To Be Successful Entrepreneur, Be a Rebel !

If I said the world is stupid, YOU are stupid and so is everyone else reading this.. you may laugh it off, shun in disbelief or read further but the truth be told .. people who you think are successful are either writing such pieces or doing it out there in the real world.

From whatever little experience I have of the world, I must say that nothing teaches you more than failure and to fail you have to be foolish, you have to do exactly the opposite of what everyone else is doing and two things will happen ; either you will fail and learn why you failed or you will succeed at which point you really dont enjoy success as much as failure.

Its like a game of chess, when you already know that your opponent is mate in a few steps, you dont want to win... you want the game to continue, so you play few bad steps to keep the game interesting and that's what defines most entrepreneurs... we dont love success, we love challenges :)

Coming back to the original arguement, to be successful, you have to do opposite of what everyone is doing.

For example, if property is expensive and everyone wants more of it, sell of all the property you got, ALL of it and live a luxurious life. I live in mumbai and I see families living in houses that are worth 1 - 2.5 crores and they slog for a decent job which fetches them 4 - 5 lakhs per annum. Imagine if the same 1 crore was in the bank, it'd be paying a 9.5 - 10.5 % interest which would pay you 8 - 9 lakhs per annum without having you lift your finger. The cost of living in the same house would be under 3 lakhs per annum if you rented it. So essentially, by doing opposite of what everyone is doing, you now have the same lifestyle and standard of living without having to work anywhere.

Imagine an economy where everyone wants a job. Man power is extremely cheap in India. The competiton for getting a job is extremely high and so people are settling for lower and lower pay packages. Ideally this means that the herd wants a job and if you are an entrepreneur, then you are the one in the commanding position of the demand supply game.

On the same lines, when you realize everyone's turning an entrepreneur, manpower / talent becomes very expensive and when that time arrives take up a job where your talent can be best utlized by a rich jerk.

The world is demand supply and we the people are herds who keep on following others without challenging the what ifs and when that happens we are the safe players the one's who are afraid to take a plunge and the one's that dare to challenge the odds and have patience to wait out till success blesses them are the one's that achieve greatness.

When the world is demanding, be the supplier .. when the world is supplying, be the one who demands and I promise you a rollercoaster of a life !

This is a guest column by Kartik Raichura, Founder , Management Paradise