Being a successful startup requires certain amounts of assets, effort, and creativity. Being a successful entrepreneur means a person takes responsibility for each of these areas. We often hear the number one reason for failing/failed startups is lack of capital assets. The importance of solid effort cannot be understated, and no one needs to elaborate on why creativity is important. But these areas can all be benefited from the leveraging of social capital.
Here at Global AEBD, we help people improve their assets, in terms of human assets. By all means these assets can and often do have a financial value. The pre-startup phase is an excellent opportunity to gather large value from the largest diversity of sources. As a startup matures, the needs for human contribution become more specific. In essence, the value a human exchange can provide to an entrepreneur is to minimize the apparent effort barriers of successful startups. These effort barriers may be knowledge barriers, motivational barriers, time barriers, opportunity barriers, and many others. But, working with other people, or leveraging them, can help reduce these barriers. For example, working with other people can help you feel more legitimized when you ask for financial support. Others can help mitigate the stress associated with doing certain tasks (for example things that are too technical, or too extroverted). Furthermore, they can focus an entrepreneurs efforts towards practicals and tangibles. Even if an entrepreneur goes it alone, other people can provide encouragement and very practical knowledge.
The professional connections one makes can drive a pre-startup past the legitimacy threshold to become a full startup. These connections can be partners, workers, investors, business clients, a business-level partnership, or a very dedicated mentor to name a few. This legitimacy improves the confidence of an entrepreneur, and creates opportunity. Ultimately, if an individual entrepreneur is unable to move forward from a pre-startup phase, then ’partnering’ with a person who can be very practical, with good goal-setting, can be of tremendous value. I use partnering in the sense of getting very close to someone on a regular and prolonged basis, whether it be a founding partner, a mentor, or a life-coach. Leveraging the knowledge of someone else, as you can do here on Global AEBD, often means learning from someone who has had to do the practical things that create success.