Entrepreneurship

A couple of days back I had the privilege to meet a very successful entrepreneur. This post is regarding that unforgettable experience.
I had heard the saying many times “To do BIG one needs to THINK BIG”, but I realized its significance only on that day. From the whole experience I learnt two things in short, the value of entrepreneurship and second, the importance of thinking big and achieving it.
It is very easy to take up a job and sit and listen to what goals need to be achieved from the person above you, even if it means slogging like a dog because, at the end of the day, its not your money that is on the line. What you risk is one meager job, while what you may have done to lose it may be a blunder costing millions of dollars. But when it is your money that’s on the line, each step you take will be given the value it rightfully deserves. But the obvious problem in this whole idea is that if a person wants to be a successful entrepreneur and do really well, he has to think really big and out of the box, and also have the guts to carry it out, knowing well that that a mistake may cause catastrophe.
The person I had the opportunity of meeting built a huge mall, a multiplex, a residential complex, a corporate complex, a hospital, schools and a 3 hotels (a 5star,a 3star and a 7star), a convention center, a stadium and an opera theatre all in one area next to each other. Basically what he did is that he built the best ever foundation that could be provided to an area that was once not even heard of. This is what I believe is entrepreneurship. Sure, he will make a lot of money etc. but everything that he has done results in only one thing-development of the country. Throughout the whole meeting, I was struck by the amount of social responsibility that an entrepreneur carries and the good the he/she can do if he/she wants. The second thing I was struck about was the sheer guts of the whole idea. Each building that was being built had something different about it i.e.: stood out either in the country or in the whole world, and hence would be enormously expensive. The thing to admire about the whole venture is that it was not necessary to make buildings of that caliber, because it is very evident that the way the Indian population is growing, there is no doubt that his venture will be a great success no matter the quality. Yet he did it. Why? To ensure that the city develops to be one of the best in the nation and hence follows the idea given by our President A.P.J.Abdul Kalam, that after the metropolitan cities, there is a need for a number of cities to develop to the level of metropolitan city if vision 2020 is to be reached.
Such a great success obviously must have had even greater risks. The important thing to note about this venture was that the person itself undertook the entire investment. Hence all his money was on the line, not like a company that takes money from the public. Of course, due to this the profit would also be the company’s alone, but that is not the point. The point is that when a person envisages something so different and so huge, even with all the preparation and assessment, it is an enormous decision to go with it. The conviction of the person in the endavour is what I feel is a thing to learn.
With such a successful venture, a hundred people could live generation after generation on the rent etc of the constructions built. But the plans of the company are quite different. Now, the company proposes to built a whopping 20 cities of this sort, all having one thing in common-It has to be the best in its area. One can imagine what a boost this would be to the economy of the country, with the employment opportunities, the infrastructure, the education, the availability of medical aid and so on and so forth. This I believe is the trademark of a successful entrepreneur. Once a venture is successful, to forget about it and have the fire in the belly for an even bigger venture.
This whole experience was an eye-opener for me, and that is why I am posting it. Any comments or discussions would be greatly appreciated