Khor - From academia to entrepreneur: lessons from the real world

There are countless ways to define what entrepreneurs are. In this book, an entrepreneur is either an individual who runs a business concern or someone who takes on the risk of starting an enterprise that, when providence favors, brings the venture to success. In the vernacular of business at the street level, the term entrepreneur can be further refined into two species, the jet-stream entrepreneur and the runway entrepreneur.

The term jet-stream entrepreneur insinuates an established corporate setting where the enterprise is perceived to be performing at a high and efficient level, much like a big jet airliner cruising at 35,000 feet above sea level progressing smoothly, the odd turbulence notwithstanding, to its destination. The entrepreneur in this instance is visualized as business savvy, self-confident, visionary, most likely MBA equipped, an industry mover and shaker on a big stage. In some cases, this is the anointed one, who made all the right moves, said all the right things, strategized and planned (at times schemed may be more suitable) all the way to the top of the pecking order. Some less complimentary allusions may imply a chosen one with less than impeccable credentials placed there by merit of birthright, or through other less professional and/or ethical maneuverings. However one views this breed, the jet-stream entrepreneur is not the subject of this book.

A runway entrepreneur in all probability conjures up images of a nave but determined novice trying to make it in the entrepreneurial world. Picture a trainee pilot trying to qualify for his pilots license strapped in his seat at the controls of a small plane taking off from the runway on his first solo flight. The view is from the ground up. Every aspect is felt in close proximity: the cramped cockpit, the instruments panel, the control column, the throttle, the payload, the vibrations from the single propeller turns and the tarmac. Once in the air there is no autopilot to engage, no radar and at a typical altitude of between 20005000 feet AGL,

The decision to do something distinct once commenced leads to a long and arduous effort with undefined challenges surfacing, depleting finite resources at a more rapid rate than planned. Each and every factor regardless of whether small or big, can influence whether the enterprise will takeoff and reach the heavenly heights or crash into a burning inferno.

This is thetrueenvironment of astart-up enterpriseand how they come about:

From therunwayup

The runway entrepreneur is the one who sizes up an opportunity and, weighing the odds as acceptable, embarks on a course of action that can eventually lead to a Fortune 500 listing, attain a more modest yet creditable existence or end up as a non-descript memory of what could have been. The runway entrepreneur may eventually metamorphose into the jet-stream entrepreneur, but that is a story for another day. This book focuses on the runway entrepreneur going from nothing to something.