Am I an Entrepreneur?
In the upper left-hand corner there’s a text blurb where I describe myself, and it says, “23 year old entrepreneur…”. Well, actually it said ‘entreprenuer’ until an anonymous commenter was nice enough to point out my spelling mistake on my bio page. This same commenter asked what makes me an entrepreneur, and my first reaction was to jump to the defense of all my projects and work; instead I looked up the definition of ‘entrepreneur’. The Wikipedia entry is probably the most useful for getting a good definition, as well as some interesting references:
An entrepreneur is a person who has possession over a company, enterprise, or venture, and assumes significant accountability for the inherent risks and the outcome. The term is a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to the type of personality who is willing to take upon herself or himself a new venture or enterprise and accepts full responsibility for the outcome. In common understanding it is taken as describing a dynamic personality.
As I wandered to the shower (where I do my best thinking) I asked my husband, “am I an entrepreneur?” and he responded, “Well, life has a lot of risk”. After my shower I asked him again and he said, “no, you’re not right now”. He’s right.
Although I generate content and work on various projects beyond my day job, it isn’t part of any system that forms an enterprise. I’ve been an entrepreneur on a very small scale in the past, when I ran little businesses like web design or teaching people how to use their computers. However, right now I’m more of wantreprenuer with many ideas and a continuously growing stockpile of knowledge and understanding of what people want, but no business to show for it yet.Â
Right now, I’m finding people I can learn from about pitching, financing, filtering through good ideas and bad. I’m also building a network that I hope will someday consist of potential customers, partners, advisors, employees and investors. The tech community in Seattle is a big change from the networking I’ve done in the past, in finance and in international trade. It’s refreshing; people tell you what they really think of your ideas and they’re excited about seeing you make them a reality. Being involved in the community helps me meet people who can give me a sanity check, or suggest problems that need solving. I’m still learning more about myself, and what kind of business I want to work on and live with for several years.
In the meantime, I’m working for a Web 2.0 (or 3.0, whatever that means) company learning all sorts of different things. In the past year I’ve learned how to use Linux, mySQL, manage bloggy goodness with WordPress like a champ, and furthered my MS Excel guru status through even greater utilization of Visual Basic. I’m also learning to give interviews and speak publicly, which I’ve discovered I enjoy and hope to someday be truly good at. Most recently, I’ve been learning to blog to a public audience about more than just my day-to-day life.
So, am I an entrepreneur? No, not right now. If it didn’t have such a negative connotation, I’d call myself a wantrepreneur. Instead, I’ll go with ‘entrepreneur in training’ – I’ll fix my tagline.
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Who’s Weighing In?
Seattle entrepreneur Marcelo Calbucci says:
“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”.”Â
6 Comments
Jordan Mitchell
Being an entrepreneur is often romanticized; it’s usually SO much more miserable than you hear about. (take it from me!)
Labels are often misconstrued — are you “a swing dancer” or do you merely enjoy swing dancing? I think being “entrepreneurial” is much more important than being “an entrepreneur”.
admin
I agree, being an entrepreneur is romanticized in a way similar to how being a “starving artist” gets romanticized.
The only first hand experience I have with it was when my father started his business, but at the time I was too young to empathize with him the way I would now over things like making sure the mortgage is getting paid, an putting off paying taxes until the last possible moment.
I think both being an entrepreneur and being entrepreneurial are good things, and there are times for both although entrepreneurs are far less common than entrepreneurial people. Even if you’re never an entrepreneur you can certainly approach any value creation with an entrepreneurial mindset, and hopefully reap a greater outcome as a result.
Nils Geylen
To me, entrepreneur has somewhat of a negative connatation already. It sounds like someone wheeling and dealing their way into making a living from anything that will do.
I suppose whether you have your own business, take on great projects, or just get things done, it’s the spirit of engaging that counts. We who reach out, do things, share, may not be entrepreneurs or enterprise owners, I’m sure we’re busy enough to count as interactors, perhaps even movers. Let’s not shake that up any more than needed.
Danielle Morrill
@Nils I’m surprised to hear that “entrepreneur” has a negative connotation in your mind. I associate being an entrepreneur with being free to fail, or conversely to succeed with a much greater payout than can be had working for someone else’s business. From what I can tell, successful entrepreneurs don’t do much wheeling and dealing since starting a company and getting it to yield a profit usually takes years of focus.
I agree that “it’s the spirit of engaging that counts” and I think the engagement level I see in entrepreneurs is very high. The stakes are high for them and so their intensity is a natural outcome; they are trying to make the most of their endeavour. I think one reason I’m confused about whether I’m an entrepreneur or not is that I feel like I’ve got that same intensity in my work, but maybe I’m confusing the “spirit” of entrepreneurship with the actuality of it?
CocoaP
Very intersting that I came across the mention of your name and this blog. I must have found you after about 4th level of clicking through reading random blogs.
Anyhow, we met in Caribbean and I remember your company’s iPhone application Whrrl. Great job, and keep up the spirit of entrepeurship!
Danielle Morrill
@CocoaP wow – small world! That’s great, I’m glad you found me and I hope we can reconnect, thanks for the encouragement.
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