The Essential Entrepreneur, 2nd Edition

CHAPTER 5Passion, culture and values

To create, re-invent or disrupt an industry takes an inordinate amount of energy. If you're creating a business purely for financial reasons it will become a job; and take it from me: the energy you have for the job and to drive change will diminish over time.

People who create and change industries are passionate people, and you'll need every inch of that passion to manoeuvre the obstacles that will be thrown up to stop you from achieving your goals.

The more complex the industry, the more obstacles you'll come across, and the more energy and drive you'll need, so be very careful when choosing your business or industry and objectives to ensure you have the internal fortitude to carry it through.

If you're fortunate enough to achieve early success and your business model is working roughly as planned, then be ready for the copycats to be right on your heels. When people see a good idea work, they will quickly rally the troops to have a crack at the same market and often even try and leverage off not just your business model but also your branding — so make sure your business model and brand are both protected by patents and trademarks.

ZEN Home Energy Systems was very successful very early, and suddenly out of the blue all of these other ZEN businesses started emerging. Fortunately, we had trademarked not only our logo, but also the word ‘ZEN’ for the three trademark categories relevant to our business. For a while we seemed to be sending ...