An
interview with M. Salahuddin Haque, Chief Executive Officer of Optima
Solutions and Chair of Committee at JCI Dhaka East. He shared his
valuable knowledge with the Daily Observer about entrepreneurship in the
digital age.
How important do you think university education is in entrepreneurship?
Education
is quite important as it enriches decision makingsuch as 'how should
the project profile be', 'howmuch can be forecasted' or 'how much can
the business change?'. The ability to finely analyzeis largely dependent
on education.
There is a myth that self-made entrepreneurs are
college dropouts. But in reality these success stories have atleast SAT,
GRE or GMAT done and their mental faculty rich enough to make good
decisions during critical situations by computing a lot of mental
analysis.
What processes would you recommend to a new or aspiring entrepreneur?
It
is important for a person to define their passion and which market they
want to work on. Also, they need to do market research and see if they
are the solution makers of people's needs. They have to become
self-educated. There are also lots of ways available now to do research
as almost everything is open source. All you need to do is use an online
search engine.
Now-a-days people want to open poultry farms or
import products from China. They are essentially good traders.But to be a
good entrepreneur,one needs innovative ideas and unique selling points
in order to sustain in an ever-competitive market.Businesses have to be
built slowly. Many young entrepreneurs are prioritizing wealth
generation above product quality. This is a problem. The product should
be at the crux of a company.
Sir Richard Branson once said,"The
best features come from people's personal bad experiences." Meaning, a
person will be more successful if they can identify others bad
experiences and find solutions to them, or if essentiallymitigating
weaknesses of products by making new products or through innovation.
What aspects of entrepreneurship has the recent digitalization streamlined for young individuals?
I
feel that there has been a massive impact in Bangladesh due to
digitalization. Our own platforms such as Pathao and Shohozarec
competing with USA's Uber on home ground. More services are now
available as a result and people can get a lot done by sitting at home
which previously required a lot of transport costs.
