Conformity comes in many ways, the most common being manifested as fear. We like where we are, we like security. In fact, if we follow Maslow’s hierarchy of needs we are very happy to have a secure portion of Fruit Loops on our table everyday. So this is the first thing we need to fight to start a business. Security. Job Security. 

Job Security is as fake as the ability of the keyboard cat to play the piano. The reason why job security is fake is that we’re in a market economy and as part of the system businesses will be here one day and be gone the next day. So if we want real security we should start building ourselves. To build real security we need to be sure we have the skills to be able to scan the market for opportunities, the ability to learn fast so we can reinvent ourselves and the resilience to come back if we fail one, two or three times.

We need to be aware that though we may have changed the recording in our brains we are at risk of going back to the old programming if we listen too much to what people say. The usual speech goes with going for the safe paycheck, that the economy is rough, that nine out of every ten new businesses never make it and so on. We’ve already talked about the non-existing safe paycheck, so let’s talk about the economy. The economy is down because companies are failing to serve the new markets that are emerging. For sure they are the same people, but this people have different needs. These needs are being met by new companies (maybe that’s why the recession didn’t affect many technology firms) that are focused on the customer instead of profits and the ones that haven’t lost focus on what needs to be done to be a successful in the market. We’re now in an era of Customer Centric Capitalism, people matter and their opinions matter a lot more now because everyone has a voice that can be heard. The opportunity is right in front of us, before people wanted something and they were given another thing and they didn’t have a choice. Now companies and starters can listen and respond to specific market requirements, which will create a million niche markets around the world that can be supplied by new companies. 

Another advantage that a down economy gives starters is that it sparks creativity to make things happen with less resources and to bootstrap the start of a company. If you are able to pull it off in a down economy you’ll have a company with lean operations for a rising economy that will be sustained by it’s fast moving backbone. Having lean operations gives enough margin to be prepared for any surprises that may occur and being in a down economy gives us the chance to have less margin for adding fat to the organization. We don’t need two people answering the phones when everybody can answer theirs and we don’t need big office spaces if we can all make it from a coworking space. 

The odds we’re against are pretty bad. I can’t hide those numbers. Nine ouf of every ten new ventures goes out of business this is not only in the United States (where the number originally comes from) it’s true almost everywhere in the world. Having those odds may scare a lot of people from starting a business. But it shouldn’t stop us. Fear sometimes paralyzes people, when it comes to starting fear should be the fuel that moves us. A serious starter will face those odds because she should be a serious student of what’s happening in the market, the probabilities and the real opportunities out there. The nine businesses that fail are built with below the bar thinking, below the bar performance and below the bar plans. To be the one that survives you need to work hard in planning, executing and rethinking when things don’t go according. Hard work makes the difference and, in case you haven’t heard it, probabilities can change. So maybe in ten years eight out of ten will fail and in one hundred years it could be 5 out of ten. Probabilities are not static and that’s why we should’t take them as if they were a fact that is true forever. 

Starting a business also requires some basic commitments. The first one is to seek learning from day 1. In order to do a business we need to be looking for opportunities, listening to the experience and insights from other people and looking to get the experience where it matters. The learning process in business in different than in school, learning involves trying, volunteering, having conversations, walking and observing people. Starters should dedicate most of their time studying people and what motivates us. There are many ways of doing this, observation is the first big resource as we can see what sparks start fires in us, reading helps a lot too. There is a myriad of books on motivation (Predictably Irrational and Drive are two of them) that have scientifically backed data on how we behave.

Starting a business is a way to avoid showing conformity with what is given to us and a way to stand up and start a change.