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Just read a blog entry "Escaping the entrepreneurial seizure" over at the Four Hour Work Week and it struck a chord with me. Does firing your boss and starting your own business equate to entrepreneurship? Or does it just mean that the status quo has just changed from you being an employee to you being "self-employed"?Quoting Michael Gerber of "The E-Myth Revisited" fame, entrepreneurs "invent businesses that work without them. Technicians create businesses that work because of them. The entrepreneur is liberated from what I call the “tyranny of routine,” and the technician becomes a slave to it. In the entrepreneur’s case, the business works. In the technician’s case, the technician works." The above few sentences capture the essence of true entrepreneurship.
Well, to paraphrase, one cannot claim to be a true entrepreneur if you merely jump from being an employee to starting your own business but continue to use your own time to do exactly the same things you used to do as an employee. ie. you are basically still exchanging your personal time for money. Instead of freeing yourself from the slavery of your ex-boss, you have evolved to become a slave to your own business.
To be a true entrepreneur, value has to created, predominantly in the form of a scalable business model that are based on rules, systems and processes, that ultimately frees the entrepreneur from having to micromanaging employees or firefighting. Instead, the true entrepreneur should be focused on steering the business towards his dream and vision, to plan, organize and direct instead of getting stuck managing routine work. Instead of letting the business run you, an entrepreneur runs the business!
Being an employee, you are given a job. By starting your own business but doing the same thing as you did as an employee, you become self-employed and own a job. But as an entrepreneur, you captain a self-sustainable business system that is profitable, creates value, and gives jobs to other people while freeing your own time . Who would you rather choose to be?
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2 Comments:
Ryan, this is a really well-done and thoughtful post.
Your distinctions between Entrepreneur and being self-employed at a job are right on the money.
Here's what grabbed me: I've been "on my own" since 1977. Sometimes I've had a "business" and at other times I have "plied my craft". Both have brought satisfaction and revenues consistent with expectations.
As one who spends a lot of professional time working with individuals and organizations on identifying and growing talent(s), I consistently come back to the fact that the individual needs to understand where he/she is genuinely talented; and, for what purpose is that talent to be used.
I'm not an entrepreneur by most definitions. And I had to make peace with that. But once I did, I was relaxed and able to move ahead being successful with a business and, later, a busy individual consulting practice.
Your writing is doing a service to those who need to think more deeply about some of those distinctions.
Keep writing. . .
Yes, I definitely agree that everyone of us need to discover our talents and direct them towards a meaningful purpose ie. doing work that we are passionate about. If we are able to find this purpose, it does not really matter what role we are in, as an employee, self-employed or an entrepreneur. Work becomes play, and play is work. For myself, I'm still looking for this purpose in my life. Thanks for sharing your own experiences with me Steve!
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