From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
I would love to say that we knew all the answers in advance, but the truth is that we discovered our product and opportunity, rather than planning for it.
Generally speaking, I advocate for entrepreneurship as being originating something entirely new – taking it from zero to one, so to speak. This endeavour doesn't strictly have to be a technical startup or a monumental success. The main focus is on initiating something on your own, which essentially leads you into the journey of entrepreneurship. It's a voyage that can be challenging and intricate, marked by a series of failures. Moreover, it's a path that you'll often tread alone.
There is no mundane. The word itself, I think, is a non-word. It should not be a word.
For a civilisation to succeed, it must learn from failures. Dubai is a land of innovation and failure here is perceived as an opportunity to learn and not the end of an endeavour.
there are no good musicians who do not have a good ear, no artists without a great imagination, no writers without an excellent command of the language. The same goes for our trade. It is not enough to know how to use a calculator or build sound financial models. You need to have vision. You should look at a business process as if it were a living thing; you need to sense its music. You know, a good chess player does not need to spend a great deal of time calculating – sometimes one look at the chessboard is enough to know if a combination is good or bad…
If you don't love the act of doing, you'll never find happiness. If your motivation is glory or money, you're bound to be disappointed. If you're more excited about lunch with investment bankers than dealing with the day-to-day realities, you'll end up unhappy.
I'd never even heard the word 'entrepreneur' growing up – I didn't know what that meant. If I go back to my grandfather – he was the real entrepreneur. He developed things… he made spiked running shoes when he was only 15 (in 1895!). My grandfather died in 1933, I was born in 1935 and my grandmother insisted I brought his name with me – so I became the next Joe Foster.
You will never find opportunities in your comfort zone, you have to push yourself. You have to be hungry and willing to go into the unknown. The unknown is where you will always find opportunity.
The idea itself constitutes about 20% of the success, the remaining 80% hinges on execution. This understanding is vital for an early-stage investor to gauge the potential success of a venture.
For me, one of the big gaps is youth entrepreneurship. There are a high number of young people who want to set-up businesses, but there is a huge gap between their aspirations/intentions and the actual delivery of setting up a business.
Most people think of entrepreneurs as someone who starts a company, but to me? Entrepreneurship is really about problem solving. You can be an entrepreneur in a company, in a family or in your own venture. The bottom line? If you can solve a problem – you're an entrepreneur.
I think it's about usefulness! People talk of 'following your passion' but there are plenty of things people are passionate about that nobody will pay them money for, so you can't just tell someone to just follow their passion. The missing piece? usefulness... We say the magic formula is: Passion + Usefulness = Success.