Why Do You Want To Start A Company?

5th July, 2013. My friend Stephen founded The Mentorpreneurship Group shortly after I met him at Singapore Business Startups meetup, hosted by my dear friend Thomas a day before. Within a month, I joined him as co-host and we hosted 10 meetups together. Our mission is to help individuals make meaningful connections that will help them in their businesses or lives. I am thankful to have the privilege to talk to entrepreneurs from various industries and individuals from all works of life, who seek advice and opportunities on starting something on their own. In our conversations, the typical question that always happen to pop-up now and then is "Why Do You Want To Start A Company?".

Let's explore some of the reasons that give birth to start-ups we see today.

1. You earn more money than working for someone else in the long run.
2. You are better off working hard for yourself rather than working for someone else. You control your own destiny and have something you own at the end of the day.
3. You believe that your noble idea can change the world for the better.
4. Working for yourself means you can manage your own time and choose where you want to work. Create your own work/life balance.
5. You follow your passion and make something different for yourself and love ones.

These are definitely great reasons, but on the other side of the weighing scale are the uncertainties that are holding some inspiring entrepreneurs back.

1. Do I know enough to get started?
2. Do I know the industry and market well enough?
3. Do I have enough people who want to buy the product?
4. Can I make enough money to get by, before the real money comes in?
5. I have a comfortable job, is it worth the risk?
6. What happens if the business does not workout?
7. What happens if the business does workout? Do I have the capacity to run it? 

To get pass these uncertainties you will need to take the leap of faith. Let's say you manage to get pass that and have a couple of ideas in mind. How do you select the idea that you are most interested in?

In If You Want To Be A Sucessful Entrepreneur, Start Here, Paul B. Brown mentioned that when you start a company you need to know your desire and understand what you really want. That should be the first step towards becoming an entrepreneur.

Unless you truly want to make something happen, the odds are nothing will. Without that desire, nothing else matters…or occurs. Your life will be filled in other ways.

In his article, Paul also mentioned that your actions speak for themselves. Ask the people around you, by just looking at the majority of your time spent. Can they identify with what you are trying to accomplish? If they are not able to, you are probably not clear on what you want and what you want to do. To make things happen you need to take the necessary actions and not just think about it. Create steps and take action.

In How to Become Your Own Boss, Tamara Monosoff shared that to identify the right business for you. You need to be willing to look at different aspects, the unique qualities of yourself and trust your intuition. You tend to disregard this gut feeling as uncomfortable and uncertain, but deep down inside you know it is the right thing to do.

The Lean Transformation Methodology is created with the purpose to help you set personal goals and find out what you want through short iterations. It is a systematic process that helps your understand yourself better and figure out what you truly desire in the shortest time possible. To understand how The Lean Transformation Methodology works, please refer to the link.

The Lean Transformation Methodology

The Lean Transformation Methodology is heavily action-driven, you figure out your personal goal and objectives by eliminating them quickly. If your idea for a start-up is inline with one or more objectives you have a desire idea fit. It is worth spending the time figuring out that personal goal and objectives that you can strongly relate to. Take as many iterations as needed to figure out what you want and what you want to do with your life. If you ask me when you should quit your job and start your own company. The Lean Transformation Methodology will tell you when the time is right.

The Discovery Of The Lean Transformation Methodology

Over the years, in my personal development journey I have been wondering. There is a system for this, a methodology for that, and life-cycles for all beginnings and ends. Why are non simple, straight forward and practical? It should be as simple as find what you love, do what you love. It needs to transcend all genders, races, cultures, religions, nationalities, political opinions, backgrounds and perceptions. It needs to work on the core desire to make a better life for yourself that is like no other. Then I thought to myself, if you cannot find one that works for you, create one. That was what I did.

The Lean Transformation Methodology is created with the purpose to help individuals set personal goals and find out what they want through short iterations. The Lean Transformation Methodology is conceptualized with these guiding principles.

1. Life with a purpose is a fundamental need ...It is like fuel for the soul, our purpose is what drives us.
2. Discover your purpose, set a personal goal ...Our personal goal can be our purpose. The Lean Transformation Methodology is created to validate that.
3. Our objectives guide our personal goal ...With a personal goal in mind, our objectives are focused on achieving that goal.
4. Our moral compass guides us ...Everyone of us has a moral compass that helps us determine if our objectives are desirable.
5. Consciously aware of our objectives and actions  ...We need to be aware of our objectives and actions and how it will affect the outcome of our goal. This can be done by weighting the changes and determine what is desirable.

And 1 law

1. Making uncomfortable, comfortable ...Transformation happens at the point when you start to feel uncomfortable. It is natural for us to shy away from discomfort, but if you do it often enough. We start to get  comfortable with with discomfort. When we start to cross boundaries of what we thought was possible, there is no limit to what we can achieve.

The Lean Transformation Methodology

My personal goal and life purpose is to change the world by improving the quality of lives, companies and the communities. Hi, I am Rendy. I lead team, product, and technology development at Human Network Labs (HNL). A freelance yoga instructor certified by AMYA. This is my story of how the desire to make HNL an amazing company lead me on a journey of learning and the discovery of The Lean Transformation Methodology.

Back in August 2013, my friend Stephen and I signed up for a entrepreneur workshop sponsored by ACE Singapore. During the workshop, one of the mentor, Dr Alex Lin taught us to write down our personal goals. Before we start a company, we need to know what we want. This was what I wrote

To make life better for me and the people around me.

During the review, we were told that if we do not include ourselves in the personal goal it is just another laundry list. We were taught to rewrite our personal goal to include ourselves in the personal goal (Refer to The Lean Transformation Methodology in 10mins, down below). During the next review, many questions were asked, for example "Should our goal be vague or specific?". We were not given a straight forward answer and was asked to question our personal goal. If you feel good about it, make it your goal.

I am the fortunate few who knew exactly what we wanted and this was what I wrote 

I want to change the world!

Ever since I was young, I feel that something needs to be done to stop hunger in Africa and how I wished at that time there was something I could do, or could have done. The same reason why I joined HNL, with the hope that one day our technology can bring real-time location intelligence to the things around you.

After the workshop, I started to share what I have learned with family and friends. I talked to a number of people from entrepreneurs, financial advisers to working professionals, whom I met in different meetup events. From The Mentorpreneurship Group, that Stephen and I co-hosted, to meetup groups like Singapore Lean Startup Circle and Singapore Business Startups. The more people I talked to the more I realized that many people shared the same fundamental problem of writing down their personal goal. They can write down multiple goals, but non of them they can really associate with. 

With a background in agile project management in Scrum and Kanban, active in Agile Singapore meetup events and conference. Heavily influenced, by my yoga therapy and meditation practices and the Lean Startup Machine workshop I attended back in September 2013. I gave birth to The Lean Transformation Methodology, an iterative approach to personal goal setting. There is time and space for everything in your life. With a better understanding of yourself, what you want and uncertainties, much can be achieved in the shortest time possible.

The Lean Transformation Methodology in 10mins

1. Set a personal goal starting with "I want to ..." (2-3mins) e.g. I want to change the world!
2. Create 3 objectives, each objective starting with "I am [your goal] by ...." (2-3mins) e.g. I am changing the world by improving the quality of lives, companies and the communities.
3. Arrange the objectives in the order of how important does it contribute to your goal.
4. Follow the guiding principles and 1 law mentioned above. 

The Lean Transformation Methodology is heavily action driven, you figure out your personal goal and objectives by eliminating them quickly. You build up confidence, mental strength and endurance along the way and you start to trust yourself more the more you understand yourself. You will realize that the only way to deal with uncertainties is to take action on what is within your control.

I am exploring how The Lean Transformation Methodology can be used for the following

1. Starting a company an objective of your personal goal.
2. Finding the co-founder that shares one or more objectives.
3. Defining the company culture through shared objectives.
4. Recruiting candidates that share the same objectives.
5. Finding the career that meets your objectives.
6. Re-prioritize life at different stages.

If you love what you see subscribe to my blog. If you have any questions you can drop me an email rendy@theculturetherapist.com