Wednesday, June 06, 2007

“Interesting” people encountered during my entrepreneurship venture

Ever since I ventured into the uncharted waters, I had encountered a lot of “interesting” people. Much more compared to the days when I was still a software/R&D engineer. The interesting part is, not only did I meet new people with interesting attitudes or characteristics, my existing friends and associates had also exhibited similarly interesting sides of them. I shall just categorize them to better illustrate their uniquely interesting traits:

1. The Advisors
This group of people have inborn advisors’ mentality. They are always eager to offer their advices, even if nobody requested for them. I had no problems with people giving me free advices on how to manage a company, although most of them do not have the adequate knowledge or experiences. Normally, I would just listen to them patiently.

However, some advisors are not contented with just giving advices. Sometimes, they would argue with you passionately and insist that you should implement what they suggested. That’s where I would get a little piss off. If these advisors really felt so strongly and passionately about something, maybe they should try to do something themselves. Instead, they prefer to sit in their own comfort zone and force people to heed their advices.

2. The Analysts

This group of people loves to analyze. Particularly, they love to analyze how you will eventually fail. They like to analyze your business model, your operational cost, your profit margin, your market sector, etc. And very often, they will reach the conclusion that your business / company cannot survive.

Again, I have nothing against people who gives me free analysis. However, this group of people should also realize that there is only so much that one can see from the outside. There are many other factors like the roadmap of the company, the changes/maturity of existing market, the R&D and technology management, new opportunities, new team members, etc. All these factors contribute to the success/failure of a company, and they are often not readily revealed to outsiders like the analysts group of people.

Sometimes I can’t help but to feel a bit bizarre about the actual thoughts of the analysts. Why is it that this group of people loves to analyze how you will fail? I sort of smelled some sour-grapes in them. Perhaps some people do not enjoy witnessing other people’s success, as it would remind them of their own lack of courage to pursue their dreams.

3. The Whiners

The whiners complain about almost everything. They attribute their reluctance in pursuing their dreams to lots of external factors, but fail to see that maybe the greatest factor of all is their own inabilities and fear. It’s easy to whine and point fingers, and perhaps it is self-comforting for this group of people to view themselves as victims of circumstances. But if you have the time to whine over and over again, you would probably be better off if you start to do something about it.

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