CREATE PASSIVE INCOME AS ENTREPRENEUR

Once Create Passive Income as an you undertake the development of a business you utilize a variety of entrepreneurial skills. You find yourself working hard to keep things going, but there’s a real sense of satisfaction in the work.

Recently I was told of a woman who had started her twenty-first business. In each case the business was related to cooking. The good news was this woman was a capable businesswoman and an excellent cook.

The problem for this woman was that she got tired of running a business very easily. She would get a business established and grow weary of the day-to-day grind and would set a date to close the doors. Her husband was a carpenter and had systematically refurbished twenty separate properties for his wife’s business ventures.

This woman recently started a coffee shop with a variety of baked goods for sale. The business hadn’t been open 3 months when a separate coffee shop opened in the same retail complex. When she discovered the new business she threw her hands up in despair and asked the owner of the second shop if she could come to work for her.

You see, there is an invisible wall that is sometimes difficult to overcome. That wall is moving beyond the difficult work of day-to-day business where you are needed in the monitoring of all aspects of the business. Some, like the lady in our story, simply get tired and go home to regroup their strength for a later attempt. Others will find ways to derive income that does not rely on their own efforts. These are the entrepreneurs that more easily move forward.

Passive Income

If you are a store that specializes in a product you have created, the sale of items that are available from other suppliers can provide income that is your simply because you supplied shelf space.

The sale of insurance provides a means of deriving an income based on commissions that require little attention from you.

The use of affiliate programs can allow others to sell your products and provide you with an income on something you were not actively involved in selling.

The development of passive income is important to entrepreneurs because if you attempt to develop revenue exclusively on your own then your revenue stream goes dry the minute you need time off.

Someone once said, “Work smarter, not harder.” That’s especially true as you continue to develop your business. Seek ways to allow others to help you sell and market your goods and services. This likely means there will be salespeople working at selling your business even when you have left the building.

TO BE A PERFECT

8 Traits of the Perfect Entrepreneur

• If you’ve considered the possibility of becoming an entrepreneur there are eight traits that are important in describing the perfect entrepreneur.
• Risk Taker – Entrepreneurs understand that in order to make a profit they will need to assume a certain level of financial risk.
• Business Manager – Entrepreneurs have a keen understanding of finance and are well equipped to manage the finances of a business.
• Organizer – Entrepreneurs are well equipped in the area of organizing all aspects of the business for current and long-term growth.
• Marketing Expert – Entrepreneurs are capable of understanding and implementing marketing strategies both online as well as offline.
• “People” Person – Entrepreneurs love to interact with people. They are proficient in customer service and have never met a customer they didn’t like.
• Self Starter – Entrepreneurs understand that if something is going to be done right they need to be the one to do it. They are never lazy and are easily motivated.
• Knowledgeable – Entrepreneurs understand the products and services they sell and have no problem explaining every facet of their business to interested clients or affiliates.
• Initiator – Entrepreneurs are ready, willing, and able to take the lead on projects and assemble all the plans needed to move forward with any project. They always get more work done than anyone expects.
• The truth is there are relatively few entrepreneurs that have all the skills listed above, yet their businesses are not only surviving, but their ideas are flourishing.
• How do they do it?
• Sometimes the best tool an entrepreneur can have is to pull together the right team. Very few people are gifted in all areas of business, so it just makes sense to find individuals that are a compliment to your business objectives. If you are strong in one area search out individuals who are strong in the areas where strength is required.
• Chances are good that you will learn something from your employees while you work together to capture your vision for business success.
• The World’s Most Perfect Entrepreneur is one that knows how to manage resources. Sometimes that means knowing when to call in reinforcements and not being embarrassed to acknowledge your areas of weakness.
• In essence a weakness in an area of entrepreneurialism does not have to mean an end to a dream. It simply means finding the right running mates to give you a fighting chance at making it to the finish line.

VISION INDIA 2020

FINANCIAL BOOTSTRAPPING:

• Bootstrappers are entrepreneurs determined to make a business pay for itself. The freedom from relying on capital invested by VCs is a great motivator,if one knows how to acquire it from the right sources.
• Their secret weapon, is being nimble and cutting through the bureaucracy to grow faster.Most are entrepreneurs, who have a drive to learn and better themselves in all fields related to their start-up. They use unconventional means to raise funds for their business,without spreading out their arms.
• A small initial size helps them to focus by realizing that they have little to lose, and they are quick to catch on trends and exploit them. But, how do they do all of this and survive the bloody battles on the tilted corporate battlefield? In this series of articles we delve into some of the nuances of this seemingly esoteric method of raising money.

Part 1: What you’ve got and they’ve got

• You’d be clobbered by the current brands and be out of business while they won’t be losing a moment’s sleep.
• Successful bootstrappers know that just because they can make a product doesn’t mean they should. Instead, they are well aware of the traits they need to have and the advantage they have over the major market players.
• Some of these advantages are : A mindset of ‘We’ve got nothing to lose’, being happy with the small fish, direct presidential input , Rapid R&D, being the underdogs, low overhead costs and controlling the time of deliveries.
• We will elucidate on these points in the next issues, but let us close on an example much closer to home. I am sure there are many who remember id software’s ‘Castle Wolfenstein’. Following the huge success of their game, the 4 developers decided to take on the major players with a unique strategy. They developed another path breaking game called ‘Doom’ and gave it away… for free!
• Millions of people downloaded the game off their servers and id had captured a huge pool of trusting customers. They launched a bigger version of the game with more levels and gameplay and made it available at a price. It was a huge success! Without having to go through the game retailers, or spend more than 50 cents on marketing they had used an unusual strategy which helped them cut out the middlemen and avoided losing capital as ‘commission’ yetfirmly carve a niche in the gaming industry.

• Part 2: Why big ideas can kill you and what is the bootstrapper’s business model.

• It’s easy to make a buck. It’s a lot tougher to make a difference
• – Tom Brokaw
• Financial Bootstrapping: Smartly funding your start-up
• Vision India 2020
• This is the first article of the series Vision 2020 by Sramana Mitra describing which she says, “This is a new series in which I invite readers to take a journey with me into the future through the minds of multiple entrepreneurs, who by addressing the opportunities I see today, will perhaps shape the future of India.But in this series, we will close our eyes, and exist in this future, and BE each entrepreneur”.
• Enjoy!
• 12 years ago, in 2008, it was clear that the labour arbitrage based IT services industry that had made India a player in the global technology market, was facing a threat. The key issue was supply-demand equilibrium. India’s engineering education system simply could not keep up with the demand for talent.
• Engineering schools below the top tier (IIT, IISC and a few others) were struggling due to lack of faculty.Anyone who knew any engineering had multiple multinational companies dangling job offers in front of their nose. Why would they go teach in a small engineering college in a small town?
• Against that backdrop, we started a for-profit, private companto train engineers in India. At the time, Susan Hockfiel was the President of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). MIT had also taken a leadership role in the Open Course Ware (OCW) movement, systematically putting every lecture by the institute’s faculty online, freely accessible from anywhere in the world. We convinced Dr. Hockfield to take equity in the company on behalf of MIT,
• and let us do the project under the MIT India brand, extensively leveraging OCW content. We could, however, only certificates, not MIT degrees.
• When we launched MIT India in 2010, we were handsomely financed by contracts from Intel, Infosys, Cadence, Autodesk, Tata Motors and IBM, and hardly raised any outside financing until much later, when we were ready to scale. In addition, companies like Cadence and Autodesk donated CAD tools which our engineering students could learn with.
• Our model was simple. We worked directly with major corporations interested in hiring trained engineers. Our customers, thus, were the companies, not the students or parents.
• To the youth of India, however, we brought a different value proposition. We carefully recruited a set of high potential students with High School Education only, but who
• were not going onto great colleges or universities.
• These students, upon acceptance into the MIT India program,were already guaranteed a job at the sponsor company for which we were training them. They participated in a rigorous curriculum focused on the engineering discipline of the sponsor’s choice. For example, Tata Motors, had us train Mechanical Engineers, while Intel had us train chip designers. We had 6 centers in our first year of 500 students each,aligned with one of our sponsors.
• They were geographically dispersed, and most certainly not in Bangalore, which wasalready bursting in its seams. IBM’s center was in Kolkata,Tata Motors’ was in Thane, Cadence and Autodesk were in Kanpur, Infosys in Indore, and Intel in Kharagpur.
• We solved the faculty issue by recruiting a group of talented engineers who were passionate about teaching,and offered them market salary that they would normally get working for MNCs. And our faculty followed MIT syllabus,OCW content, problem sets, exams, etc. As batches of students finished our 2-year intensive program, we renewed our contracts with the sponsors, recruited new sponsors, and opened up new centers all over India.
• These contracts were extremely lucrative for us, and allowed us to finance great infrastructure, afford and attract faculty, and address the engineering education crisis that India would have otherwise faced, had we tried to work within the government-approved channels.
• We made a few key strategic choices that made it possible for us to build the $6 Billion a year company that we have today with 1200 MIT India centers, each teaching 2 batches of 500 students. Each year, we train a total of 600,000 engineers.
• First, we framed the engineering education problem as a problem of the Corporations who need to recruit talent and asked that they pay for a quality solution. They did.
• Second, we did not allow compensation to be a deterrent for hiring talented faculty. We paid them handsomely, such that they did not feel they were making a career sacrifice by teaching. This enabled those with passion for teaching to choose an academic career.
• Third, we chose to do this under the MIT brand umbrella,gaining instant credibility among the sponsors, the facultyand the students.
• Thoughts lead on to purposes; purposes go forth in action; actions form habits; habits decide character; and character
• fixes our destiny – Tyron Edwards
• Time is like money, the less we have of it to spare the further we make it go – Josh Billings.

CREATE PASSIVE INCOME AS ENTREPRENEUR

Once Create Passive Income as an you undertake the development of a business you utilize a variety of entrepreneurial skills. You find yourself working hard to keep things going, but there’s a real sense of satisfaction in the work.

Recently I was told of a woman who had started her twenty-first business. In each case the business was related to cooking. The good news was this woman was a capable businesswoman and an excellent cook.

The problem for this woman was that she got tired of running a business very easily. She would get a business established and grow weary of the day-to-day grind and would set a date to close the doors. Her husband was a carpenter and had systematically refurbished twenty separate properties for his wife’s business ventures.

This woman recently started a coffee shop with a variety of baked goods for sale. The business hadn’t been open 3 months when a separate coffee shop opened in the same retail complex. When she discovered the new business she threw her hands up in despair and asked the owner of the second shop if she could come to work for her.

You see, there is an invisible wall that is sometimes difficult to overcome. That wall is moving beyond the difficult work of day-to-day business where you are needed in the monitoring of all aspects of the business. Some, like the lady in our story, simply get tired and go home to regroup their strength for a later attempt. Others will find ways to derive income that does not rely on their own efforts. These are the entrepreneurs that more easily move forward.

Passive Income

If you are a store that specializes in a product you have created, the sale of items that are available from other suppliers can provide income that is your simply because you supplied shelf space.

The sale of insurance provides a means of deriving an income based on commissions that require little attention from you.

The use of affiliate programs can allow others to sell your products and provide you with an income on something you were not actively involved in selling.

The development of passive income is important to entrepreneurs because if you attempt to develop revenue exclusively on your own then your revenue stream goes dry the minute you need time off.

Someone once said, “Work smarter, not harder.” That’s especially true as you continue to develop your business. Seek ways to allow others to help you sell and market your goods and services. This likely means there will be salespeople working at selling your business even when you have left the building.

TO BE A PERFECT

8 Traits of the Perfect Entrepreneur

• If you’ve considered the possibility of becoming an entrepreneur there are eight traits that are important in describing the perfect entrepreneur.
• Risk Taker – Entrepreneurs understand that in order to make a profit they will need to assume a certain level of financial risk.
• Business Manager – Entrepreneurs have a keen understanding of finance and are well equipped to manage the finances of a business.
• Organizer – Entrepreneurs are well equipped in the area of organizing all aspects of the business for current and long-term growth.
• Marketing Expert – Entrepreneurs are capable of understanding and implementing marketing strategies both online as well as offline.
• “People” Person – Entrepreneurs love to interact with people. They are proficient in customer service and have never met a customer they didn’t like.
• Self Starter – Entrepreneurs understand that if something is going to be done right they need to be the one to do it. They are never lazy and are easily motivated.
• Knowledgeable – Entrepreneurs understand the products and services they sell and have no problem explaining every facet of their business to interested clients or affiliates.
• Initiator – Entrepreneurs are ready, willing, and able to take the lead on projects and assemble all the plans needed to move forward with any project. They always get more work done than anyone expects.
• The truth is there are relatively few entrepreneurs that have all the skills listed above, yet their businesses are not only surviving, but their ideas are flourishing.
• How do they do it?
• Sometimes the best tool an entrepreneur can have is to pull together the right team. Very few people are gifted in all areas of business, so it just makes sense to find individuals that are a compliment to your business objectives. If you are strong in one area search out individuals who are strong in the areas where strength is required.
• Chances are good that you will learn something from your employees while you work together to capture your vision for business success.
• The World’s Most Perfect Entrepreneur is one that knows how to manage resources. Sometimes that means knowing when to call in reinforcements and not being embarrassed to acknowledge your areas of weakness.
• In essence a weakness in an area of entrepreneurialism does not have to mean an end to a dream. It simply means finding the right running mates to give you a fighting chance at making it to the finish line.

VISION INDIA 2020

FINANCIAL BOOTSTRAPPING:

• Bootstrappers are entrepreneurs determined to make a business pay for itself. The freedom from relying on capital invested by VCs is a great motivator,if one knows how to acquire it from the right sources.
• Their secret weapon, is being nimble and cutting through the bureaucracy to grow faster.Most are entrepreneurs, who have a drive to learn and better themselves in all fields related to their start-up. They use unconventional means to raise funds for their business,without spreading out their arms.
• A small initial size helps them to focus by realizing that they have little to lose, and they are quick to catch on trends and exploit them. But, how do they do all of this and survive the bloody battles on the tilted corporate battlefield? In this series of articles we delve into some of the nuances of this seemingly esoteric method of raising money.

Part 1: What you’ve got and they’ve got

• You’d be clobbered by the current brands and be out of business while they won’t be losing a moment’s sleep.
• Successful bootstrappers know that just because they can make a product doesn’t mean they should. Instead, they are well aware of the traits they need to have and the advantage they have over the major market players.
• Some of these advantages are : A mindset of ‘We’ve got nothing to lose’, being happy with the small fish, direct presidential input , Rapid R&D, being the underdogs, low overhead costs and controlling the time of deliveries.
• We will elucidate on these points in the next issues, but let us close on an example much closer to home. I am sure there are many who remember id software’s ‘Castle Wolfenstein’. Following the huge success of their game, the 4 developers decided to take on the major players with a unique strategy. They developed another path breaking game called ‘Doom’ and gave it away… for free!
• Millions of people downloaded the game off their servers and id had captured a huge pool of trusting customers. They launched a bigger version of the game with more levels and gameplay and made it available at a price. It was a huge success! Without having to go through the game retailers, or spend more than 50 cents on marketing they had used an unusual strategy which helped them cut out the middlemen and avoided losing capital as ‘commission’ yetfirmly carve a niche in the gaming industry.

• Part 2: Why big ideas can kill you and what is the bootstrapper’s business model.

• It’s easy to make a buck. It’s a lot tougher to make a difference
• – Tom Brokaw
• Financial Bootstrapping: Smartly funding your start-up
• Vision India 2020
• This is the first article of the series Vision 2020 by Sramana Mitra describing which she says, “This is a new series in which I invite readers to take a journey with me into the future through the minds of multiple entrepreneurs, who by addressing the opportunities I see today, will perhaps shape the future of India.But in this series, we will close our eyes, and exist in this future, and BE each entrepreneur”.
• Enjoy!
• 12 years ago, in 2008, it was clear that the labour arbitrage based IT services industry that had made India a player in the global technology market, was facing a threat. The key issue was supply-demand equilibrium. India’s engineering education system simply could not keep up with the demand for talent.
• Engineering schools below the top tier (IIT, IISC and a few others) were struggling due to lack of faculty.Anyone who knew any engineering had multiple multinational companies dangling job offers in front of their nose. Why would they go teach in a small engineering college in a small town?
• Against that backdrop, we started a for-profit, private companto train engineers in India. At the time, Susan Hockfiel was the President of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). MIT had also taken a leadership role in the Open Course Ware (OCW) movement, systematically putting every lecture by the institute’s faculty online, freely accessible from anywhere in the world. We convinced Dr. Hockfield to take equity in the company on behalf of MIT,
• and let us do the project under the MIT India brand, extensively leveraging OCW content. We could, however, only certificates, not MIT degrees.
• When we launched MIT India in 2010, we were handsomely financed by contracts from Intel, Infosys, Cadence, Autodesk, Tata Motors and IBM, and hardly raised any outside financing until much later, when we were ready to scale. In addition, companies like Cadence and Autodesk donated CAD tools which our engineering students could learn with.
• Our model was simple. We worked directly with major corporations interested in hiring trained engineers. Our customers, thus, were the companies, not the students or parents.
• To the youth of India, however, we brought a different value proposition. We carefully recruited a set of high potential students with High School Education only, but who
• were not going onto great colleges or universities.
• These students, upon acceptance into the MIT India program,were already guaranteed a job at the sponsor company for which we were training them. They participated in a rigorous curriculum focused on the engineering discipline of the sponsor’s choice. For example, Tata Motors, had us train Mechanical Engineers, while Intel had us train chip designers. We had 6 centers in our first year of 500 students each,aligned with one of our sponsors.
• They were geographically dispersed, and most certainly not in Bangalore, which wasalready bursting in its seams. IBM’s center was in Kolkata,Tata Motors’ was in Thane, Cadence and Autodesk were in Kanpur, Infosys in Indore, and Intel in Kharagpur.
• We solved the faculty issue by recruiting a group of talented engineers who were passionate about teaching,and offered them market salary that they would normally get working for MNCs. And our faculty followed MIT syllabus,OCW content, problem sets, exams, etc. As batches of students finished our 2-year intensive program, we renewed our contracts with the sponsors, recruited new sponsors, and opened up new centers all over India.
• These contracts were extremely lucrative for us, and allowed us to finance great infrastructure, afford and attract faculty, and address the engineering education crisis that India would have otherwise faced, had we tried to work within the government-approved channels.
• We made a few key strategic choices that made it possible for us to build the $6 Billion a year company that we have today with 1200 MIT India centers, each teaching 2 batches of 500 students. Each year, we train a total of 600,000 engineers.
• First, we framed the engineering education problem as a problem of the Corporations who need to recruit talent and asked that they pay for a quality solution. They did.
• Second, we did not allow compensation to be a deterrent for hiring talented faculty. We paid them handsomely, such that they did not feel they were making a career sacrifice by teaching. This enabled those with passion for teaching to choose an academic career.
• Third, we chose to do this under the MIT brand umbrella,gaining instant credibility among the sponsors, the facultyand the students.
• Thoughts lead on to purposes; purposes go forth in action; actions form habits; habits decide character; and character
• fixes our destiny – Tyron Edwards
• Time is like money, the less we have of it to spare the further we make it go – Josh Billings.