What it takes to be an Entrepreneur?

Working as a Co-op marketing student is always fun and teaches you a lot on the way. This week I got the opportunity to go to an event called “Startup Basics: Fall Session 2016”organized by Accelerate Okanagan and I got to meet and listen to passionate, motivated and energetic personalities.

Presenters:

Rob Bartlett from WTFast

WTFast can instantly optimize your online game connection! It is a Gamers Private Network (GPN), an Internet connection and network built JUST for MMO gamers and their game data.

Joshua Fraser from Data Nerds

They gather, analyze and dissect data to develop ground-breaking strategies for growth and expansion,

Karen Olsson from Two Hat Security

Helps protect businesses and communities from high risk internet content

Corey Wagner from Bananatag

Bananatag shows users when their emails are opened, their links are clicked, and the location and device information of the recipient.

They are all highly motivated, hardworking and have strong personalities. Looking at them inspired me and kept me thinking what exactly I am doing with my life. All of them are from the tech industry and I wondered why they selected the tech world to begin with? Everyone had pretty much the same answer, that they are all passionate about computers, numbers and obsessed with the opportunity the internet world has. WTFast sees a huge potential in both the augmented and virtual reality. Being in the tech industry has it’s pros and cons like everything in life.

According to Karen for Two Hats, if you want to survive in the tech industry you have got to be at the top of your game. There is a lot of competition in the market. If someone comes up with a new innovative product before you, they have more connections than you do or if they just got lucky, you can be out of the game at any second. Take for example Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg lost $3.7 billion in 2 hours as the Facebook’s shares fell by almost 7% as a top executive suggested that the tech giant wouldn’t be able to able to keep up with its pace of growth since marketing is expanding and there is lots of competition out there.

You have lots of responsibility and that can leave you with sleepless nights. What keeps these four entrepreneurs awake at night? For Corey, it’s flatline sales, for Joshua it’s revenue / profit, Karen has nightmares about firing people and for Lance it’s servers. You compromise a lot to become an entrepreneur, not only your work-life balance but also your sleep. What exactly does a person have in him or her to be an entrepreneur. According to our four guests, to be a successful entrepreneur you must have dissatisfaction with your job, just like Joshua had and he decided to be his own boss and founded Data Nerds. You must ask for help when needed, ability to adapt and be flexible, be humble and most importantly always hire people who are smarter than you.

The most important rule of being a successful entrepreneur is self-evaluation and goal-setting. Going into business with your eyes wide open about your strengths and weaknesses, your likes and dislikes, and your ultimate goals lets you confront the decisions you’ll face with greater confidence and a greater chance of success. That is what each of these people did.