Democratising Entrepreneurship

As Seth Godin once said, “Entrepreneurship is a verb, an action, a posture… then, of course, it’s a choice.” Being an entrepreneur is about making the right choices and being wrong. The act of Entrepreneurship will embrace, not avoid, the work of doing things that might not work. So it’s the corollary of what you’ll learn in an MBA. Entrepreneurship is driven from passion and purpose which we’ll come back to but sticking with MBA’s.

Any good MBA programme will “bore” you with the detail of what works for Revenue Growth, Operating Asset Efficiency, Management and Governance Effectiveness for increased Shareholder value as illustrated in the Deloitte Enterprise Value Map above.

But, if it works and it’s already a commodity, it can be automated on the one hand, and on the other, it can be outsourced or at least insourced by hiring the requisite skill. There’s no competitive advantage in that. As Rita McGrath asks, “what do we do differently?” if we recognise that any competitive advantage is temporary and increasingly short-lived.

Disruptors don’t ask “how can I start a company?”

That takes way too much effort and makes way too many assumptions about Marketing and Sales, Customer Management and Support, Human Resource Management, Financial Management and Governance, Research and Development, Logistics and Distribution and Supply Chain Management. These are all traditional business functions, built on linear assumptions. Linear thinking is the enemy of Entrepreneurship along with legacy business models.

“You don’t need to start a company, you need to recognise that, as Jack Ma said, “Every problem to solve is a job.”

Identify and assimilate the needs of people and experiment with creative solutions to solve these problems. Wherever people see problems, modern Entrepreneurs see opportunity.

So what is Entrepreneurship in modern terms? It’s a mindset that is adaptable to frequent change but tenacious about purpose. Seth Godin again, “Tenacity is not the same as persistence. Persistence is doing something again and again until it works. It sounds like ‘pestering’ for a reason. Tenacity is using new data to make new decisions to find new pathways to find new ways to achieve a goal when the old ways didn’t work.” I would add that being tenacious without clarity of purpose will kill any entrepreneurial spirit you may have.

So what do we have to do to democratise Entrepreneurship? We have to apply an abundance mindset and exponential thinking. Open our minds to the notion that anything is possible and anything can be done differently. We have to think about business, the market, and indeed the world completely differently!

To illustrate: In a recent conversation with Elon Musk, Salim Ismail asked Musk about his Hyperloop concept: “Elon, I have a background in physics and it seems impossible to accelerate humans to 1,000 kilometres an hour and then decelerate them to zero in such a short space of time. Have you thought about that?” Musk’s answer? “Yes, it’s an issue.” To a true entrepreneur, there are no impossibilities, just challenges or issues to overcome.

We have to assume that nothing is impossible and that wherever people have problems we Entrepreneurs have customers.

How might we create the best possible future after this C-19 reset through Entrepreneurship?

I believe it was Einstein who first said, “If we keep doing what we’ve always done, we’ll always get what we always got!” You can’t assume that what worked before C19 will work in 2021 and beyond. Democratizing Entrepreneurship is the notion that traditional jobs have undergone a massive reset and the jobs to be done can and will be done differently beyond Covid-19 or given any other disruption that may occur. Democratised means it’s accessible, easy to consume, and ubiquitous. Consider the 6 D’s of Disruption, namely, Digitization, Deception, Disruption, Demonetization, Dematerialization, and Democratization.

Up to now, until C-19, these have been Deceptive but as they all diverge and decouple industry value chains to create new value ecosystems this decade there will be disruption on an unprecedented scale. For example, many services become free as the price performance of technology improves. Ultimately, sooner than you may think, internet access, energy, education, and transport will be free and democratised.

A great recent example is how OpenExo, Singularity and Abundance digital came together to deliver the Exoworld Summit. No travel required, no hotel costs, world-class speakers and participants available and accessible digitally on demand. Similarly, Exo Launchpad is a methodology to help innovators, disruptors and entrepreneurs build successful Exponential Organisations.

So to democratise entrepreneurship we need…

• A Massive Transformative Purpose as an individual and as a Corporation
• The right open mindset and adaptable practices
• The right autonomous trusted team
• Creative problem solving and experimentation
• The right customer development and engagement – outside-in
• Innovative business and operating models
• New ways of work, I mean completely different to corporate, time at your desk, mostly outcome-based
• The right digital-first technology architecture – leveraging exponential technologies (see Tony Saldanha’s Exponential five)
• Appropriate resources, including financial support

It’s with this backdrop that we’re looking to understand what Entrepreneurs and Corporations need to democratise entrepreneurship.

We see Entrepreneurship as the future of jobs and work.

We believe completely new approaches become possible when you, as with C-19, let go of the way its always been done and

• Start with the end in mind – always think outside in
• Start with the customer – not with what you have (inside out)
• Free of legacy thinking and systems – I can’t overemphasize, outside-in not inside-out
• Never look back to corporate lockdown and legacy lock-in, think beyond C-19

What’s your passion, purpose and plan to stay relevant this decade?

At ExoFutures our purpose is to “Democratise Entrepreneurship in Africa” for both individuals and corporates. We would like to know what you need to overcome the challenges of true Entrepreneurship and disruptive innovation.

We want to understand your current perspective on entrepreneurship and what you need to help us democratise entrepreneurship.

Participate in our survey here and you’ll join the journey to Democratising Entrepreneurship in Africa!

Craig Terblanche is the Chief Transformation Advisor, ExoSystems