This week I will be applying for a mentorship program put on by the guys at The Funded.  I’m really excited about the program and hope that I have the opportunity to take part in and contribute to the community.  I know that the information they are going to be teaching will be vital to the success of any of any entrepreneur.

The application for the Founder Institute consists of several essay’s and a short video to introduce yourself and your idea.  I decided to post each of my essay’s along with the video in three separate posts on this blog.  The first question they ask each of the applicants is why they want to become entrepreneurs.  Give it a read and let me know what you think.

Long before I knew about entrepreneurs, I was sharing business ideas I created with my family and friends.  At the time, it was just fun write down ideas for new products in a notebook.  I had no idea that those ideas would one day shape my career and become a pivotal part of my life.  My ideas ranged from theme restaurants to websites and electronic gadgets.  The response I recieved was almost always the same, “That’s a great idea Zak. You should do it.”  Until about 5 years ago, I never spent much time thinking about what it would actually take to “do it”.  In 2005, I created my first business plan.  It was for a college textbook rental website called Tingabyte.  I remember working on it thinking to myself, “It would be so cool if I could create businesses as my real job.”  Tingabyte did not end up working out, but the project’s failure has only deepened my desire to successfully build a business.

When I look back now, I can remember one of the first business ideas I worked on.  I was in the 7th grade, and did not have a clue about what I wanted to do with my life.  My teacher tasked each of the students in the class to create a new product.  The only limit was our imagination.  At the end of the class we were required to present the idea with a preliminary (non-working) prototype and a basic marketing plan.  I decided to design a 3D video game system called XLO 3D.  At the time, there were no video game systems that offered a true 3D experience.  I felt that my idea was unique and knew that there was potential for it to be huge.  The process of creating the system was by far the most fun I have had in school.  I loved the freedom to create and shape the product as I wished.  I loved sketching out a logo and designing the packaging.  I feel like that small project changed my life in more ways than I will know.  It allowed me to be creative and showed me the potential I had to create something big.  To this day, my desire to create things is just as great.  There is nothing I enjoy more than developing a new business idea.  I would love to be able to wake up every morning and be able to focus my time and energy on my own projects.

It is for this reason that I want to be an entrepreneur.  I desire more than anything to be able to create a product or application from scratch and bring it to the mass market.  I want to know that I am responsible for the paycheck that I am earning.  I want to have control over the business decisions that are made day-to-day.  I want to work with a team of people who are passionate about creating new things.

I know that it is not easy to do this.  It is going to take a lot of time and there will be sacrifices that I am going to need to make.  I am willing to do whatever it takes. I want to earn the right to be able to call myself an Entrepreneur.