Bill Gates is one of the most successful entrepreneurs ever. With the success of Microsoft, he holds his position tight on the list of richest people. However, like almost all other entrepreneurs, he didn’t have it easy and continues to be humble even after making it big.
Here are five entrepreneurial lessons every budding entrepreneur can learn from Bill Gates:
1. Innovation is the key to success
“The most important speed issue is often not technical but cultural. It’s convincing everyone that the company’s survival depends on moving as fast as possible.” – Bill Gates
With technology and the startup culture evolving at a break neck speed, one has to up their game to remain in the competition. Innovation is the basis for entrepreneurship and the idea is what makes or breaks your business. Even though he is very successful, Gates still believes in never stopping the process of innovation. From Microsoft, he switched to Bill and Melinda Gates foundation which he believes is his way of giving back to the society.
2. Time is valuable
Bill Gates has often valued time over everything else. Bill gates quotes “No matter how much money you have, you can’t buy more time” which clearly shows how much importance he gives to time on his list. Time once gone can never come back no matter how much money you make. The hours you waste today cannot be made up for with currency notes. Gates teaches us to give importance to and respect time. Like him, all budding entrepreneurs should learn to make the most of their time by investing it into importing priorities. Unimportant meetings can be sacrificed for more important things which is how an important person actually respects time.
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3. Don’t be afraid to choose the road unexplored
Most people find comfort in going down a path is already taken and assures success. However, the richest man in the world begs to differ. Bill Gates once said “to win big, you sometimes have to take big risks”. He believes that if people have the courage to go down the unexplored road and venture into territories which are relatively untapped, one is bound to gain more success. His strong belief in this theory is what led him to believe in Microsoft and making it work.
4. Never stop trying
Most budding entrepreneurs tend to give up after the first sign of failure. This is the worst approach to entrepreneurship as one needs to try many time before actually succeeding and making it big in the entrepreneurial world. Bill Gates, one of the greatest entrepreneurs also faced trouble in the initial years before succeeding. People hardly know that before Microsoft, he set up Traf-O-data, started with his partner P. Allen, which aimed to process and analyze data from traffic. Unfortunately for him, Traf-O-data was a big-time failure which buried him in debts. He took this failure as a lesson and went on to start Microsoft and the world is aware of the rest. Budding entrepreneurs can learn to never give up on their dreams come what may from this man.
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5. Draw lessons from dissatisfied clients
“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning” -Bill Gates.
Everyday, an entrepreneur has to face an array of clients some of whom are satisfied and the rest not very happy. Gates believes that the dissatisfied clients are the ones who can teach us various lessons about what is wrong with the venture and also suggest things that can be improved upon. An entrepreneur should enjoy positive feedback but at the same time shouldn’t ignore critique from an unhappy client.
We hope this article will help you on your entrepreneurial journey. Also, try and incorporate Bill Gates’ lessons wherever you can in life because it is always better to learn from superiors.