Entrepreneur Interview Report
The interview was held on October 9, 2017, through teleconference. It was an interesting interview with Ms. Angela Braly, a renowned business lady with over twenty years of experience in entrepreneurship. She holds Masters Degree in Business Administration (MBA) and has been in managerial positions in various companies before she decided to start her own business. Angela is eloquent, attentive to details and sensitive based on our conversation. The interview took approximately forty-five minutes which covers various areas of entrepreneurship, decision making and drive to start own business. The interview further covered areas such as characteristics which drove to entrepreneurship, duration a business can take to get to maturity stage, advantages and disadvantages of being an entrepreneur, how someone can realize it is time to venture into business and if she can recommend other ventures out and become an entrepreneur.
Through the interview, Ms. Angela explained that nobody knows when she or he will become an entrepreneur. It always starts as a joke by conducting market research and writing a business plan. She noted that an entrepreneur adds value in the market and through market research; it is possible to identify the gap in the market and come up with how to fill the gap. She went further to points that some people start a business which adds value to a product and other starts a completely new product in the market. And therefore, it is good to start a business to fill a market gap or add value to the existing market and that what entrepreneurs do and it is what makes the difference between an entrepreneur and a businessperson. However, she stated that she knew it is time to start a business when she realized her salaries could not meet her financial demands, and she also wanted independence and make a difference in the market. It was the time she started to conduct a market research which led her to her business. She sat down and wrote down her business plan which she used to source for funding. It was an exciting part of the introduction and detailed explanation on step by step process of arriving at a business decision and takes the initiative to start that particular business.
However, when asked about her characteristics which led her to decide to become an entrepreneur, she smiles, and the said that she never knew her attributes until she became an entrepreneur. She then stated that she is a risk taker, patient, keen to details, emotionally intelligent, and this is because of numerous business decisions which she had made. Many people had disagreed with her thinking it is a grave mistake but she eventually proceeds to succeed. She pointed that an entrepreneur must be a risk taker because it requires putting investment where you imagine it will bear fruit. “It is also proper to say that I am a visionary person, creative and persuasive and I think these characteristics worked best in my case,” Angela noted as she sips coffee. Based on our conversation it is clear that Angela is motivation person with a drive to succeed. She describes her ambition and love for entrepreneurship and why she made such a difficult decision leave employment and takes the path of entrepreneurship.
In our interview, it came out that a new business can take many months before it reaches the breakeven point and then start to make a profit. She noted that within the first three months of business, the business cannot make any profit no matter the kind of business one is running. The duration to give a business is six months and above before it starts to generate profit. However, it depends on the type of business or the product one has in the market. When you are in a buying adding value and then selling, a business can start making a profit within the first four to six months. It is important to note entrepreneurs invest in long term objective of the ideas to change the market dynamic, and mostly they start to realize profit within the six months.
Most importantly, the interview discovered that entrepreneurship has various benefits and it is why the majority of people who join it cannot get out easily (Cuervo, Ribeiro and Salvador 8). Through the interview, Angela pointed that being an entrepreneur has several advantages such as an individual has a chance to decide his or her destiny. It gives one time to be with family, opportunity to make an impact on the society, and you develop to become a role model in the society, no age limit for entrepreneurs, you get to compete with yourself and the market. She pointed that there are several advantages of being an entrepreneur, which cannot be compared with any professional or when you are employed. It was a great experience and listening to these reasons why I need to be an entrepreneur. She pointed that an entrepreneur has the freedom to make choices whether hard or easy but choices which affect people and the market. It also came out clear that an entrepreneur also set her or his earning and work hard to achieve them within a given time.
Nevertheless, we went further to discuss disadvantages of being an entrepreneur, and in the process, she mentioned that the most severe drawback is that when an individual take that path, you forget monthly salary. She said that several times, people came from employment unprepared for the long journey can retreat. In entrepreneurship, every salary an individual earn must be from the hard work. It is different from working for the federal government, state government or other bodies which pay employees even promptly for coming to the office. It also came out that entrepreneurs experience a change in lifestyle and suddenly become too busy and focus on the objective which can make somebody lose friends and become lonely because once someone decides to take entrepreneurship path (Dorobantescu 13). It is proper to start connecting with an individual in the same field, and this has made many people lose friends. “It also possible to lose everything you have worked for when decides to be an entrepreneur,” Angela pointed out. It is because one will have to invest almost everything in the business with the hope of reaping within a short time. Therefore, in entrepreneurship, there is no guarantee for success, but many successful entrepreneurs had failed in life before, and their businesses have failed terribly. Business requires patience, and when the patient lacks, it is likely to make losses and lose everything one has made for many years.
The important question which bothers people is the amount of cash required to start a business or which an individual need before taking entrepreneurship path. Angela pointed that the question of how much is needed is a legitimate question. However, become an entrepreneur does not require a specific amount of capital. In starting a business the important thing is an idea, capital can be zero or any figure depending on the kind of business one wants to start. However, it came out that majority of entrepreneurs started their own business with little fiancés and then expand step by step. It also came out that when one invest a lot of cash in business at the beginning, it can be difficult to manage it and therefore, the chances of business failing is high. She went further to state that acquiring finances to start a business is a challenge to many people; however, sources of capital to start a venture can be through family contribution, personal servings, bank loan, and benefits. She noted that it is advisable to avoid a lot of loans when starting a business (Bygrace and Andrew 125). It is proper to focus on personal saving, and family contribution, a bank loan should make only a quarter percent of the initial capital.
At the end of the interview, I posted a question if she would recommend others to come out and join the path of entrepreneurship. She highlighted that advising others to join the path of entrepreneurship is the best advice she would give someone anytime and anywhere. She said that she no regrets leaving her work to start a business so she can add value t the market and help the society. She pointed that since she became an entrepreneur she has impacted on many people lives, and she would love if other people would join her to invest in the country, create employment and make a difference in the market. It came out clear that entrepreneurship is the only clear path which one can properly use to gauge his or her hardworking and earn fruit of that hard labor. And therefore, she welcomes everyone would want to become entrepreneurs to make a decision and join the field.
Works Cited
By grace, William and Zacharakis Andrew. Entrepreneurship Second Edition. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2013.
Cuervo, Álvaro, Domingo Ribeiro and Roig Salvador. “Entrepreneurship:” Concepts, Theory, and Perspective (2015): 2-42. Volume 12, Issue 8.
Dorobantescu, Cristian. “10 Advantages and ten disadvantages of young entrepreneurs.” Enterprenuership Interview (2016): 2-25, Volume 2, Issue 3.
