Editor’s note: This article was first published in June 2013. Dell is described as the third-largest PC maker, and this crisis refers to the post-2008 downturn. Dell went private later in 2013, and its ranking has changed since.
Michael Dell recently gave a talk to a group of Indian startups and offered some advice for entrepreneurs.
His message: be a little crazier and don’t ask for so much advice about your business ideas. The successful entrepreneurs will be the ones who venture to do what others don’t dare to, because if it were obvious that an idea would work, everyone would already be doing it. In business you have to be somewhat crazy, at least in the eyes of others.
Dell says he didn’t ask for much advice himself. Had he told his friends and family what he was about to do, they would all have told him not to go into that business because it wouldn’t work. Had he asked for advice, he says, they would have talked him out of taking the risk.
He also thinks planning a business idea is fine but generally overrated, since some entrepreneurs spend more time planning than the business ends up lasting. You have to try things and experiment: test quickly and either succeed quickly or fail quickly. In his own case, he says, he experimented, tested fast and got there fast.
Remember that Michael Dell founded his company in 1984 with just $1,000 at the age of 19, going on to become the youngest chief executive on the Fortune 500 list. Dell is the third-largest PC maker and probably one of the companies that truly revolutionized the industry.
He also stressed, as reported by IndiaTimes, that in this crisis small businesses have great opportunities, because for the first time any entrepreneur or small company has access to technology tools that used to be within reach only of large corporations.
Further reading
- Bill Gates: “3 things I learned from Warren Buffett”
- Warren Buffett’s advice for women in business
- How to turn your idea into a business in 11 steps, by Stephen Key
Featured image: Village Global, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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