When Richard Branson started his first business as a 15 year-old the word entrepreneur didn’t even exist.
But he has always been a risk-taker, an adventurer and never been afraid of a challenge. He says it is time for the Norwegian people to let themselves be a little bit more uncomfortable in order to become a successful entrepreneur.
* – If I had taken the Norwegian approach of hiding under a bush nobody would have known that Virgin Atlantic excited, Branson said.
– If I feel that something is not being done well enough by somebody, then I just give it a go. Sometimes I fall flat on the face, and other times it turns out successful. You never know, but I always enjoy doing it.
In Norway he believes it is more difficult to become a true entrepreneur due to the fact that we are a both privileged and well educated.
– If you go to college or university and finish by the time you are 22-23, you would have learned a lot but you may already have an apartment, a mortgage, and responsibilities.
Branson explains that it may seem more comfortable to get a job somewhere rather than actually taking the risk of becoming an entrepreneur.
– For people in Norway they have to fight even harder in their own brains to make themselves a little uncomfortable, just to get out there and start a business, compared to some other countries where they got nothing to lose.
“It is easier to become a successful entrepreneur in Africa than in Norway”
Branson and his company does a lot of work in Africa. They provide mentors and give advice to the students of the Entrepreneur School in Johannesburg so they have a chance to succeed and to survive.
— These entrepreneurs have nothing to lose. They are incredibly creative, and a lot of them are actually creating clean energy revolution in Africa, Branson said.
— They are putting solar panels on people’s roofs, and because there is no electricity in these villages they´re starting with a clean slate. I think in some ways it is easier for an African to become an entrepreneur than a Norwegian.
To those who wants to start their own company, what is your key business advice?
– If anybody has an idea that they think will make peoples lives better, then they have business. And that is all it is. If you have an idea that is not going to make peoples lives better then you´re not going to have an business. So if you´re idea is going to make people smile and transform their lives, the key thing is to “just do it”, and then you have become an entrepreneur, Branson said.
Read more: Top 10 quotes from Richard Branson
– I learned a lot of delegation early on and the best of advice I can give to anybody starting on their business is to quickly find somebody who is better than you to run the business on a day-to-day basis. Don´t feel like you have to be doing everything by yourself. That gives you free time to dream about other things and to look after yourself and your family.
*(In response to “janteloven/the Norwegian law of jante”).
spot on…