Passion

In class this week, we practiced and presented our elevator pitch. I've always been very financially oriented given the fact that I have a concentration in finance. I think that I know the things that should be in an elevator pitch. You need to tell someone about the company and explain it so they can see the feasibility of it. You need to tell someone, assuming that it is an investor how much money you need from them, what kind of equity they will get, and most importantly how much they will get in return for their investment. However, the one thing that I think was missing from our discussion was passion. The investor isn't investing in a company, they are investing in you. My thoughts for this week have to do with being a passionate person so that people will buy in your idea. You have to be someone who "wears their emotion on their sleeve". If you are not passionate, how can you expect other people to be. This is difficult for me. For me, and I would imagine a ton of people, its hard for me to put myself out there, especially someone I've never met before largely because I'm somewhat afraid of failure, and putting an idea out there for other people to hear means that they will be aware if I fail as well. I think part of being an entrepreneur is not being afraid to fail. Think about the many people that have failed multiple times before achieving success. Donal Trump's companies have filed for bankruptcy multiple times! If you are afraid to fail, then you will never achieve anything. When you think about it, the most successful people are those that have taken risks. In order to be a successful entrepreneurs, but moreover successful in life, you have to be willing to take risks. For me, this means putting your ideas out there, knowing they may fail, but being confident that you can figure out a way to make it work.