Things do get into a groove on both fronts but then comes the maturing years, the transition from total dependence  to independence. Tough for the parent to admit it’s time to let go and let the child mature  developing all of it’s capabilities, finding new methods and learning new things that the parent doesn’t know or understand.  So difficult to do but you the parent do it willingly in the best interest of your child. And so you must with your business. At some point you will become the limitation in your business. The day will come when it has outgrown you. It will not mature and reach it’s potential unless you let go. Easier said than done but be ready.

    Like your first born that first business must move on to a new future. But then remember you can do it again. Maybe you already are. The second child is easier. There are tried and true practices that you know and understand. You can take that second child from gestation through birth to adolescence from startup to a thriving healthy entity. You can do this as many times as you can handle. And so you can with business. That’s what makes you a parent and that’s what makes you an entrepreneur. There are many mentors that can steward your child and your business into full maturity who cannot deal with the early years. You are the one who launches them from nothing and starts them along the path to maturity.

    So recognize the need for that end game- when it is time to move on and begin again. It’s what you do best. The child will ask for you opinion. The business may ask you to consult. You will learn to enjoy both, but you will find your happiness doing it all over again.

  • How do we prepare aspiring entrepreneurs?

    ByF.C. Dawkins

    There are many people who believe that you can’t teach entrepreneurship. They believe it is either inherent or a skill that has to evolve from experience. There is no doubt that as in any other skillset there are people who are naturals. Also experience is a tough taskmaster and the school of hard knocks leading to rejection and failure has produced some great success stories. Opportunity and determination are the cornerstones of entrepreneurship. Recognizing achievable opportunities and the commitment to find solutions and implement then are absolute prerequisites. There is a teachable philosophy involved that enhances both of these attributes. But there is something else we can do for our aspiring entrepreneurs. We can do a much better job of preparing them. We can help them understand the basic philosophy, the many personal challenges they will face and all of the fundamental business issues from team building to funding that are common to every business. The failure rate for entrepreneurs is too high. Some would have you think that this is merely the nature of the beast-part of the mystique. We must add a new word to opportunity and determination and that word is preparation. With preparation we can turn reckless risk into managed risk and greatly improve the success rate. Working with the Creative Destruction Lab at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto I see many brilliant innovators anxious to start a business and get their project to market who lack this basic preparation. This lack extends much further to those entrepreneurs of necessity who will be trying to create and manage their own careers in our fast paced global economy.

    Everyday Entrepreneur is written in a format that is relatable for anyone considering a career in entrepreneurship at any level. The focus is to use real anecdotes to put the reader in a business situation so he or she will recognize a similar issue when it develops. Preparation is an essential element of planning. The plan is not an outcome but rather a framework that allows us to anticipate and adjust as things evolve. Preparation and understanding are great assets for anticipation and adjustment. We need not build our businesses from the ground up. We can use the experience of others to prepare us. There are common bonds at every level of entrepreneurship. The goal of Everyday Entrepreneur’ which is coming out in December, is to convey as many ideas as possible that will make all our new entrepreneurs better prepared and help existing entrepreneurs put their challenges into prespective.

    Praise for Everyday Entrepreneur
    “Fred Dawkins has written a wonderful book about entrepreneurship unlike any other on the market. He brilliantly uses his storytelling skills to illuminate his subject in a way that makes the book a joy to read. You’re so wrapped up in the story that you may not realize how much you’re learning until you’ve turned that last page.”
    — TERRY FALLIS, AWARD-WINNING AUTHOR OF THE BEST LAID PLANS AND UP AND DOWN.

  • The Disconnect between current Capitalism and Free Enterprise

    ByF.C. Dawkins

    I am a serial entrepreneur who believes that the free enterprise system is the best alternative for creating upward mobility, a growing middle class, the most efficient allocation of resources and the least costly production of goods and services to the benefit of society as a whole. But free enterprise is based on the principal of a free and open market. Theoretically the ease of communication today should create more opportunity and much greater competition. Free enterprise does not thrive in a monopoly or oligopoly both of which limit competition but in many cases that is what we now have. As a result the middle class in the west is in serious danger of backsliding into the poor class from which it came over the past hundred plus years.

    Branding and Brand power are the main tools that are limiting competion, allowing capital to seize a much larger portion of the pie at the expense of labour creating the status of superrich and the growing disparity in the distribution of wealth. These are serious dangers because market control interferes with free enterprise and skews the results. Yes it is still possible to create a new brand but increasingly large organizations block the market and take advantage by acquiring up and coming companies and only then allowing them full market penetration.

    On an individual basis it is now critical to become an entrepreneur allowing for self-determination and upward mobility that is in decline for employees. The most important skill anyone can learn today is the ability to create and manage your career. The problem is much bigger for society. We have created a society in the west with very high expectations and a philosophy of entitlement. A large percentage of the population will not put forward the effort and level of determination required to succeed as an entrepreneur – not without first experiencing serious pain and a major economic correction. We are vulnerable but collectively we remain in a state of denial.

    The capitalist system which allowed the middle class to flourish in the west is broken. Rather than continuing to create opportunity it has begun to limit it. Rather than spreading the success to the developing world we are in danger of returning to a more rigid class system with the superrich having a disproportionate amount of economic power. Solutions are impossible as long as we remain in a state of denial compounded by governments which have become dysfunctional. A good start could come from consumers by becoming better informed and breaking the power of the brands. This should be happening through social media but it isn’t. Instead brand control of the market is being re-enforced by social media marketing.

    I am very concerned that I have lived and worked in an era that has been optimum for the individual but is no longer sustainable. I am very concerned that my grandchildren will be denied the opportunity that my generation has enjoyed. One of the great challenges of capitalism is to moderate the influence of greed. If we don’t find a way to level the playing field it’s difficult to predict how social unrest will manifest itself in a society where expectations cannot be achieved.

  • Creating a Culture of Entrepreneurial Success

    ByF.C. Dawkins

    One of the premises in the introduction of my new book Everyday Entrepreneur is that I wrote it to encourage entrepreneurs of every stripe across the spectrum. Since the high tech entrepreneurs have been getting the lion’s share of the attention and encouragement from the public and investors alike, they were far from my target market. Tech innovation was the creator of venture capital, setting a precedent for high rates of return that can’t be sustained in other areas. Virtually all other types of entrepreneurs have to struggle for funding because they simply don’t meet the criteria for venture capital. Those that have attracted VC funds often flounder to the detriment of the entrepreneur because the VC gets an agreed upon return which can sap a moderately successful business.

    The Creative Destructive Lab at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto (my alma mater) is focused on extreme success with a strong emphasis on taking tech developments from gestation to dynamic success on the international stage. On the surface this seems to be exactly the area that I previously suggested didn’t need my help or encouragement as people are lined up to help in almost every area to develop these type of businesses. So why did I choose to support these high achievers by becoming a partner of the CD Lab? Well here are my reasons:

    1. I strongly support that we need to keep our brightest and best talent here in Canada – we are in the midst of a world wide competition to attract talent – success starts with keeping our own
    2. Success at this level sets a terrific example for anyone in this country that wants to become an entrepreneur and start a business at any level
    3. Both of these factors are critical for us to build a culture of entrepreneurial success to maintain a strong economy and bring in the new talent that every country is striving to attract.
    4. If in the process I can influence some of the brilliant MBAs we are graduating to circumvent the conventional and lucrative path to becoming a business executive in favour of applying their abilities to becoming entrepreneurs who solve problems, make things happen, create jobs and provide the drive that leads to success, then my time and effort will have been well spent.
    5. The very talented people who apply to the Lab are brilliant in their innovation but still need nurturing on the personal issues involved in becoming an entrepreneur, the fundamental business issues they will encounter and the overall philosophy inherent in being an entrepreneur.

    My book will out at the end of November. In the meantime I am enjoying my involvement with the Lab targeting success in a global economy which I firmly believe will centre upon a New Age of Entrepreneurship.

Leave a Reply