At The Junction of Nowhere

The title of this article has been deliberately chosen to draw attention to the problems entrepreneurs face in their quest to find  a silver lining in  the dark cloud of confusion that is usually associated with this challenging field of human endeavor. Another appropriate title for this piece would have been “The Entrepreneur’s Dilemma”. But I’d opted for ” At The Junction of Nowhere” because it sounds more creative, catchy, descriptive and unique.

As an entrepreneur myself, I have had my fair share of entrepreneurship challenges and do have a first hand knowledge of what it entails to carry the appellation. I write from my personal experience and of others whom I have related with and observed over the years. The way and manner entrepreneurs manage this stage of their development accounts for what makes Mr. A more successful than his B counterpart, partly what accounts for the rise and fall of businesses.

If you are an entrepreneur, I’ll suggest you consider the points I’ll mention here very seriously in order to avoid the mistakes umptillions before and around you have committed and are still committing. If you are not, I still urge you to consider the matter very seriously. Perhaps it will help you in understanding your relations and friends who are trying their hands in the field.

Alright, lets get started.

For every entrepreneur, there comes a period when everything appear to be hazy if not completely dark and seemingly impossible. This is usually the period when he must have conceived his supposed desired area of business and is designing an appropriate business model upon which to drive his dreams to promised land. It is also within this period that he is working very hard to assemble a formidable team to work with, as well as having insomnia in search of more ideas to ensure that his venture does not end up as a flash-in-the-pan.

During this period,he may appear arrogant to his acquaintances around whom he usually speak, with pride and belief, of his ideas and how it will pan out. He may even be seen as a wool-gatherer by the Average Joes who will increasingly find it difficult to fathom why he( the entrepreneur) had decided to choose such a difficult and uncertain task, while his peers are doing the much easier thing like getting a ‘well paid job’. Only a handful of people around him will really have any faith in his determination to venture, his decision to take the road least traveled.

This period is also accompanied by failures, as some of the entrepreneur’s assumptions and plans are flattened by certain harsh realities that can be very frustrating. For example, he may have conceived of an idea and believing it to be unique and a winner, and may have committed tons of energy and time with his team working acidulously to ship it to the market. Only for him to go out there to the realization that he had been trying to reinvent the wheel. Or that his supposed winner is not what the market needs, that it is rather a luxury or even a no-good. He will have to go back to his basement, to dig deeper into himself, to find out what went wrong. This is at the Junction of Nowhere! That period when he is at the middle of his quest, at the peak of his confusion…in a quandary.

At this point, some members of his ‘formidable’ team may desert him in pursuit of a much clearer vision, to earn a living. His close acquaintances may take a swipe at his confidence. The Average Joes of this world would jape at his failing dream and will try to urge him to wake up from his kip, to quit. His reputation is at stake!

And here, the enterpriser has three options.

In the first place, he has the choice of stubbornly insisting that he is yet to find those who are able to understand what he is offering and thus continue in search of the right people to buy into his brainchild.

This can be very dangerous as he may fritter way valuable time in  search of these so-called right customer/client who may in reality be fictitious.   He may be right in his insistence that there is a market out there for his idea, product or service. That with the right approach and connection, he’ll land a good deal from those who’ll  someday be convinced into buying. He may also be wrong because he cannot force an idea, a product or service on the customer. The customer exchanges his hard earned money for value, not an idea. Besides, why not try something new rather than insisting on the old. Why not invest the energy on a new idea rather than dissipating it on an obvious problem. If the idea will sell, during the period of its campaign, somebody out there would have seen the value in it and we would not be at this juncture.

No doubt, an entrepreneur needs some element of stubbornness. It is an essential quality that will help him in negotiations and during crisis periods to hang on till he’ll have his way. However, the point here is that excess of anything is bad. Remember the saying in evolution parlance? Adapt or die! He must be wise enough to know when to change course or tactic, he should be flexible.

In the second place, he may elect to revisit the failed idea by probing into  the environment and himself to find out what went wrong. This too can be very troublesome as he stands the risk of being fixated on his old mindset as to how things should be. In this scenario, he could end up reverting to the first instance of insisting he was right and the market wrong.

He must understand that while ideation and ideas themselves are highly valued, not all ideas will see the light of day, not all will make a sale. A good idea, a winner, will send a kind of vibration through the waves such that anybody who comes in contact with it immediately senses the signals. People almost always fall in love with a good idea immediately they feel, hear, see, smell or taste it. So that once the market keeps snubbing an idea, it is an indication that it isn’t a winner and probably will never be.

No doubt, there are instances where a failed idea had been revived by the application of a new thinking, by the infusion of some new blood into the veins of the dying baby.  However, the chances are probably 1 or 2 in every 10 cases. The point here is for the entrepreneur to avoid wastes of his valuable resources–time,energy,money and of course, his reputation.

In the third place, he may decide to cook up something entirely new  to be tried over again. In this alternative, the entrepreneur wagers on hope. He hopes that with some brainstorming cum research, he’ll be able to find the missing link between what he does and what the market really needs. This option requires him to undo all his preconception of the market. He must change the lens via which he views the world. He must don a new hat, must assume a new mindset, a new imagination. And this is not easy! It could take weeks, months and for big projects, even years.

In this option, the chances of success are high. This is because, by doing away with his prejudices, he is able to deal with the market more objectively. He stops trying to compel the market into accepting his proposals. Rather he goes with the flow, he allows the market to determine what  he should spend his scarce resources on. He comes to the realization that entrepreneurship thrive most efficiently in capitalist economies and there, the market forces–the proverbial invisible hand–determines what is produced, how it is produced, for whom and at what price. Going with the flow does not necessarily mean doing what others are doing, it simply means being alert to market needs and responding appropriately.

With this new thinking, the entrepreneur will commit his resources on working only on those ideas that stand the chance of satisfying real market needs–rather than wants. Even here too, he requires some high level intelligence to really decipher the information reaching him per the market dynamics. He’ll have to conduct some intensive and extensive research as well as subject himself to reflective thinking in order  to get himself, his team and the business out of the labyrinth.

Whether he eventually succeeds in this or quits in pursuit of some other heart desires depends largely on the strength of his resolve to be an entrepreneur. Either of the aforementioned choices may prove effectual, the difference being only on the amount of resources expended to achieve the goal–to make sales. It is up to him to understand the rhythm of his peculiar music and apply the right dance step.

Note that I had earlier on mentioned that he has three options. However, in reality, he has four, the fourth being to quit. But I do not consider quitting as an option for an entrepreneur because if he does, he ceases to bear the appellation and thus damages his reputation. His quitting will only prove the Average Joes right, that he had been a dreamer after all. His acquaintances will forever remind him of his empty pride, of how he had woefully failed in his quest to make a difference. And these are by far costlier than any amount of resources that he may expend in trying to realize his entrepreneurship goals. And woe betides any entrepreneur who attempts to take all of the options mentioned above i.e.to try option first, second and third. He would have been sapped of every iota of his energy before he strikes gold.

Now, I do not want my reader to get me wrong. The Junction of Nowhere is by no means synonymous with a Cul-de-sac. While the one presents the entrepreneur with multiple options, the other offers him only one.

At a Cul-de-sac, a person arrives at a street with only one way in or out–a dead end street. He either foreswears the journey and return home or burrows through the wall standing between him and his destination. Such kind of decision may not be too difficult to make. Everybody knows that the best thing to do is to force oneself through that wall–anyway they can.

The Junction of Nowhere is different. There, the entrepreneur arrives at a junction leading to four different places. While only one way (Quitters street) looks certain, the other three roads all appear similar and certainly uncertain. If he is not careful, he’ll find himself standing there  for too long until he get knocked down by the truck load of criticisms and mockery from acquaintances and Average Joes. You see, he requires more information, caution and courage at The Junction of Nowhere than at a Cul-de-sac.   By now, you should be feeling sorry for your friends and indeed anybody calling themselves entrepreneurs knowing that theirs is not a walk-in-the-park. And I bet you it isn’t. They don’t need your pity, though, only your understanding and support will do them any good.

Don’t be deceived by the flashy lifestyle successful entrepreneurs lead. Behind that cosy suit is a tough guy who’ll settle for nothing less than his ambition. If he does compromises his high goals, he comes down to the level of the Average Joes and certainly won’t earn your respect and admiration.

So, the next time you come across a successful entrepreneur who made it from zero to hero by simply sticking to his dreams (or nightmare if you like), just remember that he had once been at The Junction of Nowhere.

Alright, are you an entrepreneur who once visited the Junction of Nowhere? Why not share some of your experience with us at the comment box below. We’ll be glad to hear your views.

Cheers!