I’m not saying you have to become Elon Musk overnight to add value to an organisation.
But having an entrepreneurial mindset will have you looking at goals, deadlines, expectations, revenues etc. from a different perspective.
Entrepreneurs’ purpose is to generate profit through value creation by taking on risks normal individuals aren’t ready to take. These risk can be time, location and cost associated.
How does thinking like an entrepreneur help data scientists add value?
‘Fail fast and learn fast’ this is the motto individuals at startups live by.
For data scientists, this translates to trying various methods that can produce the desired result, through the iterative process of research, implementation and testing.
I recall having to develop real-time person segmentation within our company’s flagship mobile app. Companies such as Tik-Tok, Instagram, Snap, have built in-house technologies that work very well and make segmentation a trivial task to consumers.
Rather than telling my managers and team members that real-time segmentation at this moment might not be a feasible technology to implement with our resource, I put on my entrepreneur hat and searched across the internet for the latest research and projects on real-time segmentation.
I tried several methods, failed at most, but learnt from all, and I eventually found a solution that made the result achievable.
Looking back, I could have easily said ‘we can’t do that’, and it would’ve been justifiable. Still, when you think like an entrepreneur, you look for opportunities and value wherever possible.
By thinking like an entrepreneur, I created value by providing an avenue of additional creativity within our flagship product and added value to our entire company’s proposition in terms of service. You can do the same.
Before rejecting product feature requests, or any other tasks, challenge yourself and take on what might seem like an impossible task. You’ll probably fail, fail and fail again, but fail fast and learn fast and you’ll come out a better data scientist.
Several books have helped me cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset. Still, these two books on prominent entrepreneurs proved the most resourceful: Elon Musk and Alibaba: The House That Jack Ma Built.
To close this section, below are benefits of having an entrepreneurial mindset I’ve realised over the years:
- Better task planning sessions that ensure time, cost and results are taken into consideration.
- Source of motivation and inspiration for team members.
- A higher level of confidence
- Experimentation allows for more creativity