The Beginner's Guide to Who Is an Entrepreneur and What is Entrepreneur
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| Who Is an Entrepreneur |
These might all be traits that entrepreneurs can
strive for. But, at its core, an entrepreneur is someone who sees a need and
takes on the financial risk to start a business to fill that need. That may
sound kind of vague, but that’s kind of the point. There’s no cookie-cutter
entrepreneur. Unless you, like, start a business to sell cookie cutters. In
which case, yes, there is a cookie-cutter entrepreneur. Your idea might take
the form of a physical product with a physical store -- called a brick and
mortar business. In Montana, Charlie and Barbie Beaton of Big Dipper Ice Cream
took their passion for locally made ice cream from one shop in downtown
Missoula to appearing on Good Morning America. Daaaaaamn. Or instead of a
tangible product, your venture might be a national empowerment network.
Girl Boss New Zealand was founded by 20-year-old Alexia Hilbertidou after she
was the only woman in her upper-level physics class. Her goal is encouraging
high-school-age women to pursue STEM and leadership careers. Or you might set
your sights on an international online media empire, like Arianna Huffington,
the founder and namesake of HuffPost. She founded her site (with partners) as a
friendly alternative to news aggregators. And she eventually sold it to AOL in
2015 for $315 million US dollars. Get it, Ari. It’s clear that entrepreneurs
come in all flavors. I mean, according to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor,
over 100 million businesses are launched each year. That’s 11,000 per hour or 3
new businesses per second. ...There they go! So instead of just defining who is
an entrepreneur, since it is such a wide scope - we can instead narrow down our
definition by understanding who isn’t one. Let’s go to the Thought Bubble.
Say
Congress works for Me-Wow, a feline health and fitness company. He notices a
need -- a shocking lack of cat transportation -- and comes up with the idea for
the Cat-Cycle, which he pitches to his boss. Me-Wow immediately sends the
Cat-Cycle into production because it’s a genius idea, obvi and it flies off the
shelves. Even though Congress is using an entrepreneurial mindset, by our
definition, he isn’t an entrepreneur yet. The company Me-Wow actually took the
financial risk to develop, produce, and sell the Cat-Cycle. Meanwhile, Beetle
sees the same need for cat transportation and sketches out the Cat-Board in his
personal idea notebook after work. He’s gained valuable experience working for
Me-Wow and develops the Cat-Board in the evenings and on weekends before
striking out on his own. Using his personal savings, Beetle commissions a
prototype that he shops around to local stores. A few are interested and he
sets up contracts with them. As his sales begin to grow, Beetle creates new
designs, but he doesn’t pay attention to what his customers like or dislike
about the Cat-Board. Because he failed to make valuable improvements to the
Cat-Board for his customers, sales plummet. It’s a tough decision, but Beetle
cuts his losses and sells his Cat-Board designs to Me-Wow, which revamps his
idea as the Dog-Board. Beetle is an entrepreneur because he saw a need and took
the financial risk to fill it! It didn’t go so well because he didn’t
incorporate customer feedback. But now he knows where he went wrong and won’t
make the same mistake in his next entrepreneurial endeavor. Thanks Thought
Bubble! For a while, the classic story of an entrepreneur was someone who
created one business that became a long-term project, like opening a new
restaurant or founding a tech startup to make flashy phone games. But that’s
not the whole picture anymore.
There’s been a shift in the global job market
that has opened the door for entrepreneurship to become more mainstream.
Specifically, I’m talking about the rise of the Gig Economy. Contract work,
called gigging, is becoming more popular and taking up more of the labor
market. And I don’t just mean gigs like musicians and comedians hopping between
open mic nights. Instead of a long-term relationship where employees are paid
salaries by the hour or year, businesses are temporarily hiring people for
specific projects. This shift has made it financially easier for entrepreneurs
to find people to get their businesses going, without committing long-term to
paying employees. And it’s allowed early-stage entrepreneurs to find flexible
work to support themselves as they develop their product or service. This doesn’t
mean everyone in the gig economy is an entrepreneur, it’s just given more
people the opportunity. So a more traditional path might be joining an
accounting firm right after college and working 9 to 5, Monday to Friday until
you retire. Or die of boredom. Spreadsheets? For LIFE?? Some people
might feel fulfilled with that kind of steady employment. And the stability
that comes from being a salaried employee with health insurance can be
incredibly valuable. Others, like us entrepreneurs, might itch for more
independence. In the gig economy, you could have a couple ways to make money,
in addition to or instead of that 9-to-5 job. And you can go online to look for
gigs from anywhere not just your real-life community. So you might consult
for a network of women small business owners on their day-to-day accounting,
create vlogs with tax software tips, and sell unicorn knit hats on Etsy that
are knit out of the softest fabric there is. On the plus side, this allows
workers to build robust portfolios of work and find fulfilling gigs.
Having
separate jobs can also provide a stronger sense of income security than one
full-time job. Even if you lose one, you’re still making money. All hail the
side-hustle! Today’s entrepreneurs are well-suited for the gig economy because
we know how to hustle. We’re independent thinkers who are comfortable with
developing our own diverse income streams, marketing ourselves, and connecting
with others. I mean, who hasn’t had a Lyft driver who moonlights as a cinnamon
roll artisan, right? But there are still problems with the gig lifestyle. Sure,
someone might become a Lyft driver to help fund their sugary dream. But they’re
almost certainly not doing it because driving strangers around is their
passion. For some people, participating in the gig economy is a necessity, not
a choice. Scrambling to pay rent and afford food is another reason to have a
bunch of gigs. And, depending on the country and government, gig workers can
have fewer legal protections - like mandatory breaks and standardized pay -- or
they might have a harder time maintaining insurance and retirement accounts.
This makes some countries more attractive to entrepreneurs, such as New
Zealand, Singapore, and Denmark, based on The World Bank’s annual analysis of
the “Ease of Doing Business.” But even in those countries, there’s a difference
between legally being able to take a break and actually taking a break. It can
be a struggle to turn off the hustle -- especially for those of us trying to
create a personal brand with our art or online presence. But taking time for
fun hobbies and spending time with friends and family are important parts of
being successful, and so necessary to stay mentally healthy. Trust me! So it’s
not all blue skies and rainbows. But if you ever wanted to be an entrepreneur,
the gig economy has made it more possible now than ever.
Even still,
entrepreneurship isn’t easy. Taking a financial gamble is stressful, and so is
working long hours to try and get a project off the ground. I know for me, the
lack of structured work time often means that my business has no off time. And
if I’m not careful, I can work around the clock and get myself exhausted. But
tons of us take the leap to start a new business and stick with it through the
ups and downs, so what exactly keeps us motivated? At the top of the list is
freedom. Entrepreneurs get to be their own bosses. This can mean setting your
own hours and deciding on dress codes... or lack thereof. Sweatpants all day
everyday amirite? Maybe you want to work from bed or while you travel, writing
emails by a pool. And for traditionally underrepresented groups in business
like women, people of color, or the LGBTQ community, ding ding ding, I am all
those things. It can mean defining your own destiny. You can create an
inclusive company culture and work environment, rather than feeling stuck in an
uncomfortable -- or even possibly illegal -- situation with a boss or coworker.
If someone keeps talking over you and dismissively says women can’t be funny,
you don’t need to hire them for your writer’s room or film set. Or if a
coworker from a previous job got fired for having a natural hairstyle, you can
create a business where that would never happen. You wield the power. A study
in the Social Science Research Network journal found that entrepreneurs start
companies because they mostly believe that: They are inherently more valuable
than how they appear on paper. They are wasted working for someone else Their
resumes don’t show “the real them” Large companies can’t appreciate their full
potential. And They are capable of turning their internal value into real life
money. Basically, entrepreneurs believe in themselves. And sure, building
self-confidence over time isn’t always easy, but it can be a powerful
motivator. And then, there’s potential wealth. Yes, there’s financial risk in
starting a business, but there’s money in running a successful one.
Entrepreneurial lore is full of rags-to-riches tales, where people pitch the
next SnapChat and are launched into the business stratosphere. Like, Oprah
Winfrey has said she spent her early childhood wearing overalls made of potato
sacks.
But she became North America’s first black multi-billionaire and “Queen
of the Daytime Talk show.” Sure, this is the stuff of inspirational posters, and
not everyone can make it this big. But entrepreneurship does create a culture
of opportunity that might work for some non-traditional workers. Of course,
every entrepreneur with a massive success has also had hundreds of failures.
Yep, the dreaded F word. Lean Startup methodology is basically the globally
recognized guidebook for entrepreneurs created by Steve Blank and Eric Ries.
And it says stumbling is perfectly fine if we learn as we go. But to identify
and learn from failures, every entrepreneur has to ask themselves: what does
success look like to me? Is it earning $30,000 a year in your food truck and
skiing every weekend? Is it selling your idea for a million dollars? Is it
becoming the CEO of a mid-size media production company and writing novels on
the side? Thanks for hiring us, Hank! Also where is the sequel and when can I
star in the movie adaptation? Or is it owning 6 cats and producing your own
films? Whatever success is, it’s entirely up to you. Of course no one wants to
fail. But together we’ll learn how to redefine failure and pick up the pieces
if it’s truly unavoidable. It’s not that successful entrepreneurs never faced
failure; it’s that they didn’t quit. So the bottom line is anyone can be an
entrepreneur with a little grit, determination, and luck. And remember, you may
have stopped believing in unicorns, but they’ve never stopped believing in you...
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