The greatest joy of an entrepreneur is I guess seeing the first rupee for his/her venture come in. Surely it is for me.

It gives me immense joy to see the first rupee come in as revenue for our venture. Enterpreneurs live in a dream world where they toy with that idea which they think is unique, will grow, gain recognition and bring money. Some start building on the idea, travel a distance and then realise it has not just worked and resign. A few others, struggle even further, not giving up. Many see them as crazy, impractical and failed to doom. Nevertheless they go on with hope and determination. Then somewhere down the line there is that glimmer of hope. Hope of a new horizon. Hope of crossing that crucial inflection point. This point in an enterpreneur’s journey is the point when he or she sees that first rupee as revenue.

There can be no greater joy for an entrepreneur.

This point is significant in one very important way. At least that is the way I see it. This point is significant because it is a recognition that the world sees value in the idea that the entrepreneur came up with and built on – and thus they are willing to pay for it. Every entrepreneur believes that his or her idea is great. But he or she can be “successful” only if there is an alignment between “that” within the entrepreneur and “that” perceived by the world or the end users. Most often such alignment would take lot of time – lot of time for the entrepreneur to understand the behaviour of the world, their perceptions to his or her idea, making changes in the execution without losing sight of the vision, - lot of trials and tribulations. An entrepreneur needs to let go of some, ready to subject to scrutiny ones assumptions, ready to keep moving. The world - the customers are right. The entrepreneur is also right. But it takes time for the “rightnesses” to match. And then when the “rightnesses” match there can be that nuclear fusion or a take off. This is “that” crucial point in an entrepreneur’s journey.

Today is that great point in this enterpreneur’s journey as we see the first rupee come in. A long journey of two and half years it has been. Glad that we have reached that point where our internal effort is aligned to the external needs of the world.

What would happen after this point? I do not know as I have not experienced it yet. Hopefully something good. But it can’t be better than this moment.

With my gratitude to all those who have stood and stand by me.

With love to my dear Thalaivar to whom I dedicate this joyous moment.

This is a very important article re-emphasizing a significant trend which we have been noticing for years now and are seeing accelerate even further. The analysis is primarily from the prevailing scenario in the US. However, I feel there are points which have implications or are indicators of things happening and to come world over.

Some of the key points made in this artilce include:

- recession has accelerated the process of finding alternates to permanent jobs including automation, temping, outsourcing and so on

- "diminishing job security is also widening the gap between the highest- and lowest-paid workers

- "....26% of the US workforce had jobs that were in one way or another "nonstandard". That includes independent contractors, temps, part-times, and freelancers."

Read:

The Disposable Worker - from the Business Week

My comments:

The fact that we are in turbulent times when change is accelerating the changes in the engagement model between the employer and the employee. This phenomenon of temping is not new. It has always been there. Labour was hired during the harvest season (seasonal workers). I worked in a PSU and notice that 30% of the labour was on contract (this was twenty years back). However, what may be new is that the so called temping and alternate models of engagement are happening at skilled and managerial levels too. Well, maybe we thought these levels were permanent. It is not. Alternate modes of engagement will increase for many reasons. Only one of them is the recession or the consciousness to reduce costs of labour. The other reason is also the changing attitude of the individuals to the engagement patterns of the yester-years. Many are opting voluntarily and consciously out of the corporate permanent regimen which would then force the corporates to find alternate engagement models if they desire to engage this pool of talent.

Whichever way it may be - whether the alternate engagement models are a consequence of changing behaviour of human beings or is driven by the organisations due to economic necessities, one thing is clear - the individual will have to take responsibility for one's career. And this includes career from a holistic perspective i.e. what is expected from work, how one wants to manage ones life for now and the future and so on. The era of individualisation demands maturing of individuals to take responsibility for their selves.

Our career development, from one perspective can be viewed to be a balancing of two different needs - need to constantly strengthen our core talent or skills and the need to be flexible to the changing environment.

We have certain aptitudes at our core. We have further nourished them through our school and college education, training and experience in jobs. These talents or skills are central to us when we are into our professional life.We may have had the aptitude to sell, got trained in selling and gained experience in selling in one or more companies. Selling skills is thus central to us. We need to appreciate this central nature of talent. We need to constantly enrich this central talent of ours.

But this central talent or skills is one side of the story. How and where we apply them is another and they involve the context in which we apply them. In the case of selling the context could be selling of say consumer goods.

Some of the contexts change and they may change quite rapidly. New companies emerge. Even new industries emerge. Mobile industry was nascent till the mid 90s and in the last decade and half it has grown quite rapidly. Within the industry itself the changes have been quite dramatic. Internet proliferation and the businesses leveraging the Internet start proliferating aggressively since the mid 90s. Now we hear of nanotechnology, green tehcnology, and so on.

The industries themselves are contexts. Every industry has at its core some specific knowledge or technology which is central to the industry. For example the telecom industry has at its core the communications technology. But the industry itself employs people from different skills, functions, for example, the customer service, marketing, finance, HR, manufacturing and so on. These changes in the industries give opportunities for individuals to move across the newer industries from the previous ones.

The shift is possible from one industry to another if one is flexible enough to adapt to the different context. An aspiring salesman may see the emerging businesses as opportunity and move into them. There would be nuances of the industry specific to the industry which the individual may have to pick up fast. Moving to a mobile industry would require the salesman to appreciate the different kinds of products and services of the industry, the value proposition for the customers and so on.

The adapatability has to be coupled with the core theme of strengthening ones talent in that function or domain of ones choice. If I am salesman I would need to keep honing my selling skills. So we need to keep our core solid and keep strengthening it while we we are also adaptable to the contextual changes.

Balance of the dual forces for harmony applies to talent too - balance between the stengthening of the core and the flexibility at the periphery.