{"id":660124,"date":"2013-05-24T08:00:01","date_gmt":"2013-05-24T12:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/serkadis.com\/index\/?guid=5cd04f28ecb887258613c17538068a4c"},"modified":"2013-05-23T14:32:25","modified_gmt":"2013-05-23T18:32:25","slug":"find-out-if-youre-a-scale-up-entrepreneur-with-this-two-minute-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/660124","title":{"rendered":"Find Out if You’re a Scale-Up Entrepreneur with This Two-Minute Test"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cool ideas for new businesses are a dime a dozen. That — plus all the new tech enablers such as instant websites<\/a> and e-commerce platforms — makes it deceptively easy to start up a new venture. The bigger challenge is to start up a big<\/em> venture that just happens to be small at first. <\/p>\n

Fortunately, real entrepreneurs are growth-obsessed: they cringe when you call them “small.” In fact, I don’t think you can call something entrepreneurship unless it is driven by big vision, big aspiration, and a burning desire and ability to grow — that is a key message in my new book, Worthless, Impossible and Stupid<\/a><\/em> (due out in July). In the book, I tell the stories of scale-up entrepreneurs from around the world, and how they beat the odds to make a mark on their markets. <\/p>\n

Here’s a quick test to help you figure out whether you are cut out to be a scale-up entrepreneur. Just answer each question as honestly as you can, Agree or Disagree.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Something inside compels me to make something that will impact the marketplace.<\/li>\n
  2. I am great at selling things to people that they may not know they want, nor think they have the money to buy.<\/li>\n
  3. I have people on my team who are better than me in several areas of knowledge or practice.<\/li>\n
  4. My venture already has the procedures, policies, and processes in place to be ten times the size we are today.<\/li>\n
  5. When I don’t know what my next step is, I have experienced people I can turn to for ideas.<\/li>\n
  6. There is money out there to fuel a venture that is growing fast; I just have to find it when I am ready.<\/li>\n
  7. When I achieve my objectives I keep raising the bar higher and higher.<\/li>\n
  8. I am one of the best sales people I know.<\/li>\n
  9. Think big; thinking small is a crime. <\/li>\n
  10. I know entrepreneurs just like me who have grown big, fast.<\/li>\n
  11. The sales process is just starting when the customer first says no.<\/li>\n
  12. If my venture stands in one place too long, it runs the risk of perishing. We have to keep moving forward.<\/li>\n
  13. I know how to find great people to hire.<\/li>\n
  14. Nothing gives me a bigger rush than closing a big sale.<\/li>\n
  15. It is more important to know of a big problem that customers have and then look for a solution, than it is to have a solution that is looking for important problems to solve.<\/li>\n
  16. I used to think our great technology would take us to leadership in our market — now I realize it is our team, our organization, our marketing and our ambition to sell.<\/li>\n
  17. Even though I am a startup, I think more like a market leader than a small business.<\/li>\n
  18. (extra credit) If Isenberg were smart, he would make millions from this test and retire.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    If you scored 16 or more, the sky is the limit. Go for it. <\/p>\n

    Why the emphasis on sales? I recently met the head of a startup accelerator who said that entrepreneurs should not be concerned about selling; they can always go out and hire a vice president of sales when they are market ready. Indeed, many would-be entrepreneurs who are drawn by the romantic vision of developing a snazzy new app or product pooh-pooh selling as beneath their dignity. <\/p>\n

    I don’t think so. I learned a lasting lesson when I was in charge of the Japan market at Voltaire<\/a>, the Israeli pioneer in the lab and field proven Infiniband <\/a>open standard technology that makes super computers out of huge racks of commodity computers. Voltaire got the technology down pat but struggled with selling a product that enterprise customers were leery of. It was the CEO’s incredible persistence (and experience) in all aspects of selling — sales organization, compensation, pipeline management, and selling skills — that not only saved Voltaire from oblivion, but eventually propelled it to a NASDAQ IPO<\/a>. Sale is a big part of scale.<\/p>\n

    Why the emphasis on attitude? I have found that ambition, which seems to have become a dirty word in some cultures, is a continental divide between self-employment and entrepreneurship. Without it, you will always be a mom-and-pop operation. In Denmark, they call this the “BMW Syndrome” — make enough to buy my BMW, and I have made it. Nothing wrong with that, it just isn’t entrepreneurship. As Apax founder Sir Ronald Cohen<\/a> puts it, “Your business will grow to the size of your vision .”<\/p>\n

    \n<\/img><\/a> <\/img><\/a>\n<\/div>\n

    <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Cool ideas for new businesses are a dime a dozen. That — plus all the new tech enablers such as instant websites and e-commerce platforms — makes it deceptively easy to start up a new venture. The bigger challenge is to start up a big venture that just happens to be small at first. Fortunately, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7808,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-660124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7808"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=660124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660124\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=660124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}