Let me get philosophical (and maybe pathetically wrong) about the question itself: Is entrepreneur a temporary or a permanent state? Can someone ask themselves "am I an athlete?".
For the few who knows about it, I'm Jew, and while my wife was converting for our wedding, one of the first classes at the synagogue the rabbi asked "What is a Jew?". Don't focus on Judaism, but think of any religion out there. What is a Catholic? What is a Buddhist? The first reaction of anyone is to say "someone that follows that religion". Well, what if I don't follow some aspects of the religion (or almost none) and say that I'm a Jew. Does that make me a Jew?
So, if you use the "lose religion principal" above, you can say that you are an entrepreneur even if you are not practicing entrepreneurship but describe yourself as such.
But that's good for the spirit and self-assurance. We need outside validation. We live in a society after all.
The Wikipedia definition of entrepreneur is wrong, IMHO. Here is my definition:
An entrepreneur must start something from nothing. Must create value out of thin air, either by creating a product or service, directly by his handy work or by aligning the right people to do so.
Risk is just a consequence and not "causation".
In my definition you are not an entrepreneur if you join a startup or an existing company. Entrepreneurs found companies. If you are #2 at a Startup you are entering a moving train, maybe slowly, but moving. When you found a company you have to build the train first.
Two more thoughts on entrepreneurs:
First, I think you stop being an entrepreneur if you stop founding companies and creating values. Which means I believe "entrepreneur" is a temporary state.
Second, entrepreneurs love to believe they are special and genetics plays a fundamental role on them being this way. I'm not sure that's true. I'm not sure people cannot be trained to be entrepreneurs (or they were educated to not be one). To think is most genetics is a very elitist (may I say "Aryan-like") view of a population.
I know entrepreneurs (by my definition) who are very incompetent and will certainly fail. They have the spirit, but lack the skills. I also know people that have the skills and lack the spirit. But above all, I know people that were not entrepreneur, but became one, and people that were, but went back to corporate life.
So, if you want "to be an entrepreneur" you have to act like one.
There's "entrepreneur" and then there's "entrepreneurial".
You can be both, but unless you start a business/venture you're not really an entrepreneur IMO. "Entrepreneurial" to me means that you think like an entrepreneur -- whether you started the company or not, you'd much rather be in the position of a pioneer rather than a settler, taking on risk and building something from nothing. I think it's a quality important for anyone involved in startups.
@Jordan - Agreed. Further, the scope of responsibility you take on by starting your own company (where you can take *nothing* for granted) is much higher than simply being entrepreneurial in a large company (where you can draw on the resources of the company).
Thanks for reading my post; I’m glad to hear it triggered you to write this one. I agree that it is a fallacy to think there is a genetic basis for entrepreneurs being the way they are. I also think that this elitist view, carried to its logical conclusion, can be a death sentence for many fledgling businesses (I actually don’t know any entrepreneurs who successfully started a business while holding this idea, although I know some who adopted it later after they achieved success). I can’t speak for all entrepreneurial people, but I do a fair amount of introspection and questions that frequently come up include, "how am I so lucky?" or "why is it that I can do these things that other people find so scary or hard?". IMO, people often don't give themselves enough credit and instead attribute a portion of their success to luck, or genetics (which is also luck). I think entrepreneurs are better at both seeing and seizing opportunities – and that’s often why they appear to be lucky. My favorite literary quote is from the Latin poet Virgil who says, “fortune sides with he who dares”. I think this quote captures the entrepreneurial spirit. An entrepreneur dares to conceive of something that doesn’t exist yet, and undertake the arduous task of bringing it into existence. He dares to think very hard, to ride an emotional rollercoaster, to be different, to spend his time on something outside “the norm” of a day job or a guaranteed paycheck. This also ties back to what you say about risk, that it’s a consequence [of being an entrepreneur] not a cause.
@Mohit I agree. I think this is also a great argument for being entrepreneurial in a large organization, because often the resources are already available simply need to be put to better use. If you're taking a risk within a big company, often there is a high risk tolerance and you can still work on something that teaches you a lot and lets you stretch, without having to face the risk you would assume by starting out on your own.
For young people right out of school, this can be a great boost for a career and for confidence as well as an outlet for all our generation Y "angst" about wanting to work on things that "matter". (More on that in another post I think)
This won't surprise you, but I disagree, whether you're defining "entrepreneur" or "entrepreneurial." Being the first at a company doesn't mean you're an entrepreneur, nor does being second mean you're not. I founded my first company in 1983. I've worked at startups I founded and startups I didn't. Some were successful and some weren't. I didn't become a non-entreprenur when a company didn't end up actually "creating value," or when I didn't happen to be a founder. I didn't stop being an entrepreneur while I was at Microsoft. I know many founders who I wouldn't call entrepreneurs. Some were even successful, but they were business people, not entrepreneurs. Being an entrepreneur is what you do and how you do it, not what your employee ID # is.
On a separate note, I'm going to guess you intended to be provocative when you wrote "...entrepreneurs love to believe they are special...," so I'll call you on it. Sure, that's true of *some* entrepreneurs, but it's also true of some of pretty much any group you could pick. We are not special because we happen to be entrepreneurs or we happen to be lucky to be in a lucrative field.
@Danielle, I think your definition of "entrepreneur-in-training" for yourself is not bad, but you're also selling yourself short. You know where you want to be but you also know you have things to learn. That's great! You are being an entrepreneur already in building the brand of Danielle.
For more of my thoughts, see my blog post from March: http://www.thistangent.com/2008/03/who-is-greatest-entrepreneur.html
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. I've been meaning to write this blog post for a while, and she just triggered my writing hormones.
Comments (5) for "Are you (and am I) an entrep...
June, 2008