Real Entrepreneur?

[usakos]

An "entrepreneur" is one who creates and manages change by pursuing opportunity, acting with passion for a purpose, living proactively, and leveraging resources to create value.

Source: The eVenturing Glossary at the Kauffman Foundation

So, if all you do is affiliates, and you haven't started any business yet, why do you refer to yourself as an entrepreneur?

What makes you think that you're actually an entrepreneur? Or you're just a starving entrepreneur, still living in your parent's or sister's basement? If so, what are you currently doing to get out and become an actual successful entrepreneur?

[richkid]

An "entrepreneur" is one who creates and manages change by pursuing opportunity, acting with passion for a purpose, living proactively, and leveraging resources to create value.

Sounds like an affiliate marketer to me.

how many times do we have to have this debate. We are pursuing an opportunity to create wealth, doing so with a passion and a purpose (running it like any other business), and we are leveraging the resources at hand (namely a product that we are able to help sell)

Just because someone else created the product doesnt mean that we are not entrepreneurs. Others wise the founder of walmart wouldnt be an entrepreneur because all he does is sell other peoples products.

[akula]

I'm a big kauffman groupie but I don't like their descriptive definitions. A bad definition of an entrepreneur is one that describes what an entrepreneur is, whilst a good definition is one which prescribes specific roles for what an entrepreneur does. Therefore, an entrepreneur is a person who is practicing the four roles of entrepreneurship by being either an investor, a founder, a senior manager or a director. That's a better, more prescriptive definition of what an entrepreneur does (rather than what an entrepreneur is). It's hard to improve at "creating and managing change by pursuing opportunity", but it's practical to benchmark and improve performance in either one of the four roles.

Likewise, it's a lot easier to compare an contrast diffrent kinds of entrepreneurs based on the parameters of their four entrepreneurial roles...there are entrepreneurs who invest based on the lead of other investors (i.e. they start ventures which are "flavours of the month")..other entrepreneurs arbitrate opportunities (i.e. import business ides from overseas)..and yet again other entrepreneurs may follow the contrarian investment strategy and start ventures which buckle the status quo. Similarly, some entrepreneurs limit them selves to the role of founder and employ professional CEOs, others don't; in the same way that some entrepreneurs have a board of directors, whilst others may not. So...these are the diffrent prescriptive dimensions of what defines an entrepreneur...and if you're not doing anyone of the four roles - then you're something other than an entrepreneur.

The point: it's quite accessible for a teacher to present a comprehensive learning experience teaching people how to be good investors, founders, managers or directors. However, it's difficult to teach some one how to "create and managing change by pursuing opportunity" because such a role is too wide in its description (it says a lot without saying anything). That's why the definition of an entrepreneur has to move away from describing what an entrepreneur is, to prescribing what an entrepreneur does.

[akula]

If so, what are you currently doing to get out and become an actual successful entrepreneur?

To answer your question: I'm doing four things:

1. Better investor: I apply an investment thesis to select opportunities which have a better profile than other opportunities (i.e. opportunities with higher upside and lower downside).

2. Better founder: Because I'm a better investor, I have less problem with aggregating resources currently outside of my control

3. Better Manager: I use productivity tools and leadership tactics to better manage finances, people and other resources to create more value, quicker with less waste.

4. Better director: I use a range of tactic and strategies to create a better board to make the company more attractive to the rest of the market.

The more I improve in these four roles, the better results I expect from doing entrepreneurship - subject to random error..of course

[usakos]

Look at the description of an entrepreneur on top of this YE tool bar page;

en·tre·pre·neur – noun Entrepreneur, translated from its French roots, means
"one who undertakes." The term Entrepreneur is used to refer to anyone who undertakes the organization and management of an enterprise involving independence and risk as well as the opportunity for profit.

[richkid]

Look at the description of an entrepreneur on top of this YE tool bar page;

en·tre·pre·neur – noun Entrepreneur, translated from its French roots, means
"one who undertakes." The term Entrepreneur is used to refer to anyone who undertakes the organization and management of an enterprise involving independence and risk as well as the opportunity for profit.

you're a joke.

you realise you lost. so you go and change the rules!

[HiTechGadgets]

I belive and entrepreneur is someone who develops a beginners mind by saying "Whats missing in this picture". If you develop a beginners mind and a blank piece of paper as every entrepreneur has and must would begin to see every probem around you as an opportunity that he or she can take advantage of as opportunities exist in the pain of other people. You start a company for a reason mainly to satisfy the desires other people have buy mainly by eliminating the frustrations that they encounter everyday to make a living.

We all encounter failure as entrepreneurs but "failure is a phase through nearly all people must pass on the way to success." The ability to take a punch and still get up strong to win the fight is on of the defining characteristics of a true entrepreneurs.

[akula]

Look at the description of an entrepreneur on top of this YE tool bar page;

en·tre·pre·neur – noun Entrepreneur, translated from its French roots, means
"one who undertakes." The term Entrepreneur is used to refer to anyone who undertakes the organization and management of an enterprise involving independence and risk as well as the opportunity for profit.

yeah..good point...that would be yet another descriptive definition of entrepreneurship. notice an interesting point; the passage describes an entrepreneur as "one who undertakes". compare that description to what your business card says. does your card say "my job title is to undertake stuff"? no it doesn't. most probably your card nominates your job title as either a founder, a ceo/cto or a director (i.e. you identify your self with one of the four entrepreneurial roles)...i know that on my card it says "vacancybid.com, cofounder", it doesn't say "vacancybid.com, I undertake stuff"

the point: i think that it's important for teachers to teach entrepreneurship. to do this effectively, teachers have to stop using descriptive definitions such as "one who undertakes" and move toward prescriptive definitions that reflect what entrepreneurs actually do (and what they write on their business cards).

btw..i didn't realise we were competing..

[akula]

I belive and entrepreneur is someone who develops a beginners mind by saying "Whats missing in this picture".

noo...listen to the point. it doesn't matter what you think an entrepreneur is. you have to look at what entrepeneurs does...and what an entrepreneur does is written on her business card....restate your definition as "I believe and entrepreneur is someone who does etc.."

yes, like you mentioned, entrepreneurs practice opportunity selection when they get their little pieces of paper, identify a pool of opportunities and filter the opportunities to arrive at the best one. entrepreneurs do this in their role as investors, but they also have to do do lots of other things (like take board minutes, motivate people, apply for loans at banks etc..), which you did not include in your descriptive definition.

Likewise, the other problem with your definition (the first being that it's incomplete) is that it's impractical. How can someone get better at "developing a beginners mind by asking whats missing in this picture"? It's not like you can put a quantitative benchmark on my ability to "see what's missing with the picture"..and if you can't measure an ability, then it's not going to improve...anyways, what you're talking about is SWOT analysis.

[HiTechGadgets]

Yes i am talking about SWOT Analysis when it comes to any business that involves a service or a product. Thats what it means by developing a beginners mind, wanting to know the big picture , thinking outside the box.

[akula]

Yes i am talking about SWOT Analysis when it comes to any business that involves a service or a product. Thats what it means by developing a beginners mind, wanting to know the big picture , thinking outside the box.

That's cool..

Imagine if there was a flier at your uni saying "enrol for entrepreneurship 101 for spring!!". Then, a funny kinda kid calls up the number and asks "What are we gonna learn?". Guess what they tell him; "We're gonna teach you how to develop a beginners mind, look at the big picture and think outside the box..and if you enrol in the next 30 minutes, we'll throw in another cliche for free!"

Well, in reality, the current state of entrepreneurship education is not far from this rambling satire. Instead of "looking at the big picture" they teach you SWOT analysis and instead of "thinking outside the box" they teach you how to write business plans.

It's pretty damn pathetic. To move forward and escape this nonsense, entrepreneurship education has to adopt a prescriptive definition for the discipline, develop a proper curriculum based on the four roles of applied entrepreneurship and teach this curriculum using experiential learning initiatives.

[usakos]

you're a joke.

you realise you lost. so you go and change the rules!

Hey RichKid,

Why are you calling me a joke?

And I wasn't debating anyone, so I am not losing anything.

I personally know what an entrepreneur is; I just pointed out what and how some define the word "entrepreneur".

[richkid]

why cant you see that the people who do affiliate marketing are entrepreneurs as well?

[Nigami Enterprise]

why cant you see that the people who do affiliate marketing are entrepreneurs as well?

Here's my 2 cents.

Can you even class it as running a business. Basically all you are is a salesman working on commision for somebody else.

There are alot of discriptive words for affiliate marketers and entrepreneur isnt one.


What do you think makes an affiliate marketer an entrepreneur???

[Creadiv]

Here's my 2 cents.

What do you think makes an affiliate marketer an entrepreneur???

Who do affiliate marketers work for?

I bet they don't get a paycheck for being a sales person from the company they are selling for.

I like richkids description about walmart. Sam Walton never sold an item he made. He sold retail items much like affiliate marketers do. So would you consider Sam Walton an entrepreneur, or How about Sears & Roebuck? What about owning a convenience store?

I can be almost certain that you would consider these people entrepreneurs and yet the only difference between them and an affiliate marketer is that they have a store you can go into.