1. GETTING INTO SHAPE
As an entrepreneur, you have to face a lot of uncertainty. It’s not like most jobs where your tasks or projects are given to you and you just do them. As an entrepreneur, you first have to decide what the projects are. You have to think about product development, marketing, accounting etc. There is a great deal of uncertainty in this process and you have to rely greatly on your own judgments. Success in business is a long-term endeavor. There are very few quick successes – the businesses that succeed grow consistently for a period of time until they hit their tipping point. In order to effectively manage this process, you must develop a clear vision for your business, a plan to implement, the flexibility to adapt as necessary and the commitment and persistence to stick with it for the long term.
I did not anticipate other people, particularly ‘grown-ups’, reaction to me wanting to become a business person. To be honest, I thought they would think of me as naive and would potentially patronise me or think it I was being ‘cute’. What I am finding is the total opposite. Because of my age and ambition I am finding that people are more than happy to support me; from opportunities to advise I am blown away by the help I am receiving.
I am excited about the experience i will gain by participating in the SHAPE programme. Hopefully i will also gain the skills i mentioned above and unlock my potential as a young entrepreneur. So far i am enjoying being part of it. A few years from now when i look back, i wanna say getting into SHAPE, shaped me into the businessman i am.
2. HOPES AS YOUNG ENTREPRENEUR
A lot of people have the belief that being a young entrepreneur and succeeding is very hard, but I don’t believe this is true. There is a wide misconception that young people are laughed at in the business world.
My hopes as a young entrepreneur is to start a technology empire that will solve problems we face as humans. It may not be life threatening problems such as finding a cure for a diseases but little problems such as ways to communicate. I have a dream of owning an innovative company such as Apple that we be a global leader in its field of business. Creating an environment where people like me can turn their technological ideas into reality. Because It is well known that my country is not that innovative when it comes to technology, for example the first smartphone was released around the year 1999, and 14 years later we still don’t produce our own smartphone.
