Ever wonder what the difference is between a dreamer and an entrepreneur? A dreamer thinks of what it would be like.
An entrepreneur thinks of how it can be done. Follow-up question: what's the difference between failure and success for the entrepreneur? Two things. 1) Utter, passionate persistence. Meredith's circuitous path to small-business success is hardly unusual. Few entrepreneurs' business ideas end up panning out exactly as planned, said Daphne Woolfolk, founder of Essati Consulting in Hyde Park. "I don't know anyone for whom success is a straight path," she said. "It's about moving through failure, not avoiding it."Many entrepreneurs move back and forth between employment and launching their own businesses. Meredith, who has a degree in information technology from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a culinary degree from Illinois Institute for Art, worked for IBM, McDonald's, Aramark, Lotus and his mother's data-processing company before launching AlterEatGo. 2) Execution.The real trick to making something great often has extremely little to do with the idea, and much more to do with the execution. That's where the real innovation occurs -- in taking an idea and trying to figure out how to make it useful. It's that process that's important, much more than the original idea. As nearly anyone who has brought a product from conception to market will tell you, what eventually succeeds in the market is almost always radically different than the original "idea." It's not where you start or where you end up - it's the process that matters. It's about the journey. Which is why it kills me to see so many people dream of owning their own business, and doing absolutely nothing about it.Location is 90% of success. As in, put yourself where you need to be to do the thing you dream of, and it's that placement that moves you forward. Because let's face it - you would look pretty stupid standing there in the place you need to be, doing nothing at all. |
