In the early 90s, soon after I completed my Engineering and MBA education, I tried to start a small scale confectionary industry. At the time I was still a dependent and did not have financial freedom or independence to make decisions. So naturally I did not succeed. Everybody had opinions and comments about why entrepreneurship is a bad idea.
As far back as I can remember my life, I always wanted to be an entrepreneur. In 5th grade when asked to write an essay about my life’s goal, I wrote that I wanted to be an Engineer and manufacture automobiles. So, everything I did in the last 30 years was just preparation for starting CMIT solutions of Cary-Apex. I went through a full gamut of engineering and management experience. I was a management trainee at a mining company, project engineer at a steel company, project manager for a mineral water plant and project management consultant to a world’s top soft drink company. I worked in all phases of concept to commissioning.
In the late 90s, I reinvented myself and went back to education and spent couple of years learning programming C to Java and XML to Oracle. I started my career at the starting block as a programmer and spent the last 17 years in various positions at the world’s #1 networking company.
Why did I want to be an entrepreneur? My answer was to compare entrepreneurship to parenthood. A parent gives birth to his child and does everything in his power to nurture, teach and make his child into a good human being and an asset to his society. An entrepreneur starts a company, builds it into a productive entity that provides employment, serves the community in which it exists and contributes to the nation’s economy.
I can provide employment enabling my staff to have a better quality and standard of living. I provide service to other businesses that help them improve their profits and grow their business. This increase in revenue strengthens an economy and promotes the overall welfare of the population. I can help other businesses adopt new technologies and innovations contributing to overall economic development and promoting efficiency.
For me, there is no cause more noble than entrepreneurship.