Have you always dreamed of becoming an entrepreneur? I did. And I made it happen. In this post, I will tell you how to become an entrepreneur based on my own personal experience.
Let me tell you a story. There was once a girl who decided to get her masters in accounting. She did so well in her accounting undergraduate coursework that the professors let her skip some classes in favor of other MBA coursework. Now, this girl always dreamed of being an entrepreneur. She was only getting her masters in accounting because it was supposed to be a good background for running a business. As soon as the fall course schedule arrived and she saw the “Intro to Entrepreneurship” MBA class, she signed up immediately. She was practically giddy with excitement!
Finally, the first day of school came. She barely restrained herself from skipping into the “Intro to Entrepreneurship” classroom… but only barely. It never occurred to her that as the youngest in the class, she ought to be self-conscious. As the professor shushed the room and approached the podium, she sat up straighter, eager to learn.
“Why do you want to be an entrepreneur?” the professor asked.
Her hand raced to the ceiling.
“Yes?” the professor asked as every head turned towards her.
“I want to build something bigger than me. To create something that’s meaningful and changes lives.”
A pause.
The first laugh was big, the kind of belly laugh you hear after an unexpectedly good joke. And then another jolt of laughter, and another, and another… until finally the professor yelled at the room, “QUIET!”
“What a dumb answer,” one of the MBA students said.
“Oh? And why do you want to start a business?” the professor asked.
“To make money, of course,” replied the MBA student.
“Ah. Money will only motivate you for so long. She” – as the professor pointed to the girl – “has the right idea. It won’t be easy being an entrepreneur, and if money is your only motivation, then you will surely fail.”
In case you haven’t guessed, that girl was me. That was the first time I expressed my desire to be an entrepreneur to a large group of people, and I was literally laughed out of the room. What I’d like to say to that room full of MBAs is: who’s laughing now? I did start a business, and we built it on the premise that we’re automating boring tasks that make people’s lives better. And in the process, we’re gathering even more data that improves (and will eventually automate more) decisions.
I shared this story for two reasons:
- If you’re starting a business solely for the money, stop now and go back to climbing the corporate ladder.
- The critical first step in any entrepreneur’s journey is the toughest: identify a problem to solve and by solving it, create value.
Identify a Problem to Solve and Create Value by Solving that Problem
Here’s how I identified a problem to solve. From the few conversations that I’ve had with prospective investors, I’m told it’s the ideal founder story. Take that for what it’s worth (which is hopefully a LOT of money someday).
- I started my career in public accounting, as planned. I gained invaluable experience about the financial aspects of running a company.
- After I essentially aced the CPA exam and won a national award for doing so, I leveraged that to land a job in real estate. I’d heard that it was a good, stable industry to be in. Now, to be fully transparent, I completely lucked into working at a private equity real estate firm. I had no idea that most people have to slave away for years in investment banking first! The PE firm’s hiring committee were mostly ex-CPAs and impressed by my CPA exam scores. Luck + skill for the win.
- Once I started at the PE real estate firm, I immediately realized how spoiled I’d been with the technology at PwC. My first task was to manage a team of interns typing up PDF documents into massive Excel spreadsheets. I then combined those spreadsheets into more spreadsheets. It was painful. Like I physically hurt to think about it now. We had to do this because of the firm’s setup. We were what’s called an allocator. We partnered with operators via joint ventures, and those operators managed the day-to-day of the real estate that we jointly purchased. This meant that all of our data lived on other firm’s systems. And those systems didn’t have a standard way to send us our data.
- Fortunately, I knew a thing or two about programming. My older brother is a software architect, my younger brother is a data engineer, and my romantic partner at the time was a front-end developer. I was surrounded by people who knew how to automate these things. So I polled the audience. Asked what tech I should use to make this better. Then I bought books, read blogs, and tested code until I automated as much as I could. Identify a problem to solve: check!
- With the executive team’s permission, I began seeking public speaking opportunities. I was a tour guide in college, and I love having a captive audience for my “Dad” jokes. Plus, it seemed like my colleagues who spoke at conferences were getting promoted faster. From what I could tell, the data we gathered and were visualizing was unusual in the industry and seemed like a good thing to talk about. And oh boy, it was! Eventually, our firm had the opportunity to present at PREA, which is one of the largest real estate conferences in the U.S. I was chosen to speak. Afterwards, I was inundated with emails, LinkedIn messages, and calendar invites. This was the first time I realized that having better data would create value for other real estate firms. Check and check!
Kayo Women in Real Estate (my first panel). What a powerhouse group of women!
Figure Out How to Solve that Problem Better Than the Competition
What I didn’t have was a better way of solving my PE real estate firm’s problem. I’m the first to admit that I’m a self-taught developer. While we had grown the data team to an awesome group of people, we were limited in that none of us had ever worked as a data architect, or even better, a data architect in real estate. We were doing the best that we could with the skills that we had. Our processes worked well for a single firm. However, they weren’t scalable.
Let’s make some noooiiiiiiiiseee! Shine those bright lights on over to my cofounder, Vimal Vachhani!
A mutual friend introduced Vimal and me. More on this story later. Meeting Vimal, well, that was business at first phone call. Our skills perfectly matched. He was a seasoned data architect with 17 years total work experience and 10 in real estate specifically. Vimal knew exactly how to write code that pulls data out of archaic real estate software and make it into a usable data model. He wanted to start a business because he felt like he wrote the same code over and over again, meaning that it could be a SaaS solution. My dream come true! Plus, I knew the metrics that real estate firms wanted to monitor as well as generally how these firms work. We were the perfect fit.
At the PE real estate firm, I managed the tech budget and interviewed vendors. This meant that 1) I knew how much real estate firms were willing to pay for our software 2) I’d seen and/or tried most of our competition. With our powers combined, I knew we could build a better, more affordable solution.
How to Become an Entrepreneur
Investors like our story because we both had direct experience with the problem that we’re solving, and we know firsthand how it creates value for our customers.
My advice to aspiring entrepreneurs is this. Go work in the industry that you’re most interested in. Take an entry level job doing menial work. Figure out how to automate it. Or, identify problems that cause issues in meaningful processes. Then, figure out how to eliminate those problems and issues. It’s not glamorous, but it does work.
A Note on Passion
As an aside, you must be passionate about the industry or the problem. That will make the tough days easier. I’m passionate about automating data gathering jobs in real estate because those jobs are primarily held by women. I believe that if we automate these tasks, these women will have to be given other, better opportunities. Given the focus on diversity, firms need to keep women and minorities employed. After automation, women will have the opportunity to demonstrate their value. This is based on my personal experience. I created opportunities for myself at my former PE real estate firm, and I plan on creating them at as many other real estate firms as possible.
What Are You Waiting For?
Go start that dream business! Or as a first step towards your dream, get that menial job in an industry you love!
As Hipolito said, “We pass the time of day to forget how time passes.” Don’t pass the time aimlessly. Build your purpose. Work every day towards your startup goals. I believe in you. Believe in yourself, too.
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