In "Over Their Head" Entrepreneurial Types

IN OVER THEIR HEAD venturing types are entrepreneurs by desire and have resources (cash, contacts, experience, infrastructure, technology, etc.), but are operating in uncharted waters. This fairly rare situation generally occurs when you stray outside your “zone of extraordinary capability” (in other words, trying to expand a business, diversify, or operate in an “unfamiliar field or industry”). Where your entrepreneurial instincts served you well in familiar territory, they are of little use in an area that requires additional or radically different expertise. Accordingly, IN OVER THEIR HEAD profile types resort to guesswork (rather than being able to disce if a venture is “on” or “off” course based on its compliance with the “entrepreneurial success script”). And your start up guessing is handicapped by knowledge that you find compelling, convincing and persuasive, but is contradictory. (“It's not what you don't know that hurts you; it's what you know that ain't so!”-- Will Rogers). IN OVER THEIR HEAD entrepreneurial types are subject to thinking and investing errors and are made worse by frustration, discouragement and genuine surprise that the old formula doesn’t work in the new territory. All of this represents obstacles to completing the re-write of the “expert script”, which is required for navigating in these new waters. What You Should Do to enhance the Start Up process If you’re already immersed in a new venture and a Venture Capital—chin up and keep swimming! Tenacity and persistence have great value in such situations. If you haven’t left the shore—don’t jump in quite yet, at least until you’ve developed the knowledge framework of venture capital, entrepreneur details, investors, startups, and private equity for you to be able to disce when the type of venture you are interested in has “strayed off course”. A note for those who are “swimming” already: Call in an experienced strategic venture expert to help you to determine the boundary of your own target zone, and the appropriate strategic moves to either optimize entrepreneurial venture (create the “expert script” for a success), or to cut your losses (abandon the venture). If you are, for example, an expert in another field, consider getting back to your own “knit ting”, where the coordinates for success are clear, and all the guesswork is not required. SOURCES: Dr. Ronald K. Mitchell, CPA, Ph.D and Howard Mitchell