Are you an entrepreneur?

Are you an entrepreneur?

Or maybe the question should be, can anyone be an entrepreneur? (You could argue that anyone could try to be an entrepreneur and fail...but look around, you'll see tons of entrepreneurs who stumbled before they soared. This is a whole different subject.)

Is it nature or nurture? Are you born an entrepreneur? Or do you become one because your family had to fight for survival and you learned valuable lessons helping your papa at the corner store?

There are many 'tests' to see if you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur, for example they check if you -

• Are comfortable doing something you are unfamiliar with
• Have confidence in yourself
• Don’t mind dealing with a high level of uncertainty
• Are self motivated
• Are a leader (there’s a whole lot of literature just on that)

(If you want to try one for funsies: http://www.inc.com/resources/inc500/2005/articles/20051001/quiz.html).

Of course, there are many opinions on this subject. According to some, birth order (first-borns get points), citizenship (immigrants score), family finances (poor is better), and even dropping out of school may indicate whether you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur. There’s no sure sign though. I have a friend, on track to building a very successful company before she hits 40, who grew up hanging out with her parents in the family business – both nature and nurture at work here Another good friend of mine who’s a serial entrepreneur said that what gets him excited is figuring out how to get companies to spend money, lots of it, on something that he can deliver. This is the same guy who as a kid made money selling his school books to juniors with a huge markup. But there were no entrepreneurs in his family before him and his family was wealthy, he graduated from top schools, etc. etc. Nature, nurture?

There are many entrepreneurs who didn’t hustle through their childhood, never peddled lemonade at a sidewalk stand, and may have even worked for others for quite a while before something made them start their own business. I know one young person who showed previously no interest in entrepreneurship but suddenly quit her job and started her own company production company – and is doing extremely well. Interestingly, after she’d taken the plunge, all her friends thought she absolutely had the personality for it, though nobody said so earlier.

Frankly, I think few people become an entrepreneur just because they took a test. They do it because they want to. They see an opportunity, they’re fired up by an idea, they dig the lifestyle, whatever. Many people have what it takes in them but don’t know it. I myself didn’t realize that my experiences in the corporate world screamed out ‘entrepreneur’ until I became one. All my many corporate successes were like startups. I saw opportunities, pitched them to the powers-that-be, found champions, finagled budget allocations, pulled together teams, developed solutions and nurtured them through full acceptance. The only difference was I did it while drawing a salary (which was a nice!), but I still had the risk of being fired if the initiative bombed. Even though I’d get predictably bored between these initiatives and start questioning my job, for a long while I had no idea that it was ‘entrepreneurship’ that was the high. That was because I wrongly thought that entrepreneurs were a breed apart - from me at least.

If you're thinking about starting a business, don't worry, you most probably have what it takes to be an entrepreneur. Few people who don't have the stomach (or the brains, the heart, the courage) for it, will even consider stepping on that yellow brick road. Sure, there the risk that you'll fail, but if you're willing to assume that risk (and plan to squish it to nothingness with all the brilliant ideas you have), in my view, you're an entrepreneur.