Yesterday, I was in an Adda with some of my friends at Dhaka University Campus. One of my friends introduced a young lad with me. That guy was telling the stories of his failure in doing business. Already He has failed in two projects . Now he is preparing for the 3rd project and searching for some partners to start. He doesn't have enough capital to start his desired project. I was convinced with his determination to do business. I gave him some links where he can find some partners with the same area of interest.
To choose a partner it is not enough to have a big amount of capital. One must have a certain level of interest and commitment to the idea of business. Even if he is a sleeping partner he should have a level of psychological commitment to the venture. It eases many complexities involved in decision making for the Working Partners. But if anyone wants to be only the investor of the venture it is not imperative to him to have that level of commitment to the project.
In Bangladesh, traditional concepts of starting a business tend to be a sort of rigid. Generally, if one with entrepreneurial mindset doesn’t have enough capital or if one can’t manage handful partners he doesn’t dare to do business. He directly finds a job and accumulates capital for doing business in mid age. But the matter of fact that this dream rarely be materialized. In a collective society where family bonding is an essential element of one’s life, taking risk of a venture in the mid age is a very tough job. It is better to start early. Now, question arises “how one can do business without enough capital?”
To get the answer, understanding the phenomena of factors of production is important. Classical economists identified 3 factors of production as Land, labor and Capital. Revisionist economists termed the 4th factor of productions as Entrepreneurs or entrepreneurial mindset. Though not equally, Each Factor has an impact on other factors. For Example, if you have more capital you can manage enough labor. By this way, if you have proper entrepreneurial mind set you can manage the capital anyway. This confidence is also a component of the entrepreneurial mind. We just have to communicate the confidence with our potential investors. Investors and Venture Capitalists don’t invest on business plan or the Idea rather on the people who take the venture. They believe, if the entrepreneurs are smart enough to do the business they will take corrective measures timely.
Another thing is that, though the sense of ownership is one of the basic motivations to entrepreneurs it shouldn’t be the only and ultimate motivation. Great Entrepreneurs’ motivation comes from the urge for a bigger organization, maximum growth and greater employment. The greatness of entrepreneurs lies in the starting of an organization and managing it efficiently towards the development. The more you want to expand your business, the more you need investment and consequently the more you have to distribute the ownership. Being realistic and Strategic enough entrepreneurs can manage these issues efficiently.
