Entrepreneurial Mindset: Create Value For Others

Creating value for others is the core of the entrepreneurial mindset. It enables the exchange of value that fuels entrepreneur’s efforts to bring new ideas and products to market.

Dan Sullivan: Entrepreneurs Make Two Decisions

In “The Great Crossover,” Dan Sullivan offers the following insight on entrepreneurial mindset:

Successful entrepreneurs differ from other people–not in their abilities but in their mindset. They have internalized two fundamental commitments, by making these two decisions:

• Decision 1: To depend entirely on their own abilities for their financial security, because they realize that the only security is the security they create themselves.
• Decision 2: To expect opportunity only by creating value for others, because they understand that this is the only unlimited source of economic opportunity.

These Two Decisions Form the Entrepreneurial Mindset

I think these decisions are transformational and lead to

• The recognition of personal limitations that are either addressed by ongoing self-improvement efforts or by partnering with others who have complementary strengths.
• You cannot rely on only self-assessment but must also actively solicit feedback from team members, customers, partners, and other members of the communities you are part of.
• A commitment to the exchange of value for value, of quid pro quo. This does not preclude acts of generosity and kindness.

Creating Value With Others: Individuals, Teams, Communities of Practice

Creating value for others–and with others–means that you have to form effective working relationships:

• With other individual entrepreneurs and experts,
• By joining or forming teams to launch to launch new initiatives, projects, products, and businesses,
• Cultivating communities of practice through active participation in conversations, constructive critique, and contributing “works in progress” for feedback and review.

When Tim O’Reilly advises entrepreneurs to “create more value than you capture” he is offering another perspective on the same entrepreneurial mindset.

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• Tim O’Reilly: “Work On Stuff That Matters“
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• Entrepreneurs Need a Community of Practice, Not a Movement
• The Startup Mythology of Silicon Valley
• Stoking The Star Maker Machinery Behind the Popular App