logo
ENFRع
#

Latest news with #contributors

Lessons from Second-Time Founders: Different Moves, Bigger Impact
Lessons from Second-Time Founders: Different Moves, Bigger Impact

Entrepreneur

time2 days ago

  • Business
  • Entrepreneur

Lessons from Second-Time Founders: Different Moves, Bigger Impact

If there's one overarching insight that's defined my experience, it's this: the second time, you don't do more - you do less, better. Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. You're reading Entrepreneur Middle East, an international franchise of Entrepreneur Media. After building and exiting my first company in a challenging emerging market, I assumed my second venture would be easier. I was wrong. Launching a business for the first time is fuelled by ambition, experimentation, and a fair amount of uncertainty. The second time, the challenges don't go away, but your mindset, methods, and approach evolve in meaningful ways. Experience helps, of course. But second-time entrepreneurship isn't about repeating what you did before. It's about reinventing your approach with a sharper focus and a deeper sense of responsibility. You're not just trying to prove your idea anymore; you're trying to build something stronger, faster, and more resilient from the start. If there's one overarching insight that's defined my experience, it's this: the second time, you don't do more - you do less, better. You move with clarity, confidence, and a keener awareness of what really matters. Here's what I've learned, and what I hope is helpful to anyone launching their second business or still finding their way through their first. Laser Focus on Value Creation While the concept of my first enterprise was clear, creating the necessary value required for both my customers and stakeholders required time and a good portion of trial and error. My second venture was more about achieving my set goal with greater efficiency. This wasn't simply because I knew more about making a desirable product, but because I understood how to manage the process of developing it. I understood how to align my capacity and the capacity of my team. This allowed us to work more effectively towards each milestone and to laser focus on the areas of the project that delivered maximum value. I was more attuned to the feedback process. How to elicit the honest and useful data I needed to drive improvement, and how to feed that into the new iteration of the product. Finally, once the product was created, I found I was able to create more impactful marketing. I'd learned which mediums, methods, and timelines would provide the highest return. This saved time and resources while avoiding potentially damaging missteps. Relationships and Reputation Fuel Momentum One of the most underestimated advantages of starting a second venture is the network you bring with you. When you build your first business, you also build relationships, grow your reputation, and generate trust, both for your abilities and your operations. This is an essential process that takes time. It also means overcoming the challenges of forming new connections and navigating the best ways to work together, both with individuals and the wider community. When I began to build my second business, I started with a stronger and broader reputation, a higher level of trust, and a better network of connections. This aided team building, both because I was able to bring previous collaborators on board and because I could reach and recruit the best new talent with greater ease. If we are fortunate enough to onboard trusted people we have already worked with, we have a head start in understanding how to work together effectively, saving the time needed to fit personalities and working habits together. Even when building a business with a new team, the communication, organisation, and management skills gained from previous endeavours often prove invaluable in accelerating the journey toward cohesion and mutual understanding. More Clarity, More Confidence No matter how strong your idea or how bold your personality, fear is natural when launching your first startup. The odds are stacked against you. You're faced with countless unknowns and a lack of experience. This often creates hesitation; every decision feels weighty, and you find yourself overanalysing each risk to ensure you're choosing the right path. As a second-time founder, I have a clearer understanding of the landscape. I'd learned which dangers were real and which were amplified by fear or inexperience. There were fewer unknowns and more concerns I could confidently set aside. Experience gave me the clarity to move faster and with greater conviction. I spent less time worrying about imagined risks and more time navigating real ones with purpose and efficiency. Shareholding Structures In a world that celebrates speed and disruption, legal frameworks might not seem exciting, but they are absolutely essential. In my first venture, I learned just how complex and time-consuming these structures can be. When not set up thoughtfully, they don't just become a distraction from the product and mission; they can also limit opportunities and strain relationships. As a second-time CEO, I approached this area with far more clarity. I had a stronger grasp of how shareholding with co-founders and investors should work, a better sense of what optimal structures look like, and the experience to build them with foresight. Well-designed frameworks don't just protect, they empower. They help align incentives, reduce friction, and build trust among all parties involved. This time, legal structures became a tool for momentum, not an obstacle. Why It Matters These are just a few lessons I've taken from building two startups in high-growth, high-stakes environments. Why does reflecting on them matter? Because the awareness didn't just help me become a stronger founder the second time around, it also offers tangible, practical insights for anyone stepping into entrepreneurship for the first time. Here are four key takeaways: Create Real Value Align your time, capital, and people around building the right product and marketing it effectively. Do this through open, honest, and consistent feedback loops with stakeholders at every stage. Build on Trust Surround yourself with people you respect. Prioritize clear communication and invest in relationships - your team, your partners, and your reputation will define your momentum. Face Risk, Don't Freeze The unknown is part of the journey. Learn to assess real risks versus perceived ones. Then decide and move. Speed with awareness is better than delay with doubt. Structure for Strength Legal and shareholding structures aren't just boxes to check. When done right, they support clarity, fairness, and long-term success. Don't sideline them; use them as a foundation for scale. Above all, every startup, whether it flies or falters, teaches you something. The most valuable thing you can do is take those lessons seriously. Learn, grow, and build better the next time.

How Culture Shapes Success More Than Capital or Innovation
How Culture Shapes Success More Than Capital or Innovation

Entrepreneur

time14-07-2025

  • Business
  • Entrepreneur

How Culture Shapes Success More Than Capital or Innovation

Entrepreneurs who treat culture as an add-on rather than the foundational context that shapes all business rules and behaviors are setting themselves up for failure. Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own. Entrepreneurship is not simply a matter of innovation or capital investment. It is the act of entering a domain — an economic spacetime — defined by its own norms, expectations and conduct. Entrepreneurs often refer to these contextual forces as "culture," but they rarely unpack what this term truly means. In practice, culture is not an abstract or academic concern; it is the very infrastructure that governs business behavior in a given domain. A business domain is not just a market opportunity. It is a new geography or a different industry that an entrepreneur steps into to venture a business or to initiate a new transaction. Each domain is embedded in a specific spacetime, and each spacetime inherits a living, breathing culture. Entrepreneurs who fail to understand this culture face constraints not because of written laws, but because of unwritten norms — what people expect, how they interact, what they value and how they trust. The interdependency between law and culture Culture is not separate from the law. It is the foundation of it. Contemporary legal systems are not engineered in a vacuum; they are legislated through the lens of prevailing socio-economic customs. These customs form the invisible boundary of what is acceptable or expected. Thus, culture is the primary source of legal context, not merely its reflection. Laws are written with assumptions about how people behave. They are structured around what society permits and prohibits, which is itself a derivative of culture. Understanding this interdependency between law and culture is not optional for entrepreneurs — it is foundational. The governing rules of any spacetime, be they legal or commercial, reflect the conduct of the people within it. They mirror the accepted norms, the unwritten etiquette of interaction and the systemic trust or distrust that fuels the economy. In simpler terms, the rules of the game are set by how the society functions. And society functions according to the culture that shapes it. Yet most entrepreneurs approach culture as a peripheral topic, something to be managed through branding, communication or internal HR. That is a mistake. Culture is not an add-on to business. It is the context in which the business exists. Studying regulations without studying culture is like learning the words of a language without understanding their meaning. You may comply on paper but fail in practice. Business culture must not be generalized or imported. It must be adaptive and contextual. Every entrepreneurial venture is embedded in a local spacetime, and the organization's culture must reflect that. A business operating in Tokyo cannot assume the cultural rules of Seattle. A startup in fintech must not adopt the same cultural principles as a legacy manufacturing firm. Organizational culture, in this sense, is not a choice — it is a necessity. It must reflect the spacetime in which the business operates. This is why cultural studies are more essential than regulatory studies for entrepreneurs. Legal compliance is procedural. Cultural alignment is strategic. Councils and legal advisors may provide interpretations of existing regulations, but it is the entrepreneur — who architects the enterprise — who must understand the deeper context that surrounds those laws. Without this understanding, legal compliance becomes shallow, and the organization remains culturally incompatible with the domain it seeks to serve. Entrepreneurs must become anthropologists of their target spacetime. They must study the living patterns of behavior, the symbolic codes, the assumptions and the embedded logics that people carry in their daily economic transactions. These are not just soft insights. They are the operating system of the domain. The more an entrepreneur understands these codes, the better positioned they are to design a business model that fits, rather than disrupts, the flow of that spacetime. Cultural alignment is not only about market entry. It defines internal operations as well. How people work, how they communicate, how they evaluate risk and how they define leadership — these are all cultural constructs. An organization built without reference to the culture in which it operates will struggle with internal coherence. It may recruit the right talent, develop the right products and access the right capital, but it will suffer from persistent misalignment with its environment. That misalignment is what causes business models to fail — not the lack of innovation, but the lack of resonance. Furthermore, understanding culture allows the entrepreneur to decode the "why" behind every regulation. When you grasp the cultural foundations of a society, you no longer see laws as arbitrary rules to follow. You see them as social contracts emerging from a collective understanding of order, fairness and risk. This is crucial because it transforms the entrepreneur's relationship with the legal environment — from external compliance to internal coherence. The mindset shift you need to make What does this mean in practical terms? It means the entrepreneur must shift from a legalistic mindset to a contextual one. Instead of asking, "What are the rules?" they must ask, "Why do these rules exist in this form, at this time, in this place?" That question leads to a deeper appreciation of the spacetime context and informs better decision-making — not only for legal and operational planning but also for brand positioning, partnership formation and long-term scaling. The entrepreneur's role is to synthesize. Not just to bring together capital, labor and technology, but to fuse their venture with the cultural DNA of the domain they enter. This synthesis is what makes a business not just viable but sustainable. It allows the business to evolve with its spacetime rather than against it. In the end, entrepreneurship is a contextual act. It does not exist in a vacuum. It is always situated, always embedded, always bound by the spacetime it occupies. Success does not come from disrupting blindly; it comes from aligning wisely. Entrepreneurs must, therefore, treat culture not as a variable but as a constant — one that defines the possibilities and limits of their business domain.

BBC Sport live page privacy notice
BBC Sport live page privacy notice

BBC News

time30-06-2025

  • Entertainment
  • BBC News

BBC Sport live page privacy notice

Your trust is very important to us. This means the BBC is committed to protecting the privacy and security of your personal data. It is important that you read this notice so that you are aware of how and why we are using such personal data. This privacy notice describes how we collect and use personal data about you during and after your relationship with us, in accordance with data protection law. Why are we doing this and how can you participate? Audiences are at the heart of everything we do at the BBC. We actively engage and ask our audience to contribute to our Sport output in a variety of ways, including giving you the chance to send in your opinion on Sports Events via the BBC BBC will collect the personal data you send via an online platform used by the will occasionally get in touch with you if we need more information on what you have sent to us. We may also invite you to appear on BBC you contribute to the BBC, we may use your contribution in our programmes or content, but we cannot promise to use everything that we receive. If we broadcast your contribution, this may include the programme being available online and/or on demand, and your contribution may be used again in a future broadcast. It may also include use on the BBC's social media information in relation to how the BBC will process your personal data where you are providing contributions to our programmes, please see our Privacy Notice for Contributors. What personal data will the BBC collect and how will we use it? The BBC will collect and process the personal data for the purposes of learning about your opinions; learning what stories our audience would like us to cover; to contribute content to BBC Sport and our programming; to get back in touch if we would like more information about what you have sent to us; and to collect audience feedback about the BBC Sport website. Personal data Depending on what content we've asked you to send to us, we will ask for different kinds of personal data, which may include:NameLocationBBC account IDYour age or age group, where appropriateYour feedback about the BBC Sport websiteYour suggestions for sport storiesDepending on what you share with us, we may process the following special category data about you:Health informationSexual orientationReligious or philosophical beliefsPolitical opinions Who is the Data Controller? The BBC is the "Data Controller" of your personal data. This means that the BBC decides what your personal data is used for, and the ways in which it is processed. For the avoidance of doubt, your personal data will be collected and processed solely for the purposes set out in this privacy notice. As the Data Controller, the BBC has the responsibility to comply, and to demonstrate compliance with, data protection law. Lawful basis for processing your personal data The lawful basis on which the BBC processes the personal data is the performance of its public task. The additional condition on which the BBC processes your special category data is substantial public interest relating to "statutory and government purposes" within the UK and European Economic Area (EEA), or your consent in the rest of the BBC's role is to act in the public interest and to serve all audiences with content which informs, educates and entertains. This is in line with its public purpose commitment to "provide impartial news and information to help people understand and engage with the world around them: the BBC should provide duly accurate and impartial news, current affairs and factual programming to build people's understanding of all parts of the United Kingdom and of the wider world."The BBC collects your personal data so that it can undertake activities which concern the freedom of the press, journalism and which support freedom of expression. This includes artistic, historical, literary, or scientific purposes. Sharing your personal data The BBC works with our approved third-party providers who help us to provide some of our services. These partners only use your personal data on behalf of the BBC and not independently of the may share personal data with a third party where required or permitted by law. Retaining your personal data We will retain personal data not used for a story or our content for one year after which time it will be you or your content appear on a broadcast or on the BBC website, this will be retained and archived in perpetuity by the personal data will be stored on the online platform used by the BBC in the UK and the European Economic Area (EEA). Your rights and more information You have rights under data protection law:You can request a copy of the personal data the BBC stores about have the right to request that we rectify any inaccurate or incomplete personal data that we hold about have the right to ask for the personal data we collect about you to be deleted. However, there are limitations and exceptions to this right which may entitle the BBC to refuse your certain circumstances you have the right to restrict the processing of your personal data, or to object to the processing of your personal have the right to ask that we transfer the personal data to you or to another organisation, in certain circumstances. You can contact our Data Protection Officer, external if you have questions or you wish to find out more details about your rights, please visit the BBC's Privacy and Cookies you have a concern about the way the BBC has handled your personal data, you can raise your concern with the supervisory authority in the UK, the Information Commissioner's Office, external (ICO). Updating this privacy notice We will revise the privacy notice if there are significant changes to how we use your personal data.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store