Entrepreneurial Mistakes

I was in a conversation with someone known to me working in a different industry – he thought his enterprise had an entrepreneurial streak – while not being skeptical about what he was saying, I told him too often we confuse unstructured and aimless pursuit as entrepreneurial – suddeny he asked me whats the litmus test for measuring that. I pointed him to this small piece by Seth Godin.
1. Expecting gratitude in exchange for having done something that was hard.
2. Spending money as a substitute for doing something great.
3. Not realizing that it's your company, and your marketing better be as good as everything else.
4. Listening to other people. If they're so smart, why aren't they running your company? I particularly like this one - Don't take a poll. Don't ask your mother-in-law, that's for sure. Cover your downsides, double your desire to take a risk and then just do it.
5. Failure to measure.

Even in large organizations, it makes sense to check on these lines: Are these relevant questions to our own functioning – How do we rate ourselves on all these. Exercises like these assessed in alignment with corporate/divisional objectives are true indicators of the sense of entrepreneurism inside the enterprise. Draw a similar list of questions on innovation. Make an honest try in answering these and you will know where you stand. Read the note at WorkHappy.net: The top five mistakes, entrepreneurs make when they market. Interesting read.