GETTING SOMETHING DONE (PART 1)

It is common for young people to dream and desire what they want to do in future. This behavioural trend hardly leaves even when they become young adult. Nevertheless, the desire to do something great and become someone spectacular also comes with a price. The price is the determination to overcome whatever challenges may prevent one from reaching that dream.

                For some people, the challenge may be lack of funds to transform and sustain the dream from its intangible form into full manifestation. For others, it may be lack of network of people that will help to build and shape the idea or promote its success. Lack of either or both factors often turn ideas into precious burdens or procrastination channels for most people.

                I remember when I was in the university, I and two friends started brainstorming on a business we could do while studying and soon realized that there was no barbing saloon in our neighbourhood. Anyone who wanted to have their hair cut had to take a cab to town or trek across the school into another neighbourhood where a barbing saloon was already existing. Our neighbourhood contained hundreds, if not thousands, of male residents. To say the least, this means that about five hundred potential customers were available for the business to thrive. Yet, no one had started equipping an obvious barbing saloon at that time.

                Myself and these friends eventually thought of starting a barbing saloon business on a landed property near our hostels. We planned to use a metallic cabin and had figured out that a portion of the land could be leased to us. We were still putting plans together when one of us brought in a negative report. He had approached one of the more experienced students that we revered in a religious organization I also attended and had discussed our business plan with him. The guy he approached gave him enough reasons why we should not come together to start the business. The reasons ranged from potential academic challenge to possible negative factors, and even the fact that one of us was going to migrate from campus to continue his education in a neighbouring state.  At this point, starting capital was not our challenge because our plans on funding was very feasible. However, we needed to leverage on reliable network to solve potential challenges while building the business. These ranged from knowing the right person to speak to about the landed property to getting night security coverage and increasing free publicity.

                However, we got enough reasons to not do the business as an early feedback, procrastinated for a while and eventually forgot about the idea. The positivity of three people could not overcome the negativity of one person who was not even a co-founder. We wanted to leverage on someone for guidance to succeed but were shown reasons why the idea would not work. Yet, telling someone who had the funds seemed like an obvious trap because who else has the power to steal an idea except he who already has the wherewithal and does not really owe you?

                Few months after we slowed down and forgot about the business, we saw a barbing saloon start up in that neighbourhood. In fact, it was very close to where we had planned to establish our own. The only difference was that they had waited for a shopping complex to be completed and had rented a room in it to do the business. When my friends and I saw it. We realized the truth in the axiom that when you want to do something, you should just do it. We realized that we were not the only ones thinking of starting the business. When you have an idea, don’t think you are the only one receiving the hunch. Ideas come from somewhere and if you don’t use them, someone else would.

To be continued...