Being myself a college dropout, I completely understand the meaning of freedom when it comes to execution of ideas which is beyond college. What’s more important is to understand why did they drop out from college. While the majority of the students drop out because of high fees structure, a small section of students drop out because they were not made to be trained to become an employee. This doesn’t mean that those who complete degrees are only employees but multiple data shows most of the college dropouts worked on their ideas and changed the world year after year.
Their stories inspire me at every stage of work. What’s more interesting is their thought processes and taking decisions on their assumptions. Here are four things which have influenced me from Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, and Mark Zuckerberg
1. Willing to take risk: left college degree
Michael Dell enrolled in University of Houston as a pre-med student in 1983. From early ages, he was more inclined towards computers and by end of his first semester, he started buying remaindered, outmoded PCs from local retailers. He started selling them after upgrading. In his first month in business, Dell sold some $180,000 worth of PCs. Thereafter dell decided to expand and dropout college.
“You don’t have to be a genius or a visionary or even a college graduate to be successful. You just need a framework and a dream.”-Michael Dell
Fun fact: “Before Steve Jobs left Reed College, he took a calligraphy class that later inspired him to include a wide range of fonts (vs. one standard text) on the first Macs. Thus, one could argue computers have fonts because of Steve Jobs.”
Mark Zuckerberg left school in 2005 temporarily to put more time on his startup thefacebook.com. It later almost in a year became the second-largest social media website along with being listed in top 10 high traffic websites on the internet, according to BetaBoston.
A Common reason why these entrepreneurs left college was to follow their dream. Their vision was very clear and more important was their belief in their idea. What’s more important to start working on an idea is to believe in your idea and then nothing is impossible after that.
2.Believe in your dream:
Always believe in your dream and once you are sure what are doing is what you want to do. Once you are sure what you are doing can help people to solve their problem. Once you are sure what are doing can be intuitive and can save people’s money than pack your product as a dream. Every dream as a product and sell it. Trust me, you are not selling just a cake or a car or a computer or a software or anything but something that can touch people’s heart. Because people care about themselves, their hopes, their ambition. Hence it’s important to believe in what you are working on day one.
“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you’ll know when you find it.” – Steve Jobs
Sometimes it’s just important to start an idea then to just work on full validation considering several product stages from day one. In Zuckerberg’s case, he was having no idea how big Facebook can become when he started.
“I remember the night I launched Facebook from my little dorm,” remembers Zuckerberg. “I remember telling [a friend] I was excited to connect the Harvard community, but one day someone would connect the whole world.
“IF I HAD TO UNDERSTAND EVERYTHING ABOUT CONNECTING PEOPLE BEFORE I BEGAN, I NEVER WOULD HAVE STARTED FACEBOOK.”- Mark Zuckerberg
3. Just Do it: if you believe in it
It’s important to understand yourself and importance of your heart at certain periods of time. One such important time is when you plan to leave your job or college or both and hop into the execution of your idea. An idea that has never been developed as it is going to be done now. An idea that has never been developed as it is going to be developed now. That’s where you are sure and believe in your idea and it’s time to say Just do it without thinking too much.
‘I just do what I think is right… it’s been working so far’- Michael Dell
“If you just work on stuff that you like and you’re passionate about, you don’t have to have a master plan with how things will play out.”- Mark Zuckerberg
“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”- Steve Jobs
The blue ocean strategy is a business concept where instead of competing with competitors, one can create a completely new market. Blue ocean strategy leads to Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant. The term Blue Ocean came from the book “Blue Ocean Strategy” (Harvard Business Review Press, expanded edition, 2015), by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne.
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Steve Jobs was a blue ocean strategist, he never aimed benchmark his competitors but like blue ocean strategist, he aims to make the competition irrelevant by offering a leap in value to buyers that changes the contours of the market.
Even most of the challenging hurdles in an entrepreneurial journey can be taken care if a person has a really strong belief in his idea. His idea can be small or big but what’s more crucial is the execution at right time. What I believe is to learn from successful and unsuccessful entrepreneurs. Learn what risks made them successful and what risks made others unsuccessful. From Jobs, Zuckerberg and Dell’s life, one thing is very clear that you need to have the courage to take a risk for your idea. Once you take the risk, there is no chance of failure. If you don’t get success then you learn. When you learn then you try again as the quote “Try try until you succeed”
Originally published at www.digitalasif.com