I finished my runs and was confident that the results would impress.
This wasn’t a jogging session.
I was performing a series of experiments and needed to get some results to prove my hypothesis.
But two weeks later, I was discouraged.
The experimental results were gibberish.
I couldn’t make head or tail from them, and I definitely couldn’t connect anything to what I expected.
I knew that I had only one option – to go back to the lab and do it again.
Lab experiments – especially for postgraduate science students – is laborious (no pun intended).
Now rope in the lack of research funds in a nation like Kenya, lack of infrastructure like analytical instruments, poor transportation network to facilitate travel, difficult supervisors (I’m glad mine is top notch) among other things and you just realize that you’re in for a frustrating trail.
And that’s not it…
You do your many experiments (which aren’t for free of course) only to realize that your results are anything but presentable.
So you dig into another expensive and discouraging round of data collection – again.
This cycle must be repeated until the desired outcome is achieved.
But wait…
Isn’t that the path of an entrepreneur?
Picture this..
A young man starts up a stall on the streets.
He sells affordable confectionary like chewing gums, biscuits and sweets.
At the end of the week, he does his calculations and finds out that his margins are wanting.
Now stay with me here.
He has two choices…
1. To close shop and to find something else to do
Or
2. To ask his customers what they really want so that he adjusts to their needs.
Design thinking calls this iteration.
So he opts for option 2.
He wakes up everyday of the week going forward with his offerings but just doesn’t leave it at that.
He keeps on engaging his customers until he hits target.
Isn’t that what the postgraduate science student has been doing in the lab?
Repeating and repeating and doing it again until his hypothesis is confirmed.
The scientist might not score A yet in customer service – but that’s a skill he can learn over time.
But he scores in resilience.
You see, resilience is the modern day genius.
The people who succeed in what they do rarely get it right the first or the second time.
Hey, they might even keep on failing for the 50th time but keep on trudging along as they learn from failure.
They keep on adjusting and mending their ways according to the needs out there until they get it right.
That’s what made Thomas Edison and Nicola Tesla the innovators we know of.
They kept on doing what seemed like folly to others until an investor with cash, George Westonghouse saw the opportunity, and partnered with them.
Today we enjoy electricity because of them.
Charles Goodyear did the same.
He looked like a man chasing shadows.
He was at some point bankrupt but he kept on going while converting his basement kitchen oven into a testing lab.
Today, we ride on rubber tyres, run on rubber soles purely because of his resilience and never-say-die attitude.
So this is a note to those Science graduates.
You have a B.Sc in Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Engineering etc.
Remember the labs or workshops you used to attend?
How many experiments gave you results on the first go? (Assuming that you didn’t cheat on the results because process is key here…)
Very few…I guess.
Now carry that mentality as you start something out here.
And it doesn’t need to be scientific.
It could be buying and selling shoes…
It could be a hotel or as we call it ‘kibandaski’…
It would be selling in the market…
It could be looking for a job..
Approach any opportunity out there as an experiment that is bound to fail.
And when it does, engage the stakeholders on what they think you should do for them to buy into your services, products, or your brand.
Cheers and all the best.
