Some people become founders by chance, others are born with the entrepreneurial spirit, inherit it from their family, or grow up in environments that force them to hustle. In our experience, there is no prerequisite for starting a company. The market does not make much about aesthetics behind the creators of products and services. Create a good enough solution to a pesky problem whether it enhances value or reduces friction for the customer at scale and you are off to a great start. But what enables some to make the leap while others prefer a stable job, the nine to five majority the workforce is composed of? We wondered about this question while writing this book. And it has to do with having a startup mindset.
All forms of entrepreneurship revolve around a notion of providing some sort of access to a product but startups, in particular, couple engineering talent to create innovative products and services that are only as good as how the market consumes that technology. Running a startup involves a lot of risks whether it is the obvious financial pressure or emotional drawback that comes with the day-to-day. There is the ubiquitous presence of weighing the notion that this can fail vs the guarantees a stable profession provides. For those who dare to build something that can stand on its own through hard work it is vital to examine one’s energy levels and commitment; think long and hard about how ideas can gain validation and have proof of concept.