Saturday, April 17, 2010

Entrepreneur DNA

Nice article over at "Both Sides of the Table" on what it takes to be an entrepreneur. The Author is himself an former business owner that is now doing venture capital. Each of the eleven points links to its own article, which is a nice touch.

There are a lot of books out there that push entrepreneurship like it is a religion and that anyone who is an employee is just a sucker. This is  bad policy. Not everyone is cut out to run their own business. Those that aren't and try their hand at it often wind up bankrupt, both corporately and personally. One day I will post about the particular things that I think you should keep in mind before getting into business for yourself. In the meantime, this list of personality traits is a good thing to keep in mind.

2 comments:

Morgan Drake Eckstein said...

For instance, my wife is not cut out to be self-employed. When she was running her own business, she would completely ignore paperwork. I don't think she ever figured out that her time (the value of it) should be figured into the cost of the product (she was doing pottery). And she sould completely ignore those who had management experience when they advised her to address these issues.

Anonymous said...

There are a lot of books out there that push entrepreneurship like it is a religion and that anyone who is an employee is just a sucker. This is bad policy. Not everyone is cut out to run their own business.

Thank you! Funny, I had a recent online conversation at another blog about this very thing. To this list, I'd add something about "skillsets". Running a business usually involves a fundamentally different set of skills than just....doing the work, and people tend to gravitate toward (and enjoy) the work that best uses their particular skillsets. It might be obvious in the case of "surgeon" vs. "hospital administrator", but you'd be surprised at the number of people who think that the skillset to be an electrician is the same skillset to be a contractor.

I'd also add in something about salesmanship, being a good fit for the industry (or local) culture, and time management (if your time management skills truly suck---don't start your own business). And beyond that---desire. You really have to be in love with entrepreneurship; it has to be a deep part of your self-expression. If you're only doing it for the money, that won't be enough to tide you over the rough spots (which there will be plenty of).