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falviarbaqueroA good friend of mine recently asked my thoughts on why starting a business in the recession is a good thing. It got me thinking and has inspired me to put my response to him in a blog post. Here is my response:
“For me its a case of opportunity cost (in terms of a graduate’s perspective) – in the current market where less corporates are hiring (the traditional graduate recruiters ), starting salaries are lower – why settle for a mediocre job which you don’t want/wont enjoy. The recession gives you a chance to take stock of your real hopes/dreams/passions/ aspirations and the time to give it a shot.
Also recession throws up opportunity - it enables you to look at the market failures and assess how can you do things better?
Albeit I’m totally biased having just recently shunned the grad recruitment route but just some of my thoughts 
“
Filed under: Advice for Employers, Advice for enterns, Blog by Enternships Enterns - Summer '09, Entrepreneurship, Non-Profits, Reasons to join a startup, Uncategorized
*** Enternships’ August Entern Meetup***
Are you an Entern? Intern? SME Employer?
Well let us entertain you!
London Enterns are hosting an Entern Meetup
Wed 12th August from 5:30 p.m till late
@Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese
145 Fleet Street EC4A 2BU
(Cheshire Cheese is one of the oldest pubs in London, having been rebuilt in the 17th century. Charles Dickens and Voltaire are said to have drank here! Cheshire Cheese is definitely one to visit.)
The event is FREE!
RSVP at http://www.meetup.com/enternships/
Feel free to bring guests!
The night will be a great opportunity to meet other enterns, network and most importantly… HAVE FUN!
*Oh, and the party doesn’t end there…*
We’ll put your name on the FREE VIP GUESTLIST
of a nearby top London nightclub
(Details will be given at the event)
See ya there!
Government and businesses unite to back young Britain
A couple of months ago the government began to release details about their proposed ‘Graduate Talent Pool’ and Enternships was pleased…today they announced additional support for a further 10,000 graduate internships – including thousands of graduate internships with small businesses – and Enternships was absolutely DELIGHTED!
While we obviously won’t claim any kind of credit, it has to be said that this is exactly what we have been calling for…and in fact has been the entire ethos behind the very existence of our service. Providing a solution to the graduate job crisis has been our mission from the very (recent) beginning. Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Yvette Cooper’s sentiments that:
“We are determined not to lose a generation of talent as has happened in the past because of the global recession. This is why we are announcing 47,000 new jobs for young people today. And – with business and charities – we are launching a national call to action to our fellow employers to join us in Backing Young Britain – to give every young person a job, training place, skills or work experience.”
echoed our statement in a previous blog that:
“Enternships passionately believes that strengthening small business by the regular influx of talented, motivated and innovative young minds…and simultaneously inspiring enterns to start their own ventures, is key to the creation of jobs and the survival of a nation.
We know that by doing so, as far as Britain is concerned, the 2009 recession will not be remembered as a time of self-pity, recrimination and inertia, but instead as a era defined by the maxim: Fortune favours the brave.”
Similarly (and at at the risk of being accused of playing ’spot the difference’…) while Business Secretary Lord Mandelson said:
“Our national campaign to help every young person to find a job, training or work skills and experience is not just a response to the recession but an investment in our future as we build a stronger Britain.”
in the same afore-linked-to-blog Enternships also said:
“For as long as people believe in themselves and are encouraged to risk failure for the chance they will receive massive reward – there is hope for the British economy. Enternships passionately believes that strengthening small business by the regular influx of talented, motivated and innovative young minds…and simultaneously inspiring enterns to start their own ventures, is key to the creation of jobs and the survival of a nation.”
Our rhetoric may have been a bit stirring and self-indulgent, but once you look past the frills and literay flourish the core message mirrors the statements made today. Graduates undertaking specifically entrepreneurial placements within small business has clearly moved from the periphery of national conscience to the centre of government decision making…and that can only be a good thing!
…and check out our work so far at www.enternships.com
Almost like writers trying to start a novel, the hardest part of being an entrepreneur is getting going. It can often feel as though you have an idea, and you know you want to make it work, but beyond that…nothing. This is especially the case for students and graduates with no real work experience to help them figure out how to build a business.
Handily, we came across a blog specifically targeted at students that is a handy guide to jumping off the proverbial cliff. It seems that the key is to keep it simple as the author distills the process into just three (and a half) steps. We decided to round it up to 4 steps by tweaking his list slightly:
Step 1: What do you Love?
Step 1A: Do an Enternship (Learn how to build Business first hand)
Step 2: Write it down (4 Reasons to build a Plan/Organization Chart)
Step 3: Take action (Be Proactive/Baby Steps)
Step 3A: Bring in people around you (Network/Online Persona)
So there you have it…what are you waiting for?
For more useful tips for the student entrepreneur check out: http://startupstudent.com/
Filed under: Entrepreneurship
According to a recent Zogby International poll of Americans,70% think the next big tech entrepreneur will come from outside the US. Twenty-eight percent said India, 15 percent said China and 11 percent said Japan. But the poll, released Monday, also found 67 percent of U.S. residents saying they believe the economic, educational and societal conditions still exist in the U.S. for another entrepreneur like the Microsoft founder to emerge.
Some current issues facing tech entrepreneurship in the US are:
- Losing foreign graduates of its universities to their home countries because of work-visa issues
- Lack of research and development tax credit
- Inadequate investment in all levels of education
“We’re going to continue to lead for many, many years, but we’re facing much stronger competition” from other countries, said Donnie Fowler, a Democratic campaign strategist and tech entrepreneur.
Fowler encouraged U.S. lawmakers to focus on policies that can spur innovation. In some cases, the U.S. Congress in recent years has made it harder for entrepreneurs, he said. An example is the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which tightened internal controls for U.S. corporations but also made it more difficult for new companies to go public, Fowler said.
“In the corporate world, R&D budgets are more and more aimed at incremental innovation rather than truly disruptive innovation,” said entrepreneur Shane Green. “Incremental innovation doesn’t create the next Bill Gates.”
This more careful approach has come to Silicon Valley, he added. “There’s a lot less tolerance for truly creative, constructive ideas,” he said. “There’s simply less capital flowing in.”
Filed under: Entrepreneurship
Steven Kaplan, Mark Klebanov and Morten Sorensen recently completed a study called “Which C.E.O. Characteristics and Abilities Matter?” They looked at detailed personality assessments of 316 C.E.O.’s and measured their companies’ performances. They found that strong people skills correlate loosely or not at all with being a good C.E.O. David Brooks from the New York Times writes:
Traits like being a good listener, a good team builder, an enthusiastic colleague, a great communicator do not seem to be very important when it comes to leading successful companies.
Flamboyant visionaries rarely work out. So what makes a successful CEO?
What mattered, it turned out, were execution and organizational skills. The traits that correlated most powerfully with success were attention to detail, persistence, efficiency, analytic thoroughness and the ability to work long hours.
In other words, warm, flexible, team-oriented and empathetic people are less likely to thrive as C.E.O.’s. Organized, dogged, anal-retentive and slightly boring people are more likely to thrive.
In other words, those who make good C.E.O.s may not be the life of the party.
On Wednesday the government outlined plans for a new initiative to help employers create and offer graduate internships, allowing graduates to kickstart their careers. The announcement about the’Graduate Talent Pool’ comes after a long wait following initial mutterings about the National Internship Scheme…but Enternships was hugely encouraged by this step in the right direction!
It is a complete validation of our ethos – that cultivating employability skills and experiencing the workplace prior to taking on a career should be an essential part of a young person’s development. Therefore, while the government signs up companies like Network Rail, the Police Service, Marks and Spencer and Microsoft…Enternships will continue to support the long tail by solely targeting the start-up and SME end of the spectrum.
We continue to believe that a culture change is imminent as more and more enterprising young people undertake placements to learn self-efficacy & entrepreneurial intent. Crucially, now more than ever, they will also learn the resilience of a successful entreprenuer and how to embrace failure as a learning experience. They will learn to keep faith in their idea and their inherent ability to create wealth when all rational evidence points to the contrary – optimisim that is key to surviving, and even flourishing during the recession.
For as long as people believe in themselves and are encouraged to risk failure for the chance they will receive massive reward – there is hope for the British economy. Enternships passionately believes that strengthening small business by the regular influx of talented, motivated and innovative young minds…and simultaneously inspiring enterns to start their own ventures, is key to the creation of jobs and the survival of a nation.
We know that by doing so, as far as Britain is concerned, the 2009 recession will not be remembered as a time of self-pity, recrimination and inertia, but instead as a era defined by the maxim:
Fortune favours the brave.
–
Filed under: Entrepreneurship
Mick Jagger knows a thing or two about taking chances after university...
There was a time when being in a rock band was the ultimate in campus cool. Now it seems that once again being in a startup gives you instant cool.
The former blue chips of Wall Street can no longer offer long-term job security and generous end-of-year bonuses, giving this new generation of MBA graduates the impetus to pursue their own business ownership dreams.
If business schools are smart, they will rush to embrace this entrepreneurial generation and give them the tools they need to realize those dreams… Startups in a downturn are hardly new. Cisco, Apple, Gap, and Genentech were all created during recessions.
Matt Symonds for Business Week; April 27, 2009
This quote comes from an interesting article highlighting the role of business schools in the current downturn. Click here to read the full article.
In a world where we are judged by measurable returns and “ROI” is the success metric, we often forget that it’s okay to fail. In fact, failing a few times may even be your ticket to future success. It keeps you humble, and hopefully teaches you a bunch of what not to dos.
This old Silicon Valley adage (“fail fast, fail cheap, and move on” can– and should– be applied to your internship hunt. In this economy, it will undoubtedly take longer to find that perfect placement. And since there are more candidates than opportunities, there will be more rejections and disappointments.
So how do you make sure you learn from failures? If you don’t get that internship you wanted, don’t be afraid to ask ‘why’. What’s there to lose? Most likely they’ll respond by telling you they were overwhelmed with qualified candidates. So probe deeper. What did the selected candidate do to stand out? A killer resume? Particular skills/experience? A stellar interview? Take this rejection as an opportunity to improve your next job.
A wise mentor once told me:
The only barrier to failing fast and failing cheap is your ego. You must be willing to fail, fail, and fail again if you are going to win in today’s competitive marketplace. Remember, even if you’re falling flat on your face, at least you’re still moving forward.
Filed under: Entrepreneurship
A couple of weeks ago I heard a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson that I have wanted to build a blog around ever since, it reads:
Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.
Today I stumbled upon a blog post by Tim Ferriss (of The Four-Hour Week fame). The post was aimed at helping entrepreneurs push past the barrier of self-doubt that is wont to descend from time to time…and it also encapsulates Emerson’s quote brilliantly.
