Opportunity And The Entrepreneurial Personality

One side of the current political stand-off in America is all about the opportunity.  The poster child for this point of view could be Willard “Mitt” Romney, who never tired of telling people that they should “borrow money from (their) parents” and start a business.  We don’t have an income inequality problem, goes the chant, we have an opportunity problem.  If we would only lower taxes to almost nothing, and get rid of these pesky regulations, Americans will be free to create wonderful business entities that will thrive and bring about a golden age of prosperity for all.  Just who these creators are is never made clear. 

The suggestion is that anyone could do it.  Anyone who would sit quietly for long enough could come up with some wonderful idea, and if the business climate were right anyone with a wonderful idea could take the market by storm and become wealthy.  It’s not that simple, I think we can all agree on that.

“Vote for me, and I’ll make it possible for you to get rich.”  That doesn’t work on me, probably because I know a few things about people.  You’d have to be stupid to believe it (he said with uncharacteristic directness).  If you believe it, I’d like to sell you a desk-top machine that changes plain paper into ten dollar bills. 

I know a few relatively successful entrepreneurs, and one fabulously successful one, and we all hear the stories of the famous ones.  Bill Gates; the Steves over at Apple; Mark Zuckerberg (sp?); the Dominos guy; the Papa John’s guy.  Some had new ideas; some knew a good idea when they saw it; and some figured that people love pizza enough that they will buy any crap if it’s cheap and easy enough.  There’s a lot more to it than an idea or business model that seems to have a good chance at success.    

You need to have THE ENTREPRENEURIAL PERSONALITY.  Probably the entrepreneurial temperament too, but I’m not an expert in the difference. 

Certainly there must be books on the subject, but I don’t want to look at any, and I don’t even want to visit Amazon to see how many there are.  I definitely don’t want to read about it.  I always prefer to re-invent the wheel in these matters.

So I went to the park, and I took paper along, and that’s where I wrote this list (sorry, Randy). 

1.  An entrepreneur must be DARING.  How daring?  I’d say that anyone who was the least bit risk-adverse need not apply.  The stress would kill them.  Starting up a new business takes money, often lots of money, and you might lose the entire bundle.  Catastrophic if it’s your money, terrible if it was provided by loved ones or friends, and no fun at all even if it came from strangers.  Then there’s the potential for embarrassment. 

2.  An entrepreneur must be DETAIL ORIENTED.  The entrepreneur must make a detailed plan, and must develop a very clear idea of how the enterprise will be made to work.  The attention to detail must be almost compulsive, almost an obsession.  Anything less will almost certainly result in failure.  It’s a version of Murphy’s Law: if something can go wrong, it probably will. 

3. An entrepreneur must be ENERGETIC.  There are never enough hours in a day for a true entrepreneur.  There is so much to be done, and time is always of the essence.  If an entrepreneur takes a nap, it is always a ten minute power-nap after working all night. 

4.  An entrepreneur must be FLEXIBLE (ADAPTIVE).  In the course of bringing a commercial idea to life, one will always discover imperfections in the original plan.  The entrepreneur must be able to spot these and must be prepared to make alterations on the fly. 

5.  An entrepreneur must be bursting with SELF-CONFIDENCE.  The entrepreneur must have the strong belief that an enterprise conceived, planned and put together by them can be successful.  More than that, it WILL be successful.  Any weakness here puts the entire thing in doubt. 

Most people are simply not cut out to be entrepreneurs.  They just don’t have it in them.  They lack some combination of the drive, the temperament, the talent, the energy or the shear will to do it. 

For example, in terms of the five attributes listed, I possess only flexibility.  I am never afraid to admit that an original idea was flawed, and I can be pretty good at making adjustments.  I have a high tolerance for ambiguity, but that may not even be the same thing as the flexibility required of an entrepreneur.  So, one, or none, out of five, making me a terrible candidate for the role of entrepreneur.  I have, in fact, tried it, and the enterprise failed.  (No spectacularly, but it failed, and I pulled the plug.)

Most people just want to have a job and live in peace with their families.  I have always been one of them.  These people, we, should not be criticized for this desire to function only in the commercial scheme of someone else’s vision.  It is not a failure of any kind, certainly not a moral failure.  It is terribly unfair to denigrate people who do not wish to take commercial (financial) risks as “takers.”  (As opposed to “job creators.”) 

AND YES, I am writing this in fervent opposition to the current vogue for Free-Market this-and-that, privatization of every single thing from National Parks to Social Security, deregulation of business, and kleptocracy in all of its manifestations.  I find myself in passionate opposition to the Republican Party, so-called Conservatives, the Neo-Conservatives, the Neo-Liberals, to the mewing hypocrites who pass for Liberals these days, to (God help us!) the Libertarians, the Ayn Randers, to those Neo-Birchers the Tea Party, and yes, to those weak sisters who now pass themselves off as the Democratic Party. 

If that sounds like everybody to you, read the list again.  Plenty of people are left out, people of whom I approve.  I’ll let you figure out who they are.

To our current crop of elected officials, those sleek-coated, self-interested progeny of Blackbeard and Morgan the Pirate, I say:  favor the entrepreneurs (corporate interests) if you will, but ignore the common man at your peril.  There are many more of us, and when the time comes and we finally have nothing left to lose, we may even wake up.