January 20, 2003	Monday	Ziqa'ad 16, 1423

Human knowledge is in a state of constant flux, be it driven from physical sciences or born of metaphysical observations and experiences.

Venturing souls undertake journeys to untrodden paths and daring entrepreneurs go for innovative approaches for application of new methodology and interpretations of old postulations.

Such experiments, though fraught with the chances of daunting failures, at the same time, can be exceptionally rewarding. Myths and conventions are formed through conceptualization of certain scenarios and reinforced with the relative observations and experiences of people.

As with other disciplines of life, marketing and entire business operation too have their myths and conventions formed of subjective conceptualization by its teaching gurus and old masters backed up with the practising masters and old business people under certain objective conditions at a particular time.

I wrote a brief on “Busting some of the marketing Myths” published in the EBR weekly Dawn (June 11-17) 1994.I have been contemplating to write on ‘busting some of business myths’ as the subject haunted my mind occasionally but could not do it earlier due to multiple preoccupations till a strong trigger switched on by a “Fortune” brief on 40 under 40 young and rich (Fortune Sept. 16, 2002) made me go for the kill as hereunder:

“Business—a mature man’s job”: Although a myth well-rooted. particularly in the patriarchic group of people across the world, it has too strong hold in conventional and conservative nations like ours wherein any young venturing soul is threatened with hellish consequences by the old hogs as they think business success is unthinkable without greying hairs for seasoning. This myth was shattered in the USA by dot com breeds straight from colleges— even good many college drop-outs like the legendary Bill Gates.

But Fortune’s 40 richest 40 across the world smashed the myth to tethers as they made fortune in such a wide-range of business lines as oil, beer, food retail and pharma.

The youngest in the list is Rauben Singh, a British citizen of Indian origin, age 25, who built 11 companies ranging from currency to wireless internet services. His total wealth is estimated $151 million at 39th position of 40 richest below 40.

Another, Charles started his company in 1989 when he was 24 years. Now his company has almost 500 shops across the UK and he is worth $271 million, listed 33.

Pakistan is not totally barren for such success stories of raw talent. Young Maratib Ali— the grandson of the legendary Sir Maratab Ali, founder of big business house like Packages and Treet Corporation— is making his mark through an innovative approach at the age of 24 years. He acquired small sick unit Toycraft and is converting it in to export dependent innovative enterprise apart from providing furniture and toys to his family- owned chain of 27 Lahore Grammar schools. He has built up an export house for particularly non-conventional export items of Pakistan and is in process of building a network of liaison and associate organizations in Australia, Indonesia, South Africa and China.

Another young man Mohammed Ali just after graduation at the age of 21 years entered in small family business of pharma manufacturing. He has gone for diversification in cosmetics and is now CEO of three manufacturing companies at the age of 31 with group turnover around half a billion rupees.

Business only a game of resources: No one can build up business with nothing as business is only a game of resources is on the face of it unchallenged myth but venturing dare devils have undone it outright.

Liu Hanyuan’s parents cried when they sold their pigs for $60 to fund their son’s fish farming experiment. Today the Tongwei group is china’s largest aquatic feed producer with 20 factories in 18 provinces and Liu with wealth of $320 million holding 30th position out of 40 richest.

Wong Wenjing launched his own set-up on his 24th birthday after quitting a government job with a loan of $6000. He became a multimillionaire at 27 and is now 26th of 40 richest with wealth of $328 million.

Charles Dunstone formed a warehouse company in 1989 with $9,100. Today he has 500 warehouses across UK with personal wealth at $271 million.

Pakistan does have its own case histories no less myth exploding. Yousuf Shirazi started with a trading company in one room with just Rs300,000 and a staff of three persons including himself in 1963. Today his group (Atlas Group) has 11 public and private limited companies with work force of 3500 people and group turnover of Rs20 billion and annual tax payments of Rs5 billion.

Another such a legendary person is Waqar Hasan— once upon a time our Test cricketer who started with partnership share comprising of Rs5,000 loan and today his group AGC has six companies one of which National Foods alone having a turnover of Rs1.2 billions.

Relevant qualifications: This is another business myth which makes it mandatory for any new entrant in the field of business to learn the ropes from elders, other experienced people in the same business line and preferably have academic qualifications in related fields.

The bold confident person like Kumar Birla quashed the doubts that he could lead such a big empire without relevant earlier experience after inheriting $5.5 billion empire with interests in everything from telecom to cement, at the young age of 27 years after the death of his father in 1995.

Bill Gate a college drop-out had neither qualification nor any experience of the field in which he made unprecedented fortune becoming the richest person in the world consecutively for seven years.

When Emillio Azcarraga took over world’s largest Spanish language media group in 1997 at the age of 29, few thought he would rise to the occasion but he has proved his critics wrong by building wealth of $1 billion and becoming 14th out of 40 richest below 40.

In Pakistan, Dr. Mehmood, a doctor and army captain, left coveted career to start real estate business, went into trading and distribution and ended up in becoming the managing director of a multinational paint industry, the Berger Paints. In the last one-decade he has built his corporate turnover to around one billion rupees.

Tariq Khan, a banking professional left career assignment in Middle East and started pharmaceutical manufacturing company Highnoon lab. Today his company is touching annual turnover of about a billion rupees.

So what you need to be a successful entrepreneur is a set of basic traits which enable you to develop a team of the competent people and make optimum use of all kinds of resources coupled with the boldness to take decisions fraught with risk or otherwise as and when required without an iota of fear and phobia. Then with the added ingredient of good hard work you are fit enough to bust all the business myths.