Silicon Valley technology entrepreneur and strategy consultant, and author of the valuable and highly practical guides in the Entrepreneur Journey series that include Entrepreneur Journeys (Vol. 1), Bootstrapping: Weapon Of Mass Reconstruction (Vol. 2), and Positioning: How To Test, Validate, and Bring Your Idea To Market (Vol. 3), Sramana Mitra, was kind enough to take the time to answer a few questions on her exciting new entrepreneurial project.
Sramana Mitra shares her vision for an entrepreneurial explosion, and its critical importance to the economy of today and that of tomorrow. She described her vision, as well as offering some practical ideas that you can do to help make this entrepreneurial resolution a successful reality.
Thanks to Sramana Mitra for her insightful and informative responses.
You made a very special New Year's Resolution. What was that resolution?
Sramana Mitra: Through the Entrepreneur Journeys project, I have come to conclude that the most vulnerable phase in an entrepreneur's life is the pre $1 million revenue stage. This is where numerous ventures fail. Once the $1 million revenue milestone is crossed, entrepreneurs find it easier to find additional customers, manage working capital, and access funding, whether it is credit or equity. Beyond that, depending on how large the market opportunity is, they can scale to their potential, with or without external investment.
Some will scale up to $10 million a year, some will scale to $50 million. And a small percentage of these venture may even scale to a billion dollars. Most importantly, however, the base of a million small ventures needs to be robust and sustainable. So, the synthesis of my mission is to build a scalable entrepreneurship education system that can support a trillion dollars of sustainable global GDP and 10 million jobs.
Why is that resolution so important in 2010?
Sramana Mitra: In America, we have 30 million people out of jobs. They need a turnaround strategy, and mine is entrepreneurship. Around the world, entrepreneurial energy is bubbling, as great nations like India, China, Brazil, Indonesia are starting to find their strides. This decade-from 2010-2020-will be a very special time for development economics, and my contribution to that will be through this resolution.
One of the points you make in your Entrepreneur Journeys series is how vulnerable a company is during the pre $1 million revenue stage. Why is a business so vulnerable to failure at that time?
Sramana Mitra: Because the business is not yet validated. The entrepreneurs do not know whether customers would really want what they have to offer, or if they do, they don't know what price they can get. It's an unstable, highly experimental phase which most entrepreneurs never get beyond.
My goal is to teach Silicon Valley best practices to a global community of entrepreneurs so that they avoid the common mistakes, and significantly improve their chances of success. Normally, only one in ten or twenty entrepreneurs succeed. The rest fail. Imagine how powerful an economic impact it would be if we could alter the mortality rate and make 10 out of 10 ventures succeed? That's where I am going with this.
Sramana Mitra (photo left)
How do you propose to reach one million entrepreneurs to reach that $1 million revenue stage?
Sramana Mitra: By getting them to adopt best practices, helping them avoid common mistakes. Mistakes in financing strategy, mistakes in positioning, mistakes in go to market strategy. People often think being an entrepreneur is about raising money asap. Wrong. Being a successful entrepreneur is about crafting a business that can have customers, revenues, and profits. My goal is to teach them the mechanics of this "crafting". I do this using the Entrepreneur Journeys book series where I have captured the tribal knowledge and wisdom of proven entrepreneurs who have freely and generously shared their learnings. I want entrepreneurs to learn the craft and become master craftsmen themselves.
How can your key concepts of bootstrapping, crisp positioning, and laser sharp focus help entrepreneurs achieve the $1 million dollar revenue level?
Sramana Mitra: Take the example of Greg Gianforte, CEO of RightNow, whose story I have told in the Bootstrapping, Weapon Of Mass Reconstruction book. Greg did not write a line of code until he called a hundred potential customers and asked whether they found his concept compelling. Not until he had a clear sense of what the customer pain point was, did he start building a product. This is an example of the kind of things savvy bootstrappers do.
Naive entrepreneurs build an entire product before speaking with a single customer or prospect. And this kind of early validation leads to your positioning. You figure out the value proposition of your product, and then gradually build out a full positioning and go to market strategy based on methodology I have discussed in the Positioning: How To Test Validate and Bring Your Idea To Market book. The books are all full of these nuggets, and I am thrilled that many entrepreneurs around the world are using them to develop themselves. It's the kind of common sense wisdom that I wish I had access to when I started out.
You are proposing a major entrepreneur education program. What does that program involve?
Sramana Mitra: For the moment, I am piloting an online roundtable program where entrepreneurs pitch me their ideas and I give them feedback. I have coached over 75 entrepreneurs in this mode already, and the program is very well received. It runs like an online reality show, where five entrepreneurs pitch and interact with me, while another 1000 can listen and learn. I am offering these as a free weekly program. And through this, I am learning firsthand what the entrepreneurs need, and will layer in additional educational and other kinds of offerings over time.
What resources have you already put into place to achieve your very ambitious goals?
Sramana Mitra: My blog, Sramana Mitra on Strategy, has freely accessible interviews with some 150 successful entrepreneurs in various domains. The Entrepreneur Journeys book series, including Entrepreneur Journeys (Vol. 1), Bootstrapping: Weapon Of Mass Reconstruction (Vol. 2), and Positioning: How To Test, Validate, and Bring Your Idea To Market (Vol. 3), conveys key concepts through the stories of dozens of successful entrepreneurs.
Vision India 2020, coming in February is a very interesting new book. Set in the year 2020, the book looks back on the building of 45 entrepreneurial ventures in India from start-up to $1 billion enterprise, all while pointing to the many business opportunities I see in India today. The Roundtables. I am working on a social media outreach right now.
You organize and run a very successful series of entrepreneur roundtables. How can an entrepreneur participate in these roundtable discussions?
Sramana Mitra: You can find more details and register here.
How can people get rid of the fear of becoming an entrepreneur and take that critical first step on the journey?
Sramana Mitra: By developing a personal philosophy. I have addressed this in the epilogue of my Bootstrapping book. I am a very big believer in philosophy. It is the cornerstone of a successful life, and not just a successful professional career.
How can other entrepreneurs and business people help you help other entrepreneurs succeed?
Sramana Mitra: There are a number of ways. I am working with many such people in various geographies who are helping me build relationships with entrepreneurship development organizations around the world-communities, universities, alumni networks-places where entrepreneurs normally go to find help and support. I am always in need of more hands to make this movement spread far and wide. I am always eager to collaborate with leaders who can take the movement further, adding to it their own creativity and enthusiasm. I plan to play the role of a facilitator, but this, I hope will become a global movement. What I am doing is to create a framework and a methodology that entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship development groups all over the world can use to become successful.
What is next for Sramana Mitra?
Sramana Mitra: LOL. Next? Execution. Execution. Execution.
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My book review of Entrepreneur Journeys: Bootstrapping, Weapon Of Mass Reconstruction by Sramana Mitra.
My book review of Entrepreneur Journeys Volume 3 - Positioning: How To Test, Validate, And Bring Your Idea To Market by Sramana Mitra.
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