PAVLO’S PERSPECTIVE: Idealism and pragmatism work in sync
by Pavlo Phitidis,
2015-04-07 06:19:58.0
IDEALISM is vital to any entrepreneurial endeavour. It fuels the passion an entrepreneur must have to follow a vision and build a business. It generates the soul of a business and creates a cauldron of emotions that feeds the entrepreneur, including frustration, anger and fury mixed with humility, empathy and courage.
This emotion converts the entrepreneur’s vision into their purpose for being — in part what it takes to build an entrepreneurial growth firm. Yet idealism is not enough to build a business.
Pragmatism, the balancing force, is needed to create the purpose behind the passion. Pragmatism expresses the iterative process of action and introspection leading to new action.
It recognises that we learn by doing, and requires us to take many small steps towards building a business, all the while recognising that "failure" is a necessary insight into what does not work rather than doom and gloom.
It generates counterbalancing tensions; lingering analysis slowing down the progress of the business and intolerance of change once things work, which is counterbalanced by listening well and observation allowing one to work with what’s available rather than what’s needed.
Idealism envisions a business, and pragmatism realises the business. As balancing forces, both are required to build an entrepreneurial growth company.
This realisation led to Ronnie Apteker, the founder of Internet Solutions, driven by idealistic values, to invite his brother Alon and David Frankel to join his quest. They brought the pragmatism to the ideas that Apteker passionately sold to and infected his customers with.
Frankel and Alon Apteker’s analytical and contractual capabilities turned Ronnie Apteker’s ideas into contracts with pricing scales that fed the development of Internet Solutions. As the business entered the growth phase, the collaborative energies of the idealists and pragmatists created a deal with Dimension Data to scale the business and capture their first mover advantage in the local market.
The foresight to move fast and aggressively to own the market that they had created using the muscle of a far larger enterprise, was the outcome of a well-balanced entrepreneurial team.
Reflective of Internet Solutions’ genesis is Synaq, a business started by Yossi Hasson and David Jacobson. As early-stage prophets of Linux as an alternative technology, the two entrepreneurs believed they could build a business on the growing adoption of the open-source operating system.
It began with a single product focused on spam control. They pushed hard to gain entry into a conservative IT world dominated by chief information officers affiliated to other technology platforms.
A successful response to a challenge put by MTN catalysed the growth of the business. A reference client, increasing adoption of Linux and their specialisation led to sprawling growth. Synaq became everything to everyone and grew into a disparate Linux solutions provider.
Two dark years followed, as the entrepreneurs had to fight for their soul and reform a vision that would turn the hard yards walked into a thriving business. The redirection of their business as a niche, specialist Linux-based e-mail services operation led to their salvation.
Refocusing a business from time to time is a given outcome of a balanced entrepreneurial team. To capitalise on their new focus, they concluded a deal with Dimension Data that saw the business scale up and grow to unprecedented heights. The adoption of Synaq’s e-mail services by Internet Solutions took a recent turn when a customer became a reseller partner.
It takes the passion of the idealist and the purpose of the pragmatist — attributes of entrepreneurs — to build great businesses. The collaboration between entrepreneurs and their businesses will yield the growth and innovation to lead our economy through excellence.
• Pavlo Phitidis is the CEO of Aurik Business Incubator, a director of Aurik Enterprise Development, an entrepreneurship commentator on Talk Radio 702 and 567 Cape Talk and the presenter of The Growth Engines.
Pavlo Phitidis. Picture: SUPPLIED
IDEALISM is vital to any entrepreneurial endeavour. It fuels the passion an entrepreneur must have to follow a vision and build a business. It generates the soul of a business and creates a cauldron of emotions that feeds the entrepreneur, including frustration, anger and fury mixed with humility, empathy and courage.
This emotion converts the entrepreneur’s vision into their purpose for being — in part what it takes to build an entrepreneurial growth firm. Yet idealism is not enough to build a business.
Pragmatism, the balancing force, is needed to create the purpose behind the passion. Pragmatism expresses the iterative process of action and introspection leading to new action.
It recognises that we learn by doing, and requires us to take many small steps towards building a business, all the while recognising that "failure" is a necessary insight into what does not work rather than doom and gloom.
It generates counterbalancing tensions; lingering analysis slowing down the progress of the business and intolerance of change once things work, which is counterbalanced by listening well and observation allowing one to work with what’s available rather than what’s needed.
Idealism envisions a business, and pragmatism realises the business. As balancing forces, both are required to build an entrepreneurial growth company.
This realisation led to Ronnie Apteker, the founder of Internet Solutions, driven by idealistic values, to invite his brother Alon and David Frankel to join his quest. They brought the pragmatism to the ideas that Apteker passionately sold to and infected his customers with.
Frankel and Alon Apteker’s analytical and contractual capabilities turned Ronnie Apteker’s ideas into contracts with pricing scales that fed the development of Internet Solutions. As the business entered the growth phase, the collaborative energies of the idealists and pragmatists created a deal with Dimension Data to scale the business and capture their first mover advantage in the local market.
The foresight to move fast and aggressively to own the market that they had created using the muscle of a far larger enterprise, was the outcome of a well-balanced entrepreneurial team.
Reflective of Internet Solutions’ genesis is Synaq, a business started by Yossi Hasson and David Jacobson. As early-stage prophets of Linux as an alternative technology, the two entrepreneurs believed they could build a business on the growing adoption of the open-source operating system.
It began with a single product focused on spam control. They pushed hard to gain entry into a conservative IT world dominated by chief information officers affiliated to other technology platforms.
A successful response to a challenge put by MTN catalysed the growth of the business. A reference client, increasing adoption of Linux and their specialisation led to sprawling growth. Synaq became everything to everyone and grew into a disparate Linux solutions provider.
Two dark years followed, as the entrepreneurs had to fight for their soul and reform a vision that would turn the hard yards walked into a thriving business. The redirection of their business as a niche, specialist Linux-based e-mail services operation led to their salvation.
Refocusing a business from time to time is a given outcome of a balanced entrepreneurial team. To capitalise on their new focus, they concluded a deal with Dimension Data that saw the business scale up and grow to unprecedented heights. The adoption of Synaq’s e-mail services by Internet Solutions took a recent turn when a customer became a reseller partner.
It takes the passion of the idealist and the purpose of the pragmatist — attributes of entrepreneurs — to build great businesses. The collaboration between entrepreneurs and their businesses will yield the growth and innovation to lead our economy through excellence.
• Pavlo Phitidis is the CEO of Aurik Business Incubator, a director of Aurik Enterprise Development, an entrepreneurship commentator on Talk Radio 702 and 567 Cape Talk and the presenter of The Growth Engines.
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