The Journey of a Social Entrepreneur
The entrepreneurial journey is full of twists and turns. Ideas and opportunities come and go. Even successful ventures do not turn out exactly the way a founder envisioned. All the many "pivots" (a now cliched word that hardly captures the creativity and determination required to execute them well) of this journey on display in last week's Peer to Peer Master Class but more importantly, Sulaiman Rashid, our student instructor for the day, displayed the ingenuity and resilience necessary to thrive amidst these changes.
Sulaiman walked the audience through the tremendous number of ventures he had started (going back into his early adolescence). They ranged across many disciplines and industries: fashion, social media, travel, design, the arts etc. Sulaiman was and is driven by a single question: what good can I do right now. This bias towards action has led him to develop a rare but vital skill amongst innovators: the ability to abandon a project quickly. While this may seem strange at first, the discussion highlighted the vital importance of divesting from an idea that is not gaining traction. This spares the entrepreneur and their beneficiary from a pointless waste of time, money, and energy. From Sulaiman's perspective, no one solution is as important as solving an actual problem.
Sulaiman also encouraged the audience to take something from every experience they have, be it a job, traveling, or just wandering through their own community. Every experience is an opportunity for inspiration and you never know when the raw materials of your own experiences will coalesce into an innovation.
Sulaiman's Peer to Peer Master Class is now available in our Resource Library. To never miss a Hatchery event subscribe to our newsletter.
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