Friday 20 May 2016

Beware of Those Entrepreneurship Ads



Quite a few ads leveraging the idea of entrepreneurship are on air these days. One ad shows a girl, who after fighting with her parents, opens a tattoo shop. The other shows a person resigning from his job to start his own business. When his boss asks him to think again about resigning, a “car” fuels confidence in him and he decides to go ahead with his idea.

One should be beware of such shallow ads. While starting your own business does entail some degree of struggle, it doesn't mean you have to pit the world against you to succeed. Indeed, your chances of success are greater if your family and friends are with you. Being rebellious is easy; any idiot can be. What requires skill is how to strike balance between family, society, ambition, and so on. But for some reason, the so-called rebel stories get a lot of attention in the media. Don't be carried away by them.

As to the second ad, you really don't need to quit a well-paying job to “chase your dreams.” Anything you want to do can be done part time, at a small scale. Once you really start to get successful, you can pursue the idea full time. No sweat. For employees, it's always a good idea to start their personal venture part time. In this way, you can reduce the risk.

Mind you, entrepreneurship is no cakewalk. Your chances of failure are much higher than your chances of success. If it's your first shot, most likely you will fail. Failure can really devastate you if you don't have a support system in place. A job, family support, money—all these are support systems. Also, while starting something, avoid committing a lot of resources, especially money. Start small, work hard, and see if it works. If it doesn't, never mind. You can try again.

Like any ad, the only good that ads riding on the entrepreneurship theme do is not for you but for their marketers. You are better off ignoring them.

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