How well can entrepreneurs do if they take or don’t take risk? What can affect their decision making? Is it their experience ?Is it emotions? what about the quality of decision making ? do they always make the right decisions? How can an entrepreneurs improve their decision making ? Is it ok to make mistakes ? In this post I will focus on risk taking and status quo bias. The rest of questions posed earlier regarding the quality and improvement of decision making will be discussed in another post.
What does status quo mean ?
In marketing and economic psychology researchers use the term “status quo bias”. What does it mean anyway? It means (for entrepreneurs) to accept,do or follow the same choices that have been done or chosen before without changing anything. Entrepreneurs have been studied in research whether they fall under this phenomenon (status quo bias) or not. Well it appears that there are all types. Some small business owners prefer the status quo and don’t like to take risk (risk averse), while others take risk. The degree of risk also varies.Studies showed that small business entrepreneurs take more risk than big business owners or bankers. Entrepreneurs are also known of their use of heuristics and rely on their experience which researchers consider a type of status quo because they rely on their past experience. So in order for the entrepreneur to be status quo-free he/she must always be opened to new ideas and be willing to share with fresh minds.
What makes entrepreneurs take risk ?
Entrepreneurs are always optimists and enthusiastic to explore and discover new opportunities, find new technologies, to expand and grow & to be creative and build innovation. Sometime entrepreneurs appear to be over confident in their decision making , but confidence can be useful in some occasions.
Is it ok to make mistakes ?
“ A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new ” Albert Einstein.
The entrepreneurial tip of the day: Learn to take risk but above all, master the craft of managing risk.
InteractiveME.com : A blog that covers interactive media, internet start-ups, and social media in the Middle East .
StartupArabia.com : A blog that profiles and reviews Arab start-ups .
Yallastartup.org: Q&A platform for start-ups and a blog too, you can read frequent asked questions by your industry peers and specially in your region.
Intheloop.me : A social network for entrepreneurs in the Middle East.
ArabCrunch.com : is a professional Blog, that is dedicated to profiling and reviewing Arab originated tech startups.
Salambc.com: Salam Business Club is One of the fastest growing online business networks for professionals in the MENA region.
I have been searching for Arab entrepreneurs from the Middle East or the MENA region, because most of my time was spent on Western start ups. There is nothing wrong with that, it’s just I want to spot entrepreneurship from many cultures. I spotted ” Saudi Fast Growth 100 “. It’s a Saudi company sponsored by many local big companies. Its aim is to rank the best Saudi start up companies based on revenues growth. Publicly listed companies are not allowed to join the competition. The company’s mission also is to spotlight new entrepreneurial ideas and companies for the sake of encouraging new entrepreneurs to share their new ideas. I thank “Saudi Fast Growth 100″ for their support to the entrepreneurial communities. The winners will be listed and exposed to new contacts, capital and investors. They also might join ” ARABIA 500 ” and enter a wider scope that covers the whole Arab companies.
I am also a member of the “Kuwait Entrepreneurs” group a good hub for entrepreneurs. It contains a variety of useful links that might benefit the entrepreneur.It also has a collection of Kuwaiti Companies created by Kuwaiti entrepreneurs. This group contains a mix of big companies and other talented minds who share their creativity. The group introduces new members, who they think are important or they know them-they did not introduce me however because they do not know me . That’s fine with me .I will keep posting whenever I find new links to Arab entrepreneurs. So stay tuned.
. That’s fine with me .I will keep posting whenever I find new links to Arab entrepreneurs. So stay tuned.