Entrepreneurship, as defined by The Free Dictionary is the activity of organizing, managing, and assuming the risks of a business enterprise. Sounds complicated? Well, it is. Being an entrepreneur is never easy. You need to go through a lot of hurdles in order to survive, not to say successful.
If you want to be successful (everyone does, right?), then there are more things that you need to look at. The uniqueness of your offerings (be it products or services), the usefulness (values for your customers), your competitors, etc. There are so many things that you need to think of and so many plans you need to lay out (and execute) if you are seriously into making your business a success.
However, there are things that would help you in your quest to be a successful entrepreneur.
One of them is the policy(or policies) set by the government of your country. In my country, Malaysia, most entrepreneurs obtain fundings from the venture capitalist or the government itself. That’s good. But you provide people with funds.. and maybe training (to train them how to use the fund etc) and maybe even to teach them how to market their stuff. Are all these sufficient? They could be.
But why don’t my country (and many other countries for that matter) consider one simple policy like what the South Korea government did (entrepreneurs from South Korea and Japan have achieved much greater heights than those from Malaysia)? The policy is simple – to give extra incentives or “bonuses” to the companies using the products/services of the entrepreneurs in that particular country. The “bonuses” could be tax reduction, free facitilies, etc. Imagine if the government of your country has such policy, it would definitely boost the condition of the entrepreneurship in your country.
By doing that also, the entrepreneurs do not need to worry much about selling their products/services locally. Most of the entrepreneurs these days (including from my country) would need to look outside their country in order to sell. The local market, most of the time, would not be interested in their products. How unsupportive.
That is why, in my humble opinion, a country should at least provide some policies to help boost the local market for these entrepreneurs before asking people to venture into this risk-taking and dangerous world of entrepreneurship.
Remember, why rely on people outside your country when you have ample of potential clients locally?
8 comments
Comments feed for this article
May 31, 2007 at 7:46 pm
Rahmad prayogi
cool, im student.. must i work in company or build my own business?
May 31, 2007 at 10:47 pm
Alvin
it depends on what you really want. there are pros n cons for working for someone, and working for yourself.
June 1, 2007 at 11:09 am
Angeline
Hmmmm… One problem that M’sia is facing now after having a pool of entrepreneurs and their companies is exposure.
Having come from one, it is a very hard battle to get a foothold on the international stage once you’ve identified that your product/services are fit for an overseas market. This is not because the entrepreneur thinks that the local market is saturated but rather, he wants to find another market outside M’sia.
The govt does have some means to help out with marketing such products/services but it is often through a lot of discussions and etc before you can even join the group to go out and market your product through roadshows and conventions.
However, entrepreneurs should not just rely on govt funding in order to succeed in the market. In many countries like Aust,you don’t get much govt support and so, you have to venture out on your own with the help of the VC or partnership.
When you’re an entrepreneur, you should expect that the road maybe long and hard. You’re out there on your own and you have to be prepared to get used to it until you are successful.
June 1, 2007 at 9:07 pm
Alvin
True, being an entrepreneur is tough and you should not expect help from anyone other than your partners or yourself.
What I meant, however, is the possible assistance from the government to cut short the amount of time needed for an entrepreneur to step into the market – locally.
Once you get a foothold in the local market, it’s only a question of time when you want to step outside your country and into the global market.
June 17, 2007 at 1:24 pm
Noelle Lim
Hi Alvin
Thanks for the write-up. I agree with your coments. As a budding entrepreneur, I have learnt to be independent and to think creatively out of the box to run a business with little capital or no money down.
Do feel free to post comments on my blog http://ConnectedEntrepreneurs.Blogspot.Com, The Blog for Entrepreneurs in Asia. The vision for this blog is to create a space where entrepreneurs can share ideas and collaborate their thoughts to help each other solve problems.
Cheers
June 17, 2007 at 3:29 pm
Alvin
Hi Noelle,
Thanks for dropping by. Yea, I do agree with you that as an entrepreneur, one needs the skill to think out of the box and of course, to expand your business with little or no capital at all.
The life of an entrepreneur is not an easy one (that’s part of the reason why it is interesting to some people
).
I think there’s one web site which gathers the entrepreneurs in SG…but for Malaysia…i don’t think we have something like that YET.
Guess it’s time for the entrepreneurs (and entrepreneurs-wannabe such as myself) in Malaysia to join forces?
Again, thanks for visiting my humble blog
June 18, 2007 at 10:44 am
cirnelle
The Malaysian government does and has been providing fiscal incentives for the local players. Some examples are: tax double deduction for research, double deduction for Malaysian brands of exportable quality products, tax holiday for certain types of entrepreneuring companies (especially those in the high tech industries). I think the only down side to our country as opposed to South Korea is the lack of monitoring of the effectiveness of those incentives. And the bureaucracy… gosh, don’t even get me started on that.
June 18, 2007 at 11:21 am
Alvin
That’s why we have some local IT companies who used to show so much promises…..good prospects… only to end up in the drain. The gov sould really monitor where the incentives n funds are going. I am sure more than 50% of the startups funded by the gov…are actually using the fund correctly.
The rest…well…they are just helping us to burn our money (tax payers’ money).
I reli believe Malaysia has the capacity n capability to match those of Koreans and Japanese….. provided we have the right people in the right places, which is a very difficult thing to achieve esp in Malaysia.