The Job of an Entrepreneur It is often said that the responsibility of an entrepreneur is to make a better product at a better price. I think it’s something greater than that. The job of an entrepreneur is to better serve more people and to make the world a better place. When I was younger, I started the Velcro® wallet craze and followed it up with the show wallet and finally by creating rock and roll memorabilia. None of those products made the world a better place. In fact, I shut down these businesses when I discovered that these products were making the world a worse place. I visited my factory in China only to learn that children were making my products and in very dangerous conditions. Money is not worth hurting children. My eyes opened right then. My eyes shifted to see the world as a true entrepreneur sees the world. I learned the hard way that entrepreneurs have a duty to make the world a better place. Sometimes that means we solve a problem and sometimes it means we bring enlightenment. Bringing enlightenment is why Kim and I created the CASHFLOW® board game and wrote Rich Dad Poor Dad. It’s also why Kim and I created the Rich Dad Poor Dad application for mobile devices. With this new edition, we can reach more people and more effectively teach the lessons that have made us successful. We can better serve more people. Entrepreneurs Velocity People will often rest on their past successes. Entrepreneurs do not have that luxury. I have a poster hanging in my office that says, “No one cares about your past successes.” Entrepreneurs cannot lose momentum and we must look forward. We must keep pushing. We must keep serving. We must maintain our velocity. I watched as the book publishing industry slowly began to decline. I could have waited to see how, or if, they were going to embrace the digital age, but then I would have lost momentum. I would have placed my mission and serving the world on hold. That is not what an entrepreneur does. Entrepreneurs solve problems; we serve and we lead. So, my teams at The Rich Dad Company created Rich Dad Poor Dad powered by Clutch Learning. We did not just convert Rich Dad Poor Dad into an eBook (we did that a few years ago); we optimized it to take advantage of the methodologies that people learn best from and for interfaces like smartphones and tablets that people are using today. That is what entrepreneurs do: We push the envelope, We improve, We find opportunities, We solve problems, and we make the world a better place. Not an Author, An Entrepreneur The crisis in the publishing industry might have scared most authors, but I’m not an author. I am an entrepreneur. So instead of being scared, I looked until I discovered an opportunity. Now that books are digital, books can be so much more than just words. Books can be interactive and really help the viewer learn more, with greater retention, faster. We took Rich Dad Poor Dad and turned it into a complete learning application with simulations, animations, motion graphics, social sharing, gaming features and much more. We looked at Rich Dad Poor Dad through the eyes of an entrepreneur. We focused on that book with the mindset of an entrepreneur. We asked: How can we make it better? How can we make the world better? How can we serve more people? How can we keep the momentum? What is the challenge? How can we turn this into an opportunity? How can we lead? The Entrepreneur’s Higher Purpose Being an entrepreneur is like kind to pursuing a higher purpose. Entrepreneurs understand that what they do creates jobs, helping people and serving the world. Those higher purposes are far more important than pride or fear. Rich Dad Poor Dad started simply as a book to promote our CASHFLOW® board game. It grew to become the #1 bestselling personal finance book of all time. My pride could have demanded that we never change. My pride could have said that Rich Dad Poor Dad, in its original form, helped tens of millions. Why change it? Fear could have demanded that the world is changing too fast and that I should wait and see what happens first. Fear could have told me to allow someone else to test the market with a new digital platform. After all, why change now? But, I am not an author. I am an entrepreneur. I take risks and I lead. And so the world of publishing is going to change, and I bet it is going to follow the lead of the new interactive Rich Dad Poor Dad powered by Clutch Learning. The Rich Dad Company is serving more people and making the world better. That’s what entrepreneurs do. Vital Siemini
Posted on: Wed, 30 Oct 2013 18:46:54 +0000
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