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How else can we measure success in entrepreneurship?

In this video, several entrepreneurs with different motivations explain how they measure success.
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well a business is successful obviously when it meets its financial targets we all have to eat and drink and live somewhere so we do need to make a profit and I think a real good definition of success is where you’ve met all your financial targets but also you have a happy and fulfilled workforce you’re creating employment and generally you’re just benefitting the whole community around you obviously in addition to that if you’re producing a product that people like and people enjoy maybe as I hope with this to be an iconic product that’s also very much the icing on the cake there’s plenty of companies out there that bear the name of the founder and the founder maybe has long gone but their legacy lives on and very often even after they’re gone the company has grown and really become something very very special you know for me it’s always about a legacy so you know my driver as an entrepreneur is to create something that’s going to change the face of the market I mean so I love market disruptive models because you’re looking at something that’s been in place for so many years and you say well actually let’s-there’s got to be a better way to do that I think it comes down to to what drives you as an individual you know for me it’s a legacy you know it’s the whole you know having individuals working in a business where they enjoy coming to work where they enjoy the whole you know making a difference you know fighting against the established business etc and for me that’s what I love you know I love that whole sort of seeing individuals walking out the business happy and delighted and and proud to come in on a Monday morning and go wow I’m here at work you know the to me I have a saying you know I always say to my friends I’m not motivated by by money I’m motivated by what money can enable me to do so the success of a business enables me to then create more success for other individuals I think for me a successful business will then do something for wider community wider society as part of its trading so that it will be able to justify its existence in terms so I’m gonna call it a scales of justice which makes it feel very theatrical in terms of its social good which means that at the very least for me it’s social impact should be positive across all of its activities and I’d expect to see that framed within its business planning so that it’s business planning doesn’t just talk about the widget that it produces but it talks about how it produces the widget and its environmental cost and whether it’s employing people locally and whether their conditions are good and whether they’re proud to work there whether that feeds into a wider sense of community and wellness so yes success for me as a business goes beyond narrow profit and loss and it’s about sustainability and I’d hope within that sustainable Network there’s other businesses that are looking to if not all that are looking to transform the social economic environment so that collectively we’re in a better place and because collectively we’re in a better place we’re as a society in a more sustainable place and we’re more resilient to the challenges that will come our way

As we have learned, one of the common beliefs in entrepreneurship is that success is measured by wealth. Being financially motivated can be seen as the norm in entrepreneurship.

However, when we analyse the tribes we can see that people’s values motivate them in different ways. Some strive for quality of life, some for social good, some are capitalising on a hobby and some become entrepreneurs as a basic necessity.

Watch the video to hear three different perspectives on success in entrepreneurship from Mike Dickison, Associate Dean, Enterprise and Commercial at Coventry University and leader of the Sparrowhawk Project; Kufakunesu Matiya, entrepreneur; and Dr Richard Tomlins, Research Associate, International Centre of Transformational Entrepreneurship (ICTE) at Coventry University.

Your task

Which idea of success from the video most closely aligns with your goals?

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Demystifying Entrepreneurship: How to Think Like an Entrepreneur

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