“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs
The quote above is one strong inspiration to quit your job and to follow your dreams – to be on the adventurous entrepreneurial path. The slowdown in the worldwide economy is resulting in a job drought but even in the dry scenario there are blossoms of entrepreneurial spirit all around the world. For some of these budding entrepreneurs, it is a “lets-try-and-see” approach for many it was an urge suppressed somewhere beneath which had earlier been unable to surface because our day to day routine and the full-time job fills up the time and the creative bubble never found time enough to shape into an idea or action. But since there are not many jobs around and those in the layoff have that extra time at hand; it presents an exciting opportunity to live with your own thinking and time to bring your own creation to life!
Then long-term and short-term goals of these budding entrepreneurs might be different. For some it is a wonderful learning experience, but they are not so sure whether it could be a long-term commitment mainly because they are not seeing the revenue stream as yet. And for some it has been more profitable than their full-time job.
Patrick May puts it all together on the Mercury News columns:
Their motives are all over the map. Some are looking for a little income during their job search. As David Noel scanned the job market’s bleak horizon earlier this year, he recalled this week, “I felt I had a better chance of creating my own job than of finding one.” So the San Mateo software-product manager started rechargeablebatteryservices.com to address — and profit from — the prodigious use of double- and triple-A batteries by government and industry.Others are simply bored to death with online résumés and figure they’ve got nothing to lose by starting a small-time enterprise fueled by a big-time passion. After she lost her job with an East Bay nonprofit, Shannon Bowen went into her swing-dance default mode, launching a dance business.
Not only in the Silicon Valley or the US, the new sprouts are all over the world. 60% of Canadian entrepreneurs believe the current global recession is creating new opportunities for small business.
Daily Commercial News reports:
Canada’s entrepreneurs are looking ahead to the next year with expectations for improvement. One in four entrepreneurs surveyed reported having sold fewer products or services in the past 12 months, but one in three now expect to sell more products or services in the coming year. Thirty-nine percent of entrepreneurs surveyed expect to create a new product, service or technology.
“These findings prove that the entrepreneurial spirit is still alive and well in Canada, no matter the economic climate,” said Dr. Roberts.
You may or may not be successful in what you have begun now, but the journey itself is well worth it and more so the job market may be down and under but the entrepreneur in you looks positively to the blooms ahead. Ultimately, what is satisfying on walking the entrepreneurial path is not the end result but the exciting journey itself. It is that special journey which teaches you how to create, how to innovate, how to manage, how to inspire and then how to make money on your own. To do all this every day – is exciting; each day to look forward to something new and exciting – that is what the entrepreneurial spirit is all about.’
“Unemployment is custom-made for starting a new venture,” says Chris Gill, president of the Silicon Valley Association of Startup Entrepreneurs. “You’ve got the time, and if you’ve got the passion, you can start a business. And while only 50 percent of them survive five years, if you’re lucky the money can start to add up.”