When I sit back and think about how I became an entrepreneur I recognise that my entire career has pivoted around just 2 words. Strangely enough they are F words.  Fear and Fun

Fear and Fun are the two most powerful motivators in most people and especially in entrepreneurs

It is often referred to as towards and away motivation. When you learn which drives you as a person it gives you the tools to overcome weakness. When you learn to identify it in others it gives you a better insight into how to approach them.  You will see how powerful this is.

This month I want to go for the Fun and in June we can discuss Fear.

 When I was 12 on the first long summer holidays of secondary school, none of the other kids on my street had a functioning bicycle. I wanted to go riding bikes but had to do it alone which was no fun. Simply, to resolve my problem I needed to find a way to get the other kids bikes working. 

My solution was to Fix everyone else’s bike and charge the parents for it. It was a steep learning curve for me but it worked on 3 levels

  1. It worked for the parents on 3 levels
    1. PRICE as my rates were half that of the bicycle shop
    2. CONVENIENCE - The parents didn’t have to put the bike in the car and go to the shop and come back a week later and so on. So I solved a problem the parents didn’t even know they had; and I did it before the problem got too large.
  2. Most important to the parents the kids were occupied all day every day, didn’t get bored and only came home for food – Leaving the parents free of grumpy bored kids and able to do what they needed or wanted to do.
  3. From my point of view it worked really well too
    1. My initial problem was now gone – We could all wander together just as I had wanted
    2. The work arrived with minimum marketing - the other kids nagged the parents (they wanted it to stop – that is away motivation)
    3. My pockets were jingling – I had unexpected funds
    4. This was likely to continue as there were over 60 kids with bikes on my street alone, older and younger but I had a monopoly as the only one with the technical skill

In short I had a sustainable source of repeating income. I had a sustainable business.  And that Business could support my lifestyle very nicely thank you.

If we take this over simplified story and we dissect it a bit here is what we find.

  1. A ready market with low competition and a well identified point of pain for the target customer
  2. The market is stable or growing
  3. The target customer will pay the desired price
  4. A new entrant to that market which meets the target customers’ needs with a really strong value proposition
  5. An aggressive Marketing strategy (other nagging kids
  6. An easily grown business

Everything here has a positive outcome  and I had extra money for more FUN.

Why wouldn’t I repeat the experience? Fun and profit are now in the same sentence in my 12 year old head. I get endorphins from the positive emotions and it is like it says on the shampoo bottle instructions:  REPEAT

Fun is a vital part of the business experience. If the foundations are laid the fun follows. You will notice that it all springs from multiple pain points for the real customer – The parents

So the Learning

Start with the customer. Taking their money is a lot of fun and we all know ‘The best advertisement is a happy customer

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *