Heard two instructive anecdotes last week related to the same quality. The first one is about a young company which sent a bid against a tender in a public sector company. Surprisingly, they got a call from the company and were asked to come over to the headquarters for negotiations. The young entrepreneur thought that going to the headquarters is going to be significant travel expense and chances of getting a contract from a public sector company is next to impossible. He decided to give it a pass. Many years later in a chance meeting he met the concerned official who had called him. He still remembered this fellow and expressed his amazement about him not turning up. He said the purchase order was ready with your name and we had to award the tender to someone else. It seems calling for negotiations was a just a final formality.
Then I heard this anecdote about rockfeller then. A journalist asks Rockfeller – How did you make so much money. Rockfeller says, whenever an opportunity came I jumped. Journalist then asks how did you know if an opportunity has come. Rockfeller replied, I didn’t – I just keep jumping.
Put the two together and you can see how the entrepreneur above did not jump enough. As a bootstrapper you definitely don’t want to be caught heavy footed. Be nimble and out jump the big guys.
