Business Mindset

Business is one of those words that have both positive and negative connotations attached to it. There are believe system that see businesses as evil or monstrous. I may not like to justify if business is evil or good because all I know for sure is that business is necessary, because of just one simple reason: Scarcity. Without scarcity, there is no need for economical transactions aka businesses.

Humans need food to sustain, clothes to protect from sun or cold and a roof over the head to protect against the rains and blizzard. The modern lifestyle needs even more stuff than just food-cloth-shelter. Yet, for the argument’s sake, let’s assume that these are the only needs, since we live in a small hunter gatherer tribe. In such society even if the food is all around, it’s not sitting on a platter. If someone wants to eat meat, they have to hunt an animal that doesn’t want to be eaten. Gathering fruits, berries, roots etc. is time consuming. Natural shelters are few and far between. As a result, getting even the basic needs fulfilled requires lot of effort and time which is in short supply, since humans are innovative, they started trading on the stuff they accumulated through hard work. The time has changed, but the basic principle is the same, moreover because of scarcity, the basic necessities are at the risk of being robbed, hence, to protect against such risk, we created states and governments. if you think about it, scarcity is the mother of everything which is human.

We need economical transactions to overcome scarcity hence evil or not business is here to stay till the problem of scarcity is resolved (I am thinking of AI). Since act of business has been for around quite some time, it has adopted some very sophisticated methodologies to keep itself thriving, these methodologies are too good to ignore irrespective of whether we consider our endeavor a business or not. Let me go one by one and discuss these methodologies, whose adoption would be termed as business mindset.

Growth Mindset

Businesses always have a growth mindset and it’s not something they wake up every day and remind themselves to adopt, rather this mindset is dictated by the market forces.

Let’s take an example of a fictious public company XBZ. Our company did a business of $ 1 Billion in 2024 with a 10% margin; it again did a business of $ 1 Billion in 2025 with a 10% margin. From the outside, XBZ looks successful since it is profitable, yet the market forces are going to punish the company for stagnant revenue. The share prices would tumble, as a result the company becomes prime victim of a hostile takeover or worse, a takeover by a competitor who is either absorb the company or dissolve it. On the other hand, a loss-making company whose revenue is increasing, will be rewarded by the market.

While businesses are forced to adopt a growth mindset, we are not forced, yet we can adopt the same mindset by choice. Even employees must strive to grow skills and wealth, especially skills.

Feedback

I have made a career out of building analytics system that facilitates measurements of Key Performance Indicator for many companies/businesses. Businesses are serious about tracking their progress, performance etc. because what is measured can be improved.

This is a very crucial mindset to adopt. One has to keep track of progress, irrespective of whether they are an artist or a corporate employee. Measuring is not just half done, rather I would argue that measurement is 90 percent part of the feedback process, the 10 percent would be to implement the gap perceived as a result of measurements.

Innovation and Risk Management

Businesses are always on a lookout for innovation. It could be a cheaper way to produce, or a more efficient process for handling their workflow. Businesses partake in innovation because they understand that nothing stays the same. There is an inherent risk to doing business and innovation is a way to mitigate the risk.

One can learn to be to innovative, always on a lookout for self-improvement and self-efficiency.

Value Creation

Businesses and by extension entrepreneurs have a knack of creating or seeing the value. Tools maybe the same for everyone but businesses see the opportunity to create value in the tool. While regular person saw in C, a cool way to print “Hello World” on the screen, Elon Musk saw it a tool to create Music Program. The same thing is happening in the age of AI, while regular folks are happy, chatting with LLM, there are businesses and entrepreneurs building prototype or even products like Cursor, Copilot using the same LLMs.

One can adopt the attitude for value creation using tools at our disposal. One can even go so far as to tool hunting so that one can create some value out of it.

Final Takeaway

I am not a businessman in a traditional sense; I am a corporate employee with good understanding of capitalism and economics. Yet, I consider myself a businessman. I sell my skills for liquid capital, and by adopting the mindsets of traditional businesses, I strengthen my position and manage risk.

I adopt the growth mindset; hence, I am always looking to increase my skills, my wealth etc. I seek feedback, keep track of my progress, I watch out for my position with respect to my competitors. I try to diversify my skill sets and think of the rainy day more over I have just started to see values in the tools I encounter. I am learning to be like a true business, and so can you.