Entrepreneurs without Money (XXXV): Summary and conclusions.
Entrepreneurs without money started on July 4th, the day for remembrance of the United States Independence. We started to write with the idea to nourish us in relation to the theme entrepreneurship. As much as the political parties are the object of attention for politics experts, in my personal case, the private sector is my area of domain. And all private companies have started as entrepreneurs. Private companies (Small, medium and big corporations or multinationals), all of them have started as entrepreneurs.
Let´s start: God has given us the blessing to think, to plan, to act, to earn our own money by designing, creating and selling products and services. Anyone who starts a company is an entrepreneur.
The saga “Entrepreneurs without money” initiated by asking ourselves why entrepreneurs fail. A popular adagio, “for each successful entrepreneur company, another one won´t be able to be victorious, and it will fail in the intent”. How could this be possible? We explored three of the main reasons: 1) There is no market demand; 2) Running out of money, 3) Incorrect team of people.
Infographic: The 20 Most Common Reasons Startups Fail and How to Avoid Them. Source: Entrepreneur.com
Eleonora Escalante Strategy believes entrepreneurship projects or startup companies fail simply because we start them when we are not ready. Period. We are rushing to set our entrepreneurial endeavors when we are not well equipped nor capable to do them. Either because we don´t have the financial strength to surpass the “valley of death”, or we don´t have the right background, or we have designed a wrong business model, or we have not chosen the right team of people. In one phrase, we do not take our time to prepare ourselves for the entrepreneur journey.
The entrepreneurial profile required for success comprises several attributes, which we visited one by one. Let´s reminisce them: Passion for what we do, wise use of money, resilience, long-term vision, balance, healthy lifestyle, financial wisdom, daily learning attitude. In addition, we can add, persistence and strength.
By the end of July, we also dispatched the subject “Money for nothing?. Is the entrepreneurial activity seen as a cost or as an investment?”. We published in three segments: (1) We went through a general introduction about inventors and entrepreneurs which changed the world; (2) the second share was about showing you how entrepreneurs are financed in the different stages of their businesses evolution (who invests in them, what type of financing is available, where do they find the money, and why do they ask for money). And (3) the last portion, why do we need to conceive a new financing model for entrepreneurs for the next generations.
Ernst & Young prepared a visualization graph for the Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) funding instruments, which I recreated it in the latter PowerPoint slide.
Afterward, we spent a couple of weeks explaining to you why it is so essential to know which stage we are in our entrepreneurial journey. There are various phases: Pre-seed, seed, start-up, emerging rapid growth and expansion. Many entrepreneurs believe that they have achieved the level of start-up when in reality they are still in the stage pre-seed or seed, doing Research and Development or testing several pilot projects.
The worst thing an entrepreneur in pre-seed or seed phases can do is to look for a bank loan or credit card funding. It is the worst recipe for sinking your boat before starting to sail. Please don´t go to fund yourself using credit when you are still in the “Valley of Death” stage. Loans are instruments to use when you are already in the emerging rapid growth phase, and your business has proven to give you positive free-cashflows.
Osterwalder-Pigneur Business Model Canvas
During the month of August, we also understood which are the entrepreneurial nurturing conditions in order to build successful start-ups. We encourage entrepreneurs to educate themselves in terms of all the elements required for the entrepreneurship journey. (1) The more educated and experienced you are, the better solid foundation you will have for your start-up. (2) Get your business model right. And (3) particularly, the Entrepreneurship ecosystem has to help individuals to become successful owners´start-ups. If something is failing in that ecosystem, or some elements are missing, or the entrepreneurship ecosystem is not orchestrated with harmony, then entrepreneurs will fail. The entrepreneurial ecosystem is another key success factor for creating successful endeavors.
Finally, we spend the last 8 weeks explaining the different contexts of the entrepreneurial contextual analysis, do you remember?
Salvadoran Lilliputians before the China Gulliver. Image Source: BBC Gulliver’s Travels: Part 1: Voyage to Lilliput
These contexts have been explained in detail using a potential project El Salvador Possible Entrepreneurship Journey with China. We dedicated enough time for each of the contexts, offering the basic questions to ask ourselves when performing each context analysis. Please revisit each post from the months of September and October. We put all our efforts to deliver the essence of the entrepreneurial contextual analysis. Nevertheless, if other contexts are of relevant weight such as the ideology, the religious or the military context, it is important to scale from thirteen to sixteen contexts. Please read the following link to evoke again the methodology utilized for this framework:
Can Gulliver China, Europe, and Americans (all working together) help to save the Salvadoran Lilliputians?
The great conclusion of our 35 episodes from the saga “Entrepreneurs without money” is: Every entrepreneurial effort is more than just trying to invent things and sell them. It requires a critical preparation, solid internal ethical values, specific attributes, devotion, and love for what you do, time, a good team, financial resources, an excellent entrepreneurial ecosystem, previous studies and experience, a well-crafted business model and at least an entrepreneurial contextual analysis, carefully done. 
Pray to God every day for your business. Make it beautiful for Him. Praise God with your daily entrepreneur efforts. God is the inspirator of every “chef d´ouvre” we do. Professor Teeth from the University of Berkeley has stated: “Get the business model wrong, and there is almost no chance of success”. We go for the extra-mile, believe that your business will be successful if you are well prepared if you are ethical and put Jesus-Christ at the core of it. We encourage to sail our entrepreneurship journey with the best tools we can procure, so when the waves of the ocean try to crash our efforts, we will be totally equipped to survive… We will be able to emerge successfully from the “valley of death”. Jesus words remind us about it.
THE END.
Now, what´s next for us? During the months of November and December, we will write about the following topic: “Integral Education for Emerging Markets: Strategic challenges and a Road-map ahead”. I will try to write it from the perspective of how would I like my future babies to be educated. I wish to have one or two little girls with my fiancé Alejandro Lozano Artolachipi, and I wish for our kids and the kids of the world, the most balanced-beautiful education we can provide.
Stay tuned, our sailing journey continues.
Disclaimer: All the presentation slides shown on this blog are prepared by Eleonora Escalante MBA-MEng. Nevertheless, all the pictures or videos shown on this blog are not mine. I do not own any of the lovely photos or images posted unless otherwise stated.
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