Synopsis
We are raised to believe that success comes from preparation, experience, stability and patience. We are told to study first, work for someone else, accumulate knowledge, build financial security and only then consider starting a business. It sounds responsible, mature and sensible. But what if this conventional wisdom is also the reason so many capable people never pursue their ambitions? What if the years spent preparing for entrepreneurship gradually destroy the very courage required to become an entrepreneur? Drawing from my own journey since founding my business immediately after graduation in 2007, I want to challenge a belief that has shaped generations of young professionals. In a world where technology, artificial intelligence and business models are evolving faster than ever, waiting until everything is stable may be the greatest risk of all. This is not an argument against education, responsibility or preparation. It is an argument against allowing preparation to become a lifelong excuse for inaction.
The Conversation That Made Me Question Our Definition of Readiness
Last week, I had a conversation with a lawyer friend who shared his ambition to eventually establish his own legal practice. He was interested in becoming independent, but he believed that he should continue learning and wait until his circumstances became more stable before making the move. I listened to him and found myself wondering what stability actually meant in this situation. Was he waiting for a more predictable income, a stronger client base, greater professional confidence or simply the reassurance that everything would work out?
Around the same period, I reflected on the journey of a former colleague who had spent years working for other companies while developing a small business on the side. His business involved cleaning, restoring and polishing sofas, leather shoes and handbags. After operating part-time for approximately one or two years, he eventually decided to pursue the business full-time. I was pleased to see him taking that step, because building something independently requires effort and courage regardless of when a person begins.
However, these two experiences reminded me that people can have fundamentally different philosophies about entrepreneurship. Some believe that the responsible approach is to prepare extensively, establish a stable foundation and gradually move towards independence. My perspective is different. I believe that entrepreneurship is something you must experience directly, because the market teaches lessons that no amount of preparation can fully reproduce. You cannot learn everything about swimming while standing beside the pool. At some point, you must enter the water.
I recognise that expressing this opinion may make some friends uncomfortable. Perhaps they will consider me too aggressive, impatient or unrealistic. Perhaps we simply belong to different schools of thought. I can accept that. Friendship does not require identical ambitions, and I have no intention of disrespecting anyone's personal decisions. Nevertheless, I would rather express a conviction formed through nearly two decades of entrepreneurship than offer comfortable advice that I do not believe.
In 2007, I Started a Business Before I Had Anything Resembling Stability
I graduated in 2007 and entered entrepreneurship almost immediately. I did not have an established customer network, substantial financial resources, a recognised corporate background or years of industry experience. What I had was a willingness to build something and the belief that I could learn what was necessary along the way.
Our early business involved developing websites for customers. I still remember that some of our projects started at just RM500 per website. Five hundred ringgit was hardly an impressive foundation for building a technology company, particularly when we had to find customers, understand their requirements, complete the development work and maintain enough cash flow to continue operating. Yet that was where my entrepreneurial education began. Every customer meeting, rejected proposal, technical problem and completed project became part of my learning process.
There were difficult periods when business opportunities became scarce and I seriously considered returning to employment. I remember attending interviews with three companies, hoping that one of them might offer me a job. None of them hired me. At the time, rejection was disappointing because employment would have provided immediate financial relief and a more predictable future. Looking back today, however, I consider those unsuccessful interviews among the fortunate events of my life.
I often wonder what would have happened if one of those companies had employed me. Perhaps I would have developed a successful corporate career. Perhaps I would have become an excellent employee, manager or executive. There is nothing dishonourable about that path. But would I have built the businesses, systems, products and initiatives that have shaped my life? Would I have developed the same willingness to take risks, make decisions and accept responsibility for the outcomes? I cannot know the answer. What I do know is that I am deeply satisfied with the journey I eventually took.
Those rejections did not automatically make me successful. They simply removed an alternative that might have made it easier for me to abandon entrepreneurship. Without the comfort of a stable salary, I had to continue finding customers, improving my capabilities and confronting problems directly. The circumstances forced me to become more resourceful. I did not start because I was ready. I became more capable because I had already started.
Stability Is Not a Guarantee of Growth
One of the most common pieces of advice given to aspiring entrepreneurs is to start small, establish a stable business and only consider expansion when the operation is sufficiently mature. On the surface, this appears logical. A stable foundation reduces uncertainty, and disciplined growth can prevent unnecessary financial damage. Yet there is a dangerous assumption hidden inside this advice: that stability today somehow guarantees the opportunity to grow tomorrow.
It does not.
A company can operate successfully for ten years and still become irrelevant when customer behaviour changes. A professional can spend a decade mastering a particular skill only to discover that technology has significantly reduced its commercial value. A business owner can become so comfortable serving an existing customer base that the organisation loses the ambition to explore new markets. Stability can create confidence, but it can also create complacency.
Artificial intelligence makes this issue particularly urgent. We are entering an era in which small teams can accomplish work that previously required much larger organisations. Software development, content production, customer engagement, research and business automation are being transformed at extraordinary speed. The knowledge that once gave an experienced professional a substantial competitive advantage may no longer provide the same protection. Meanwhile, younger entrepreneurs with fewer resources but greater adaptability may be able to build entirely new business models.
I am not suggesting that experience has become worthless. Experience remains valuable when it improves judgement, strengthens execution and helps us recognise risks. But experience should be a tool for action, not a justification for postponing action indefinitely. The objective should not be to accumulate the greatest possible amount of knowledge before entering the market. It should be to develop knowledge while continuously testing whether that knowledge creates value.
My first website projects were worth RM500. That was my starting point, not the limit of my ambition. There is an enormous difference between starting small because your resources are limited and thinking small because your courage is limited. The former is a practical constraint. The latter can become a permanent barrier.
The Longer You Wait, the More Expensive Courage Becomes
There is another reality about entrepreneurship that young people rarely hear discussed openly. The cost of taking risks often changes as we progress through life, not necessarily because we become less capable, but because our responsibilities increase.
A fresh graduate may have limited savings and little professional experience, but may also have relatively few financial commitments. There may be no mortgage, no children requiring education, no large household expenses and no employees depending on the next payroll. This does not mean that every young person is financially free or that family circumstances are identical. Some graduates already carry significant responsibilities. Nevertheless, for many people, early adulthood offers a degree of flexibility that becomes more difficult to recover later.
As we grow older, we begin making commitments. We purchase homes, establish families, take on loans and become accustomed to a particular standard of living. These are meaningful achievements, and I would never suggest that people should avoid them. But each commitment changes the consequences of uncertainty. A business failure that might have been manageable at twenty-three could become far more disruptive at thirty-eight, when several people depend on your income.
This is why I question the advice to spend ten years preparing before considering entrepreneurship. During those ten years, you may gain valuable experience and financial resources, but you may also accumulate obligations that make independent business ownership increasingly difficult. The courage you possessed at graduation may gradually be replaced by a need to protect everything you have established.
Eventually, you may reach a point where you are professionally qualified, financially comfortable and highly experienced, yet unwilling to risk your current position. You have become ready according to every conventional measurement, except the one that matters most: your willingness to act.
I believe young people should understand this trade-off before surrendering their most energetic years to a preparation process without a clear destination. The right time to act is not necessarily when you have nothing to lose, but when you can make a considered commitment and still have sufficient flexibility to recover, adapt and try again.
Entrepreneurship Requires Aggression, Not Recklessness
When I speak about entrepreneurship, I often use words such as aggressive, bold, relentless and ambitious. Some people may interpret these expressions as encouragement to act recklessly. That is not what I mean.
I believe that if you decide to build a business, you should approach it with the determination to compete seriously. You should not enter a market merely hoping to survive. You should study the industry, identify opportunities, understand your customers and challenge yourself to create something better than what already exists. Your ambition should be large enough to force you beyond your existing capabilities.
Being aggressive means pursuing opportunities instead of waiting for customers to discover you. Being relentless means continuing to improve after rejection rather than allowing disappointment to determine your future. Being bold means entering unfamiliar territory with the willingness to learn, experiment and take responsibility. None of these qualities requires dishonesty, irresponsible borrowing or the sacrifice of professional ethics.
In fact, the more ambitious an entrepreneur becomes, the more important discipline becomes. Financial management, governance, operational systems and accountability are necessary if a business is to survive beyond the founder's initial enthusiasm. Ambition without execution is fantasy, while aggression without judgement can become destructive.
What I reject is the belief that entrepreneurs must deliberately restrict their ambitions simply because they are inexperienced. Why should a young founder automatically assume that building a significant company is something reserved for people who have spent twenty years working elsewhere? Why should an entrepreneur who begins with a small project be discouraged from imagining an international business?
I started by selling websites for RM500, but I never believed that my entire professional future should be defined by the size of my first transaction. Starting small can be unavoidable. Remaining small should not become an unquestioned philosophy.
The world does not reward us simply because we have been patient. It responds to the value we create, the problems we solve and our ability to execute. If we want extraordinary outcomes, we must be prepared to make extraordinary efforts.
Failure Is an Education That Success Cannot Always Provide
One reason people delay entrepreneurship is their fear of failure. They worry about losing money, disappointing their families, damaging their reputations or discovering that their abilities are insufficient. These concerns are legitimate. Failure can have serious consequences, and it should never be romanticised as though financial losses and personal hardship are automatically beneficial.
Nevertheless, failure has taught me lessons that I would have struggled to understand through observation alone. When a customer rejects your proposal, you begin questioning whether you understand the customer's real problem. When a product fails to attract buyers, you discover the difference between building something interesting and building something the market values. When cash flow becomes difficult, financial management stops being an abstract business concept and becomes an immediate responsibility.
The experience of losing forces entrepreneurs to confront reality. It reveals weaknesses in assumptions, execution, pricing, positioning and leadership. A person who has never been tested may possess tremendous confidence without knowing whether that confidence is justified. A person who has experienced setbacks and reflected seriously on them can develop a more grounded understanding of business.
However, failure only becomes valuable when it produces learning and changes in behaviour. Repeating the same mistake without examining its cause is not courage; it is poor judgement. Entrepreneurs must be willing to analyse what went wrong, recognise what competitors did better and adjust their strategies accordingly.
Success presents a different danger. A successful product, business model or strategy can encourage us to believe that our existing methods will continue working indefinitely. We may stop questioning assumptions because the previous results appear to validate them. Over time, yesterday's success can become tomorrow's limitation.
That is why I believe entrepreneurship requires a willingness to challenge both failure and success. We should learn from failure without becoming defeated by it, and celebrate success without becoming imprisoned by it. The purpose of experience is not to make us comfortable. It is to make us more capable of building what comes next.
The Greatest Risk for the Next Generation Is Becoming Too Comfortable to Act
I am increasingly concerned that young people are being encouraged to pursue certainty in a world that can no longer provide it. We continue telling students to obtain qualifications, secure employment, accumulate experience and follow established career paths, even as the economic environment around them changes dramatically.
Education is essential, but education should develop independent thinkers rather than individuals who are afraid to act without instructions. Employment can provide valuable experience, but it should not convince people that their only possible contribution is to execute somebody else's vision. Professional training can strengthen competence, but qualifications alone cannot replace initiative, commercial judgement or the ability to build something from nothing.
This is particularly relevant in the age of artificial intelligence. AI can accelerate research, software development, design, communication and many other forms of work. It gives individuals access to capabilities that were previously expensive or difficult to obtain. A young entrepreneur no longer needs to master every technical discipline personally before testing a business idea. The tools are becoming more accessible, and the cost of experimentation is falling in many fields.
Yet technology cannot supply ambition to someone who refuses to act. It cannot make decisions for a person who is unwilling to accept responsibility. It cannot transform an idea into a meaningful enterprise unless someone is prepared to engage customers, make difficult choices and persist through uncertainty.
I want young people to stop measuring their readiness exclusively by the number of years they have worked or the certificates they have collected. Instead, they should ask whether they understand a meaningful problem, whether they can create a solution and whether they are prepared to test that solution in the real world.
The same principle applies beyond entrepreneurship. Whether you are working in a corporation, participating in a business association, studying at university or leading a community initiative, meaningful progress requires initiative. You cannot become a leader merely by observing leadership. You cannot become innovative merely by attending innovation conferences. At some point, knowledge must become action.
My concern is not that the next generation lacks intelligence or talent. It is that too many talented individuals may spend their most productive years waiting for permission to use their abilities.
Be Bold Enough to Build, or Accept That Someone Else Will Build Your Future
Nearly twenty years have passed since I began my entrepreneurial journey in 2007. I have experienced uncertainty, rejection, difficult business decisions and the constant pressure of maintaining and growing an organisation. I have also experienced the satisfaction of building businesses, developing technology, creating products and bringing ideas into the real world.
I do not claim that my path is the only correct one. Some people will achieve remarkable things through corporate careers, professional practices or other forms of employment. Others may need to spend time building financial reserves, fulfilling family responsibilities or acquiring specific qualifications before launching a venture. Those decisions deserve respect.
But I want to challenge the young person who already knows what they want to build, who has the ability to begin, who understands the risks, yet continues postponing action because they are waiting to feel completely confident.
Confidence is not always something you acquire before acting. Often, it develops through the experience of acting, making mistakes, solving problems and discovering that you are capable of more than you initially believed.
If you want to establish a business, start engaging the market. If you want to develop a product, build a prototype and place it in front of potential customers. If you want to transform an industry, begin by understanding its problems and challenging its assumptions. You do not need to abandon financial responsibility, but you do need to stop confusing caution with permanent hesitation.
My personal philosophy remains simple: Dream It. Execute It. Ground It. Dreaming gives us direction, execution transforms intention into action, and grounding ensures that our ambitions create real value. These principles have shaped the way I approach business, technology and the initiatives I continue to develop.
Above all, I believe in building. Building a business, building a system, building opportunities and building something that matters. I would rather confront the difficulties of creating something than spend my life explaining why the conditions were never favourable enough to begin.
To the next generation, my message is this: Be bold. Be relentless. Be courageous enough to pursue something that may fail. Do not become a coward in the face of your own ambition. Being afraid is human, but allowing fear to make every important decision for you is a choice. You may fail, lose an opportunity or discover that your original idea was wrong. If you remain willing to learn and rebuild, those experiences can become the foundation of something greater.
The world will not stop changing while you prepare. Competitors will not suspend their ambitions until you feel comfortable. Opportunities will not remain available simply because you intend to pursue them someday.
In 2007, I began with RM500 websites. I did not have everything I needed, and I certainly did not know everything I would eventually have to learn. But I started, and that decision changed the direction of my life.
Today, I am still building, still learning and still challenging myself to do more.
I want young people to understand that courage is not the absence of fear. It is the decision that your ambition deserves more influence over your future than your fear does.
You do not have to be ready to begin. But you must be willing to begin if you ever want to become ready.
And if you are still waiting for the perfect moment, ask yourself one final question: How many more years of your life are you prepared to sacrifice before you finally give yourself permission to build?
Ts. Lukas J. Tan
Founder & CEO, OPERION Ecommerce & Software Sdn Bhd
Dream It. Execute It. Ground It.