Making something out of nothing

Typically as an entrepreneur this is what one is all about. Today I was sitting behind my television when I noticed that a cartoon series, Top Cat, that I hadn’t seen in a long time was about to come on, so I decided to wait and see it one more time. It has been more than seven years since I saw it and I remembered that I really liked it when I was a kid.
Now Top Cat in this episode called a meeting with all his friends drawing their attention to a serious issue that had come their way. This issue had to do with the fact that the company that he owned together with his friends was going down the drain, at that moment they had nothing left and were broke. Then after a little bit of brain storming with his friends he came up with an idea to organize a guided tour for a couple of tourists making their immediate neighborhood a tourist attraction using the rich history of their neighborhood. Then his friends reminded him of the fact that they had nothing historic about that neighborhood. Top Cat didn’t let this bring down his hopes; instead he decided to make up stories to tell the tourists on these guided tours for which the tourists will pay a certain fee. Top cat was a true hustler.
Now let us get one thing clear, I am not supporting the use of fraudulent activities to make one wealthy, I am just drawing your attention to the mind of the hustler that Top Cat has. It looks so brilliant the way he looked at himself having absolutely nothing and making something out of it. He had lost all his money but he thought of something to do with the nothing around him. Knowing that the real asset he had was his skill of interacting with other people. True entrepreneurial minded people look at a situation where there seems to be nothing at all and decide to make something out of it. They look at a situation that others look at and see nothing and when they look at it they see it very differently, right there they see that opportunity to solve a problem to give some service that people need that they didn’t realize that they needed. By putting value on that thing they can hopefully put a price that people will be willing to pay for. They are able to put more value on an existing service therefore creating a new product and immediately taking market share.
So it may be something that already exists but you decide to put in more effort and more value on it and service other people’s clients better. Sir Richard Branson once said, I will come and take the customers of the incumbents (i.e. already existing companies) and treat their customers even better. That is an entrepreneur creating opportunity where there seemed to be non and looking at something that didn’t look like it was worth much and deciding to use it in a different way that brings maximum value to people therefore creating value which can be paid for and in the long run creating a business.
I was watching a BBC program on business when I here’d it loud and clear creating something out of nothing. One of the panelists created a karaoke company. I do not know much about that how that will work but how was she able to create a business out of karaoke. This really is what entrepreneurship is all about. Basically these are the three things I learnt from this broadcast.
One is to get a skill learn something that has some skill that could help people, research and create new technologies in that area or new ways of doing the same thing in that area.
Two is to follow your passion because it is easier to do something that you are passionate about even when things aren’t going on well in the economy and in your business. To know if you are passionate about something ask yourself if you will still do the same thing for free (if you were not being paid for it).
Three is to look out for opportunities around you to do something and when you have an idea irrespective of your resources get out there and start something. Do not be afraid of failure.

There is a lot to talk about when it comes to this topic we will talk more about this in other post. Just keep on reading the life’s lessons blog.