| The Difference Between An Entrepreneur And A Small Business Owner When I was a kid growing up in the late 1970's and early 1980's I would sometimes ask my dad what he did for a living. These are not entrepreneurs, not really. They are not dreamers or people out to change the world. Like my dad, they're always considering the next thing, the next project. I hate to lose. Entrepreneurs are technical. Like a number of the entrepreneurs I've met, he would've been in his element teaching college classes. Since then I've managed to do what my father was never able to accomplish: earn a profit. "I'm an entrepreneur," my dad would keep telling me. I am a business owner. My company has grown to ten people. My dad was an entrepreneur. Just not a very good one. I learned from that. I am not like my dad. We now resell five customer relationship management applications and provide services to help our clients best use them. Mercifully, the year 2000 "bug" took us both out of our misery, rendering the software unworkable. Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. We are profitable. I am not an entrepreneur. That's because entrepreneurs take risks. I am a small business owner. I am not a dreamer. Business owners, more so than entrepreneurs, are doing it for the money. I'm a business owner. And I'm doing what I do not to change the world but because it's a better way of life than what I was doing before. My business, like so many other small businesses, is my own little world. That's because I'm just not technical like he was. He liked numbers. " Business owners tend to be more sentimental about their businesses. It's the small business owner's livelihood, his retirement, a reflection of his life. The neighbors know it. In fact, a number of the entrepreneurs I know prefer passion over profits. I'm not an entrepreneur. I work a lot of hours. When I make an investment in a whole new product or technology it's one that I'm able to lose without feeling it. And I'm fine with that. Entrepreneurs are never happy with the status quo. Me? I want to pay the mortgage, put money away for college, and take a cruise once a year. If I can make more money selling coffee cups rather than customer relationship management software I'd be like: hey, decaf or regular? I don't want to change the world. He loved to read books about the lost continent of Atlantis, the afterlife and computers. And I would've been the kid in his class, the future company owner, counting down the minutes to cocktail hour. Entrepreneurs and business owners have a different relationship with their companies. But I don't mean to say that that entrepreneurs aren't passionate about what they do. The business is part of the family, a place where the kids worked during the summer or where you'll find the old man tinkering late on a Wednesday evening. And then sold for a profit so that they are able to move on to the next "Big One. Something to be developed, shaped and readied for market. Oftentimes it was their dad's or their grandfather's business. Business owners, on the other hand, don't necessarily love what they do, but are still happy doing it because it means they're not doing it for someone else. Not that they mind it. But entrepreneurs like them are out to change the world. They love what they do and would do it for much, much less. "I'm an entrepreneur," he would say proudly. " So I did. The dictionary defined an entrepreneur as "a person who organizes and manages any enterprise, especially a small business, usually with considerable initiative and risk. And a lousy one at that. He raised money from investors and for years worked out of his home (and this was before working from one's home was acceptable) where he supervised a handful of misfit and quirky programmers who worked odd hours developing a bookkeeping application based on a patent he held in his name. And when that happened he took his unfinished product to market where he suffered painful project after painful project. And (of course) he timed his product launch perfectly with Intuit 's latest iteration of QuickBooks, which was infinitely better, faster, more reliable and cheaper than his. It's part of the community. It's not an asset. And this isn't the attitude of an entrepreneur. And have a nest egg left over for retirement. It's history. I know this firsthand because in 1994 I left my job, formed my own company, and partnered with him. We were forced to change directions and resell software products made by other companies. But I have more control. Other than my wife I have no other business partners and I like that autonomy. They graduate college, go out into the world, work at big companies and then return home to the family business in East St. Guys like me are more interested in profit margins, revenue projections and support costs. It was a process for bookkeeping that no one had thought of before. My dad's proudest achievement was his patent. I coached my kids' baseball teams and danced with my six year old daughter at her recital. So I left that company and started my own company. We realize that it's not such a bad life to run your own business. I like that too. My dad wanted to change the way people did their bookkeeping with his patented technology. The Difference Between An Entrepreneur And A Small Business Owner |
Thursday, 7 June 2012
The Difference Between An Entrepreneur And A Small Business Owner
