When we think beyond our thoughts : We can create more successful entrepreneurs

We can stop the carnage. Armed with the truth, aspiring entrepreneurs could choose the appropriate entrepreneurial path, acquire the skills they need to succeed, waste less money, time, and effort and stop straining their families—often to the breaking point. Instead of sending thousands upon thousands of entrepreneurs to almost certain failure, like lambs to the slaughter, year after year, we could develop better education in entrepreneurship and create more effective business incubators and accelerators. 

And with greater chances of success, more entrepreneurs could create many more viable businesses, reverse the recent decline in entrepreneurship, create jobs, lift our economy, and contribute to the well being of all our citizens.

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All Successful Entrepreneurs Ultimately Do the Same Thing

Entrepreneurship is often seen as the ability to think up entirely new businesses or come up with ideas that disrupt existing industries.

But if look closely you will see that most of the great entrepreneurs succeeded by working tirelessly to tune existing ideas and inventions in ways that made vast numbers of new consumers happy enough to open their wallets.

Ideas are not the keys to entrepreneurial success. Even a once in a lifetime, unprecedented, world changing, the patent-protected new idea won’t guarantee success. The key is doing something different that makes customers so happy they gladly give you money.

Money Is Last On the List of Things an Entrepreneur Needs

Every business needs some amount of time to set up, to develop a product or service, and then enough time to get some minimum number of customers happy enough to buy the product so the business becomes profitable. That time takes money. But not as much as you might think.

You can decide how much money you need only after you understand how much of everything else you expect to be able to put in place and how much time you have. In many cases, once you’ve thought about how best to put the other prerequisites in place you don’t need much money.

In fact, money is rarely ever the critical issue and is often a distraction. A highly motivated, committed and determined person working toward making lots of people really happy will find the money. In fact, once you demonstrate how you and you can make lots of people happy the money often finds you.

In any case, you should plan your business based on how much money you have immediate access to rather than plan the business and then look for the money.

Greatest Thoughts from the: Bestselling author Derek Lidow an experienced and successful global CEO, a researcher, an innovator, and a startup coach. He currently is a professor at Princeton where he teaches entrepreneurship, creativity, and innovation and was tapped by the University to inaugurate a campus-wide “design thinking” curriculum.