STARTUPS: YOU NEED MR. & MRS. ENTREPRENEURS

BY ROBIN GHOSH

( FORMER CHIEF ECONOMIST, BENGAL CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND INDUSTRY)

KOLKATA, 9 FEBRUARY 2023:

If you look at successful startups, you will find that they are managed by Mr. & Mrs. Entrepreneurs.
Mr. Entrepreneur is the idea generator and Mrs. Entrepreneur is the operation manager.
The key to ensure success for a startup requires combining skill of idea generation and process driven execution .
While Mr. Entrepreneur takes the responsibility of identifying pain points and inventing a set of solutions and Mrs. Entrepreneur masterminds the solution into a product to bring sustainable revenues to the company.
If you agree with the analogy, I will place the dutychart of Mr. & Mrs. Entrepreneur.
Duty Chart of Mr Entrepreneur.
1. Identify problems which need solutions. Do design thinking and do this constantly. And outline a framework for viable business.
2. Insulate himself or herself from the nitty gritty of business like fund- raising, HR, building a sales team.
Duty Chart of Mrs. Entrepreneurs.
1.Create business processes, connect with investors, arrange for funds.
2 .Look after daily operations, micro management of supply chain, inventory, marketing and sales and quality management.
Now, you know – to build a successful business – you need two types of entrepreneurs. Mr. and Mrs. One in sync with the other. Ideas generated by Mr. Entrepreneur need to be efficiently implemented by Mrs. Entrepreneur .
Being in the consulting zone, we have two choices and they are:-
1.If the incumbent entrepreneur is fundamentally an idea man – the best thing for him is to get his idea patented , and let somebody else monetize it. Register the intellectual property and let someone else make it a product .
2 If the incumbent entrepreneur is process oriented, and has skills and experience in operations, the ideal case will be to leverage this talent in implementing a project based on someone else’s idea.
Turning an idea into a product and subsequently monetizing it and scaling up – is a complex task.
It is like managing an orchestra, each note complementing the other in creating a piece of magic music.