The paradox of the young entrepreneur

I’ve started to spend some time trawling around the net looking for other individuals writing blogs about entrepreneurship. In particular I look for the more personal individual stories as opposed to “business lessons” that the big sites churn out day after day.

A friend of mine that runs an Internet marketing business, Will Swayne, has a blog that is about online marketing and publishes a lot of articles on this topic. I took a look at his links to other blogs and started reading Bnoopy - An entrepreneurship blog (love the name - it’s just fun to say Bnoopy).

One entry included a fantastic quote from Admiral Jim Stockdale which was used to explain the Stockdale Paradox. This was the first time I had heard about it, but to cut a long story short, this soldier survived for 8 years in a POW camp where he was constantly tortured. His methodology or cognitive thought process that kept him alive is the paradox. Here is the quote:

“You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end - which you can never afford to lose - with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be”

The author of the blog explains the concept in more depth in his full blog entry and also goes on to explain how this applies to business. His point is that entrepreneurs are ideas people, extremely positive, end goal focused optimists that sometimes fail to grasp the reality of the current situation.

A lot of business theory will tell you about planning, budgeting and forecasting. You should plan for the future and set precise goals to measure progress. Managing a business at the early start-up phase often means that you fly by the seat of your pants. Personally I don’t have detailed forecasts, budgets or any significant financial documentation beyond what is required for bookkeeping. However I do have goals, but they are *fuzzy* goals, not written down on paper. I know where I want my business to be eventually, but I don’t create excess stress by pressuring myself to be there in one year, or three or five. I work with my present reality and use my end goals and business philosophies to motivate me. Intuition steers the present. I like to think that right now for me, this is what the Admiral would recommend.

I admit I would definitely benefit from more detailed budgeting but the reality of my situation is that I must DO the business now rather than PLAN for business in the future. Is this is a mistake? It might be, but presently it suits me fine and keeping the owner happy is my number one business priority.

Yaro Starak
BetterEdit Manager