Entrepreneur

“Are entrepreneurs born or taught?” This was the question asked on on the first day of lectures at the Masters of Entrepreneurship and Innovation (Swinburne) David commenced in 2008.

While it’s a fair question, I venture that Swinburne has a conflict of interest, as an organisation that seeks to teach this to students! Their answer was that entrepreneurship is a set of behaviours, and as such can indeed be taught.

I think some aspects of entrepreneurship – the appetite for risk, the passion and creativity in starting a new business – are very innate. Growing up around a family business and working there from a young age meant that being in business seemed like the only career path for me.

That said, I didn’t take the direct path. After completing an undergrad in maths, statistics and computer science, I chose not to join the family business. Getting a job on my own merits was very important, so that’s what I did.

But even working on a job “9-5” didn’t feel right. So after a few years, I left and began my own journey as an entrepreneur.

That journey started small: I was a self-employed software developer, and also importing some software tools. In Robert Kiyosaki terms, I owned a job, not a business.

After a few years of doing that, eventually employing a small team, I was fortunate to come across an opportunity to develop a telecommunications billing system for a client. This was at a time when the industry in Australia was deregulating, and a business connection referred me some other companies in need to help with billing. That was the light bulb moment when I decided to pivot from selling time – going from one software project to another – to selling IP – having my own technology that we could sell over and over again.

That led to business growth, starting two other telecommunications businesses and partnering in two others. In parallel with that, I had also joined a few non-profit boards. That stage of the business had its ups and downs, and eventually I created an advisory board for the billing business, and did that Masters of Entrepreneurship.

That in turn led to what’s now my third career as a family enterprise advisor.