To Be an Entrepreneur, You Must Start Somewhere — I Started in Project Management
Here’s the why, the how, the good, the bad, the entrepreneurial mindset, and the skill sets.
Entrepreneurship is tricky.
You cannot really learn it. I mean, you can learn parts of it from books and in professional development classes. Finance, marketing, accounting, and operations fall into this category.
But you cannot learn…
- Sales,
- Crisis management,
- Human resource management,
- Contingency planning,
- Business partnerships,
- Risk management,
- Rachet protection,
… passively. These are real-life practicums. You got to work it to acquire it.
It begets the next question. Where can we find such experiences?
My answer is project management.
1. The Stepping Stone to Entrepreneurship
If you have ever worked on projects before — You know one thing.
Projects are challenging.
Here’s how and why.
- Endless planning sessions.
- Near impossible timelines.
- High probability of failure.
- Annoying stakeholders.
- Sea-level low budgets.
- No available resource.
- Endless tasks.
It brings me to my next point. You are operating alone at maximum capacity and competence, especially if you are managing the project.
There are constraints everywhere. You develop resourcefulness and creativity from it.
Trust me. This is the perfect training ground for aspiring entrepreneurs.
2. You Cannot Hide
As employees, we can hide behind our boss’s incompetence.
“See, I told you! He has no management skills!”
That is irrelevant in the world of projects.
I started my consulting career in software projects. It was a brutal business. We commit our energy, attention, and skills to deliver work by the project completion date.
Nothing else matters.
- 500 software bugs? Fix them.
- Requirement gap? Close it.
- Deployment failure? Redo.
We learned to leave our excuses at home. At work, it is about relentless forward movement.
Tap, tap, tap, tap. Left, right, left, right. Next, next, next, next.
No one, not even our teammates, is interested in excuses.
Our mantra is simple. Finish our tasks, move on, clear the work, report, and head home. That is it.
You cannot hide. Everyone knows it when you fall behind.
It instilled a sense of individual responsibility and task urgency. I learned to keep up, keep moving, and keep the momentum going.
3. The Truth is In the Timeline
Client satisfaction is our North Star.
The only thing that aligns our clients with us is the project timeline. It spells out,
- Financial milestones,
- Delivery milestones,
- When Hell ends.
You see… clients working on projects have daily operational work to complete. Projects represent an additional workload. No one liked it.
Clients want the project done so that they can return to their daily work.
It forces us to focus on the timely delivery of our core deliverables. Our clients push us hard for it.
Think about it this way.
Clients are like famished diners.
They want to eat now. Feed them.
Giving the client what they want is smart. Giving them anything else satisfy peripheral demands.
Remember. They are hungry. They need food. Serving them an elegant porcelain plate with no food on it serves no purpose.
Projects teach us to focus on what really matters. It is a challenging but necessary lesson for managing client expectations.
Meet it first.
Exceed it later.
4. In Projects, Failure is The Norm. Embrace It.
According to Upwork,
… Despite all the hard work, 65% of projects fail. That means a lot of resources are wasted and benefits unrealized.
That is 7 out of 10 projects, folks.
The point is not about failing. It is about acquiring experience.
You want to avoid failing big in your future business. Instead, fail small, fail fast. Go experience different types of project failures for 5 years.
And learn to get back up after suffering a setback. And the next. And the next.
Battle scars grow a Lion’s Heart. It gets bigger and stronger with time and experience.
5. Annoying Clients, Shallow Budgets, Endless Tasks
Project managers face this all the time. The same applies to aspiring entrepreneurs.
It teaches us the importance of,
- Selling products and services at a higher margin,
- Building contingency for potential screwups,
- Relying on ourselves as a default.
It prepares us for the harsh realities of the business world.
Risk management to project managers is like accounting to Warren Buffett. With time, we naturally gravitate towards protecting our contractual positions.
And then, you realize that perpetual firefighting cannot be the default. It is too tiring. And your profits get eroded.
You will figure out, as I did, ways to increase price points and reduce the cost of service to increase your profits.
I learned to sell better and deliver work more efficiently after every project.
With cost and time contingency baked in, of course.
6. The Ability to Go 1 Against Many
Let me share a current project I am running.
I was tasked to close the physical office of the Asia-Pacific operations. To do so, I need to,
- Review all service contracts for early-termination clauses with my legal counsel.
- Speak to the finance manager to confirm the value of office assets.
- Draft the Statement of Work for the principal contractor.
- Engage interior designers for office reinstatement.
- Present the overall budget with the C.F.O.
I get to touch all parts of the business.
It allowed me to comprehend the languages of different domains and what they seek in terms of their work.
It also gave me invaluable insights into running a business and the diverse expertise necessary to keep us going. That is the value of project management.
You get to work with people with diverse skill sets. You groom business skill sets beyond your professional domain.
This, in my opinion, accelerates our entrepreneurial journey. This is because entrepreneurs must engage with people from all walks of professional life.
We cannot avoid it.
Parting Keynotes
It is hard to get entrepreneurial experience indirectly.
There are no online courses to take or internships to apply to. Project management can help to fill this gap.
Because running a project is like running a small business.
You get to,
- Focus on getting work done instead of spitting excuses.
- Align yourself and the client with one timeline.
- Embrace failure.
- Practice risk management.
- Work with professionals across all domains.
All of these prepare you for the business world in the future.
This is the best form of training for our entrepreneurial journey.
Nothing else comes close.
As a content contributor, I write my daily life observations and business exposure. Our life experience is the bedrock of our unique perspectives.