Entrepreneur as Pioneer

To be an entrepreneur is to be a pioneer.  Each day is different, presenting new challenges and opportunities as the entrepreneur seeks to implement solutions to particular problems.  The term “entrepreneur” was first defined by Irish economist Richard Cantillon.  While precise definitions vary, this definition used by researchers at Harvard encompasses both for-profit and social-enterprises, in that an entrepreneur is someone who pursues an opportunity beyond the resources currently controlled.

The excitement, challenges, rewards, and costs of being an entrepreneur vary by your role.   A founder must build a team, align internal and external people, secure funding, and guide the organization along a focused strategy.   A scientist or technical domain expert must overcome technical challenges, maintain momentum and motivation throughout the technical team, and, quite frequently, invent new scientific strategies if the planned upon path failed.

The first three months of a startup are often the most challenging, but also the most exhilarating.  After incubating a new venture for some time, this crucial period sets the foundation for the endeavor.  The first step in launching the new business is to build a team.  As in most team-based activities, who the members are is critical to success.  The apposite diversity of skill sets and experience are necessary, but not sufficient.  The members must be capable of constructively and productively working together.  Their dynamics need to facilitate beneficial criticism and simultaneous execution.  Building such a team is a consuming and unrelenting task.

While a challenge, I have found building the team is one of the most rewarding and beneficial parts of being an entrepreneur.  Despite your already significant education and expertise, a diverse and multidisciplinary team results in constant learning and challenge.  With such a team means you will encounter something new each day, and you will always be forced to grow and further perfect yourself.  Depending on when, how, and in what role you may join a new venture, evaluating the team and their dynamics can provide valuable information.

Just as vital in the first three months is raising funds.  Some find this activity exciting, while others are less interested.  It involves creating fundraising event(s) and securing capital.  Raising money is often the most challenging part of a new venture, requiring more time, persistence and energy than expected. 

Networking within the new venture and within its industry is demanding.  As a new organization, the normal support structures and relationships are not in place.  Many industry experts or firms are usually unclear whether your work will be a friend or foe of their organization.  Moreover, depending on your temperament, networking can either be a chore or a learning opportunity.

When I started as an entrepreneur, my first role was as co-founder and as one of the domain experts.  As such, I had a set of challenges that were different from others stepping into different roles.  So, depending on your role, the stage of the venture, and your responsibilities, your experiences will vary.

I’ll be the first to admit that my expectations did not always match the future reality.  Coming from the profession of medicine, I assumed that progress would be faster.  Even the most simple business transactions or engineering tasks seemed to take two to three times longer than I expected.  I found this frustrating. 

These roadblocks can be technical or business in nature.  They can hold up other parallel projects, severely delaying the entire enterprise.  Such delays result in even greater funding requirements, adding to the existing challenge.   There have been many times our team worked for days or weeks on a particular issue and at the end feel no strong sense of achievement.  The sensation of not making progress can breed pervasive frustration throughout the new organization, eventually requiring a whole new approach or strategy to be undertaken. 

Despite these roadblocks, entrepreneurs are willing to take risks and willing to fail, often finding the process of attempting something new and untried liberating.   The lack of bureaucracy, like that encountered in large companies or in the practice of medicine, is thrilling.  Decisions, often of great importance, can be analyzed carefully and then quickly and efficiently made without endless, energy sapping committees.

Moreover, I learned that as an entrepreneur you must learn to communicate effectively with a number of different audiences so that you can to build consensus within your own team, convince potential investors of your endeavor’s potential success, and persuade the target market of your product or service’s value.  Doing so requires communicating complex science or technologies to laymen in a way that is understandable.  This skill is not easy, especially if one has had the luxury of communicating with similarly trained colleagues.  I found it a fulfilling game to constantly develop new and more effective means of communicating our technology and firm’s work to others.

Every day as an entrepreneur is different compared to the practice of medicine which rarely involves deviation from the daily routine.  One must often make quick decisions which change the course of the day or the month.  A new finding may require consulting new people or experts to solve an unforeseen problem or a discovery may expose a previously unseen opportunity.

There are times in a large organization where you may feel as if your contribution is of little consequence or impact.  As an entrepreneur, particularly early stage, your contribution is more significant, and hence ownership of your work (and its results) is more obvious and satisfying.  As a scientist or physician, you’ll bring particular research and data-based analytical or decision-making tools which will be highly valuable.  Finding market, customer, or technical data is critical in entrepreneurship, especially if no one has sought such data before.  Your background and experience in the scientific method will lend itself to this practice.

The first three months as an entrepreneur will likely be a vast transformation from your prior work.  You’ll find the need to communicate differently and work with people of disparate backgrounds and training levels, accomplishing a shared goal and vision.  For those who thrive on challenge and enjoy learning, solving societal problems, and getting things done, being an entrepreneur is a pioneering opportunity that should not be ignored.

Entrepreneurship is the fuel of the American economy.  Entrepreneurs turn inventions into solutions, solving problems.  Furthermore, they create jobs.  A recent study by the Kauffman Foundation, the largest foundation devoted to entrepreneurship, showed that young firms account for roughly two-thirds of U.S. job creation, averaging nearly four new jobs per firm per year.  This is despite the often quoted, and likely true, statistic that 8 out of 10 new businesses fail in their first year.  In other words, entrepreneurs create the bulk of new jobs, while simultaneously solving societal or industry problems.