283 Week 5

$100 Entrepreneurial Challenge Update:

This week I have prepared a budget and projected sales and expenses to determine what I will need to accomplish in order to meet my 100-dollar goal having only the 20-dollar investment.  I have priced out all my material costs, and determined my projected dollar amounts and total sales needed.  I have put all of this into a spreadsheet and am prepared and ready to begin collecting orders on my breakfast burrito project. 

Acton Hero Summary: Desh Deshpande

Life is all about setting benchmarks.  If it can happen, you can do it. This was the opening message of Dr. Deshpande, an entrepreneur in the technology industry.  Dr. Deshpande started a technology company that didn’t work out, but saw it as a good learning opportunity and has since become very successful in the industry having developed technology that is used by the world’s largest network providers.

When beginning his first venture, he went all in, having gone without a salary for 12 months, but excited that his new venture had received a great investment.  The new venture was so promising, he had his wife quit her job to tend to their two small children, but three months into the venture, he had a disagreement with his business partner and did not feel like he could be successful with such an arrangement so he backed out.  He soon found his young family stuck with total unemployment and seemingly nowhere to go.  But Dr. Deshpande noted that he is an optimistic guy and knew things would work out.  He said, “if you sit on things for a little bit, they don’t look as bad.” Optimism is a good quality to get you through such hard times, he explained. Compared to India, Dr. Deshpande points out that we have so many resources at our fingertips and are so lucky.  If we can be optimistic and find motivation, we can accomplish so much.

Dr. Deshpande’s message is ultimately, where people start is not as important as their motivation and their optimism.