Most entrepreneurs sneer at the idea of working for a big corporate or medium sized business on the path to becoming the next big thing. It’s not popular these days to have a “boring” day job that doesn’t involve the hustle and bustle of being an entrepreneur.
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But before you judge the corporate drones and feel sorry for them and their life choices, it seems fair to have a look at some of the lessons being a part of a corporate can teach you about running your own company and succeeding. Being involved in a big company or simply working for someone is a good way to understand an industry and provides exposure to opportunities and ideas.
Though it is debatable whether or not you can be taught how to become an entrepreneur, it is clear that there are some very basic lessons that a day job can teach about being better at it. Here are a few.
Structure and processes — Having the proper structure is crucial to a business. Working for a big company helps you understand the various structures that are involved in running a business. The interesting thing about this is that you can improve on areas where the structures of your old job were inefficient because you’ve seen what works and doesn’t. Most entrepreneurs probably think that processes are a corporate’s way of slowing down change and innovative thinking. Perhaps, but having the right processes also means you don’t get sued, cheated and forget documentation crucial to a deal.
Leadership — People say as an entrepreneur you don’t have to be a good leader, you can just hire someone else to run things. That’s great but before you can afford to hire someone to run things you need to lead the tiny team you have and be smart about fund-raising. If you have worked in a corporate job and excelled at it, managing teams of people can be quite beneficial when it comes to organising your business. Opportunities like that teach you about management styles that work and how to handle a managerial crisis. Whether or not you want to be a leader, as entrepreneur, it’s quite irrelevant because at some point you have to lead your own company in some way.
Operations and good admin — Bills need to get paid, salaries need to be paid and someone has to make sure your taxes are in order. Sure you can hire someone to sort things like this out — and you should — but you need to know what needs to be done and understand it. Running a business means that you know and understand everything that is going on in the business, especially when it is a startup. Being a manager in a big or biggish corporate that had to approve payroll and accounts could come in handy when you set up similar processes for your own company.
A network to call on — One of the great things about being a wheeler-dealer is access. Being a corporate drone does that for you: it gives you access to people, access to places and access to resources. People always underestimate the power of having a good and reliable network when it comes to running their own business. As a startup, the more people you know in your industry that are willing to help in one way or another, the better — aspects like access to places, where to get things, resources who can afford to invest and which companies you can look at partnering or collaborating with. Network, very important.
