For years I have been fascinated with entrepreneurs and their ability to change the world through entrepreneurial success. This might sound idealistic, but they actually do. As Steve Jobs stated:
“Everything around you that you call life, was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it. You can build your own things that other people can use….. That is maybe the most important thing. That you can shake off the erroneous notion that life is there and that you’re just going to live in it. Versus embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”
To me that is the essence of entrepreneurship.
Customer Discovery
For years I have been traveling to meet entrepreneurs and help them in their Customer Discovery phase. This was mostly in Colombia and we had been learning from the best: Alexander Osterwalder (author Business Model Generation and Value Proposition Design, amongst others) came to teach us how to think about business models and design them as an entrepreneur. Also Bob Dorf (co-author of The Startup Owner’s Manual and startup veteran) came to teach us about Customer Development and Lean Startup. At the time I was working for Apps.co, an initiative of the Colombian Ministry of ICT, which was one of the motors behind the development of the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Colombia. We had ‘tropicalized’ all methodologies in order to fit our Colombian entrepreneurs and I had a big part in this. Having mentored over 500 teams in these methods, I have learned a thing or two about setting up an innovative, viable business.
I consider myself very fortunate to have met lots of entrepreneurs, in all shapes and sizes. From highly educated ambitious scalable startup-people, to subject matter experts making a difference in their field of expertise, young idealist people who want to make a social impact and everything in between. I have met gynecologists who wanted to develop educational platforms to train their lab-employees. Also a Roman-Catholic priest who wanted to develop tools to stay in closer contact with his community. Nutritionists who want to help people be more conscious about their eating behavior. Furthermore, indigenous tribes wanting to spread their values and art. Just to mention a couple of examples. But most of all lots of young people with their dreams and hopes.
Unfortunately very many of them are held back by their environment. Mostly due to traditional mindsets, limiting convictions and sometimes just plain jealousy.
Factors for Entrepreneurial Success
Now there are a couple of essential factors that make a difference in the eventual success of an entrepreneurial person. The first is good coaching, mentorship or some sort of guidance is definitely one of them. For an entrepreneur to develop, we need entrepreneurial learning to take place, insights come faster and are more effective with good guidance.This also counts for the development of the entrepreneurial idea, by the way.
The second factor is playfulness. Entrepreneurs need to take a stand, get out there, think of experiments and be willing to go and at least try. They might fail and try again. They might be up for surprises. A playful mindset helps to develop ideas about things to try, design experiments, receive feedback, fail, respond fast, see opportunities and all other possibilities that may occur.
This is where the Playground for Entrepreneurs comes in, it addresses both of these factors. The Playground provides an effective and efficient introduction, giving the coach the opportunity to scan participants in their knowledge. This makes it very ease to spot weaknesses and address them afterwards. Also group coaching is easier, peer feedback is stimulated in an environment of trust arises between participants.
And second; its playfulness. Even though the participants are working on their real-life ideas, the Playground proves an excellent scenario to try things out and play around with new thoughts. What would happen if…. is an important question for entrepreneurs that receives a lot of attention in the game.
Integrating both these elements, we’ll have a strong foundation for entrepreneurial guidance. Even more people would have a bigger chance at entrepreneurial success AND innovation, whether they would attend programs such as Apps.co or not. Are you ready for more? Check out the Playground for Entrepreneurs Boardgame!