Page 22 - Transforming an Idea Into a Business with Design Thinking

Chapter 1

Democratizing
Entrepreneurship

With the famed stories of entrepreneurial stalwarts like Bill Gates, Steve
Wozniak, Steve Jobs, Bill Hewlett and David Packard, Mark Zuckerberg,
Peter Thiel, Elon Musk and the like, entrepreneurship has been perceived
as the realm of elite workaholics who are passionate about their vision and
achieved their vision through supernatural drive and perseverance in the
face of adversity.

Although mostly grounded in some reality, that perception has also
caused the masses to believe that entrepreneurship is not for all. There are
two types of perspectives in this regard.

The first perspective comes from those people who are not tech savvy
but have an idea of a solution to a problem they have uncovered. In some
cases, they may also not have a real understanding of the problem facing a
specific segment of people. However, because of their lack of understand-
ing of technology, they tend to believe they cannot do anything with their
ideas.

The other perspective comes from tech-savvy individuals who might be
even working as product managers in technology companies. This perspec-
tive is based on their perception about the complexity of the process of
moving their ideas from napkin to a business. Essentially, they do not know
how to move their idea forward. This group also has the tendency of falling
in love with the technological solution they have conceived and they do not
appreciate the importance of understanding the problem first.

1