EVERY WOZNIAK NEEDS A JOBS

I love Apple!

No, not the fruit, I am talking about the company. I love it not because of the I-phone or the I-pads. Heck, Apple products can be rather expensive and many may agree they are not the most cutting-edge products in the market anymore.

I love it because of its origins, its story, because how its two founding members Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak sat together in a garage and changed the world when launching the first personal computer back in 1976; and most importantly, because of the countless valuable entrepreneurial lessons that I, a Language Coach and a first-time entrepreneur, learned from them. 

NEW TO THE ENTREPRENEURIAL WORLD?

I guess by now you may know a lot about both of them as there are tons of videos, documentaries, books, and even two Hollywood movies (my personal pick is the one in 2015 with Michael Fassbender); but if you are new to the entrepreneurial world, just allow me to indulge myself and make an attempt to explain to you and who they are, what they did, the importance of having “a business partner whose skills are different from yours” and how not knowing that right from the start affected my own entrepreneurial journey.

MR. REALITY DISTORTION FIELD

Steve Jobs was the guy with the vision, the salesman, the natural born businessman, great with words and solid arguments, he could actually tell you the sky was red and you would have actually believed him. People would later identify this ability as the «reality distortion field» A clever, manipulative way to convince people to do what you want them to do by shifting their vision of reality. He was also a person with the clear purpose «to leave a dent in the universe» and the way he wanted to accomplish by launching a computer that could make us the most efficient animal on the planet. “A bicycle for the mind”. As Simon Sinek calls him in his famous book “Start with Why” Steve Jobs was “The why guy”

INTRODUCING THE GENIUS ENGINEER

On the other hand, Steve Wozniak A.KA. Woz was the engineer, the geek, the expert, the computer genius, designer and developer of both the Apple 1 and 2 in other words the guy with the technical knowledge and expertise, “the how guy”.

They both joined forces combining Wozniak’s genius on computers and Jobs’ uncanny, natural entrepreneurial sense to bring to the market the first personal computer for «the rest of us» people who were not engineers, integrating for the first time ever both monitor and keyboard in a single device. The product was a home-run and its successor was even more successful and according to some sources, it was the product that kept paying the bills around the company for the next 7 years. 

WHY + HOW = SUCCESS!

Now don’t get me wrong, every entrepreneur’s journey is different and there’s no single recipe for success but in order for you, as a first-time entrepreneur, to have bigger chances of beating the odds you need both, the salesperson and the expert, the person with the vision and the one with who can execute that vision. WHY and HOW. You just can’t start a business without a great product or service and you just can’t keep a business without sales.

PASSION AND HARD WORK? CHECKED!

BUSINESS SKILLS? I’M SORRY, BUSINESS WHAT???

Now when I first started on my first entrepreneurial journey the only weapons that I had at my disposal were my teaching skills, passion for what I do, and hard work; and I naively thought this was going to be enough to succeed in this new world. My business partner was another great language teacher and had a similar skillset, and we were both full of great hopes and dreams of building an English language Institute that could rival the big names in the market; and after 4 straight years of blood, sweat, tears and money, we were in business. Or were?

TOO BIG, TOO SOON, TOO EARLY?

We were on fire! Things went well for the first year with a rapid growth in our student body up to almost 50 students, it may not sound like a lot, but trust me for an unknown language institute here in Perú, that’s a lot. But now in retrospect, such rapid growth could have been attributed to the fact that we were a novelty act. Later down the road we realized that we were basically two young teachers playing to be big entrepreneurs.

We needed new skills, fast! Business skills like sales and marketing that neither of us had and would take months to develop; unfortunately, we had to pay a huge price to learn this lesson. Eventually, we fell prey to statistics, and we became one of those start-ups in the 9/10 ratio that fail after the first 3 years of being in operation. 

THE TEACHER BECOMES THE LEARNER…AGAIN AND AGAIN.

I was crushed. All the hard work, all the effort…down the drain I had to bitterly say goodbye to my partner and didn’t know what to do next, but something remained…I had learned perhaps my biggest lesson back then, one lesson that may sound so obvious now, but back then wasn’t:

“When doing business in the information age, you will need to develop a whole new skillset” far beyond the one that you as a teacher already have and when facing this challenge this you can either:

1. Quit and go back to doing what you do best or…
2. Set off on a new learning journey to develop those skills.

In my humble opinion, if you are a teacher and if you’re doing a solo act, option b is exactly what you need: to leave your comfort zone (as cliché as it may sound) or should I say to leave the classroom (both figuratively and literally) and once you cross this chasm, it’s on! A whole universe of new knowledge will unfold right in front of your eyes. And we teachers are all about knowledge, aren’t we?

You will start feeling a great sense of purpose, direction, and why not… Pride for your new-found knowledge. And dopamine (the reward brain chemical) will work its magic to keep you focused and motivated towards your goal.

“BUT…THERE’S SO MUCH TO LEARN I CAN’T DO IT ALL”

Yes, you are right!  As you grow and develop those skills, there would come a time when you just won’t have enough time to do it all because, let’s face it, the day has only 24 hours and we only have certain amount of energy to accomplish certain things. Plus, you would eventually want to refocus on the things you’re truly good at. So once again you will have reached a moment when you will have to make an important decision: Finding a business partner who can help you grow your business.

FINDING MY “JOBS”

Ok got it! “I’m done with the whole developing new skills thing” “Plus, I will feel more confident if I have someone to fall back on”

Now choosing a partner would unlock a whole new array of questions you will need answers for:

• Can my spouse, friend, sibling be my perfect business partner?
• How much equity should I give him/her?
• What responsibilities will each of us have?

 And the list goes on and on, but if you are planning on starting an entrepreneurial journey for the first time, just make sure to find a partner who has a different skillset than yours, a partner who’s got knowledge and expertise in areas that you don’t; like digital marketing, sales, video or public speaking 21^st Century skills. Doing this will give you far more chances of beating the dreaded statistics of business survival.

In other words, if you’re Wozniak, make sure to find your “Jobs”

So what are your thoughts? Are you an entrepreneurial-minded teacher who is looking for a partner to turn your business idea into reality? I hope you found this helpful. If so, leave your comments in the box down below and let us know where you are at in your own journey.