I was at an event recently when I got talking to a guy who said that only when you’ve started a business and after it has failed should you then be called an entrepreneur. Now I understand that he’s highlighting that failure can be valuable in providing important lessons but is it necessary to fail before you can be described as an ‘entrepreneur’?
At school I was taught that the key feature that differentiates an entrepreneur from your average human was the ability / willingness to take risks. At the time I think the focus was on the financial risks accepted by the entrepreneur – the amount s/he invests, takes out in loans, the assets used to secure loans etc.
But what about the other risks? Risk to reputation of failure; risk of spending time with inadequate dividend or profit to compensate for this non-renewable resource? When a person takes risks by initiating/managing a venture and money is taken out of the equation…must the description of entrepreneur elude him/her?
To be honest, when I think of an entrepreneur, I think of someone who creates something out of nothing, like a magician or a salesperson. I also think of someone who instigates a venture, and obtains and manages resources to create something of value. My definitions sort of contradict each other. I don’t often take into account financial risk or revenue generation when deciding whether someone should be called an entrepreneur. Clearly I’m confused; but I don’t like what I remember as the standard textbook definition that was taught at school.
Is there a modern definition of the word? And what would that be?
I didn’t expect to find a satisfying answer in the following location, so with no good reason and with a deliberate swagger I made my way over to the Urban Dictionary and came across definitions which were:
Sad: a person who rises to the occasion but fails, only to bring down his community worse
Funny: french for “unemployed.”
Probably true: loves starting things then delegating them to others; hates bosses, rules, authority and taxes; probably doesn’t really know how to spell entrepreneur.
Great post! It’s something i have wondered about a lot myself..
I used to cringe every time someone introduced me as an “Entrepreneur” I didn’t feel worthy, I wasn’t (I’m still not!) running a revenue generating enterprise, I am running a start-up. But for want of a better term, (startupreneur is a bit of a tongue twister!) I begrudgingly adopted “entrepreneur” as a title to describe the fact that I am working for myself, on something that I myself started, moving it towards the goal of it becoming an independent profitable venture.
So for me, an ‘entrepreneur’ is someone who gambles that any number of necessary and educated sacrifices *now* will pay off in great multitudes later, and this gamble is made not based on chance or reliant on someone else, but on the belief that their skills and their own hard work will pay off for them in the long run.
And under *that* definition, I am most certainly an entrepreneur.
Thanks Amanda! I quite like your definition and am in agreement! 🙂
Let’s keep it real. All that really matters is that you are a “successful entrepreneur.” Now we’re getting somewhere…..http://www.LikeSoup.com
Hi Jim,
What’s your definition of a ‘successful entrepreneur’?