The term entrepreneur feels outdated. It’s associated with people who work brutal hours, invest their life savings, and risk it all on a dream.
But these days, you can do a ton with just a little. You can build a business by working just a few hours a week. You can keep your day job and start something on the side. Software and technology that used to cost a ton is now free (or very cheap). You can easily work from home and/or with people thousands of miles away.
In this new landscape, people who would never think to call themselves “entrepreneurs” are out there starting businesses, selling products, and turning profits.
Take Markus Frind. He works a maximum of 20 hours a week yet runs one of the largest websites on the planet (PlentyOfFish.com, a dating site) and pays himself more than $5 million a year.
Jason Kottke and John Gruber are writers who work from home on their own terms. Their blogs have built huge audiences with revenues to match. And they’ve done it without asking anyone’s permission, finding a publisher, or signing a distribution deal. That would have been impossible 10 years ago.
Soniei, profiled here, is a painter from Nova Scotia who sells directly to customers through eBay, Etsy, and her web site. She makes a decent living, loves being able to work on whatever she feels like working on that day, and says she can’t imagine doing anything else.
Beth Terry sells and ships toys under the name Iron Chick’s Toys (see this PDF). A few years back, she would have had to rent out a warehouse and hire people to fulfill orders. Now she uses Amazon.com’s fulfillment service to do it for her. Instead of sending 50 boxes to individual buyers, she sends just one box of 70 items to Amazon. Instead of spending thousands on storage, she spends just $60 per month. Not bad when you consider she’s selling an average of $900 a day (with sales that increased at least 25 percent month over month during her first year).
These people are thriving without risking it all or leveraging their lives. They’re succeeding without MBAs, business plans, and all those other credentials you’re supposed to have before starting a business. You just don’t need that stuff to build something great anymore.
It’s time to get over the idea that risk and reward are so intertwined in business. And maybe we need to come up with a better term than entrepreneur to describe this new group of people out there building businesses. Any suggestions?
nickd
on 22 Apr 09my good friend daniel danger is a self-employed illustrator who started making money immediately after college, and hasn’t looked back. yet another example in the same vein.
Thomas
on 22 Apr 09bootstrapper?
Robert Gaal
on 22 Apr 09You can’t love something only 50% of the time and make it “great”. I certainly hope none of the great entrepreneurs that have brought fourth companies like Amazon have ever thought like that. Of course you can make a living on the side building things, but isn’t this blog also about real passion? There’s this whole movement going on right now with guys like Gary Vaynerchuck, who show raging passion and commitment, that you seem to forget.
Cody
on 22 Apr 09I also think people are realizing they don’t need a million bucks to be happy. Working from home, 20 hours a week, with enough money to cover my expenses and the flexibility to do other stuff would trump a $150,000 a year job any day in my books.
Daniel Tenner
on 22 Apr 09These are lifestyle businesses. There’s nothing wrong with them, mind you. It’s a very valid option, and if what you want is to run a business for the sake of running a business, working 10 hours a week is just fine.
But, you know, there is this thing, once believed to be fuelled by testosterone (but the last 50 years of history of women in the workplace shows that it ain’t so), this thing that’s called ambition.
Some people simple have the ambition to build something mind-blowingly good. They want to take over the world. They don’t want to be John Gruber, they want to be Michael Arrington or the Ariadne Huffington.
Being John Gruber absolutely rocks. He’s cool, and he deserves every prop he gets. But there are different goals in life. Just as you wouldn’t dismiss those who are aiming to achieve a certain lifestyle at the cost of ambition, you shouldn’t dismiss those who are aiming to achieve a certain ambition at the cost of lifestyle.
Ultimately, there’s no single answer that makes everyone happy. Michael Arrington would probably be miserable if he was stuck in John Gruber’s place, and John Gruber would probably be miserable if he was in Michael Arrington’s place. But, THAT’S OK... they’re two different people, they don’t have to have the same aims in life.
So let’s hear it for all entrepreneurs: the workaholic beasts with no life who thrive on the challenge of pulling off the impossible, and the patient, wise lifestyle entrepreneurs who are happier with doing what they enjoy in a measured way, with a more balanced lifestyle. After all, we’re all just trying to make the world a better place.
Orestes Chouchoulas
on 22 Apr 09Wonderful post; and I agree, the term “entrepreneur” is loaded with outdated associations.
However, the lack of a new term is significant in itself. These people are not entrepreneurs because they don’t spend their time managing a business. The spend their time writing, painting, making toys. They are writers, painters, and toy makers.
As more of us start using these new digital tools to make money from what we love doing, the need to replace the term “entrepreneur” disappears. We are graphic designers, musicians, match-makers, illustrators.
Mario
on 22 Apr 09Robert, great post. Hey, the Sonei url doesn’t seem to be working and the Iron Chick’s Toys links directly to a pdf. You might just want to call that out. Great stuff.
Spence
on 22 Apr 09We can always just call them “business owners.”
ML
on 22 Apr 09I certainly hope none of the great entrepreneurs that have brought fourth companies like Amazon have ever thought like that.
Jeff Bezos: “People think entrepreneurs are risk-loving. Really what you find is successful entrepreneurs hate risk, because the founding of the enterprise is already so risky that what they do is take their early resources, the small amounts of capital that they have, whatever assets they have, and they deploy those resources systematically, eliminating the largest risk first, the second-largest risk, and so on, and so on.”
Some people simple have the ambition to build something mind-blowingly good. They want to take over the world.
You don’t have to be huge to build something mind-blowingly good. And even if you do want to be huge, you don’t have to start off that way. You can do it small on the side at first and then devote more resources to it as circumstances warrant. It’s the idea that you need to risk everything upfront that seems outdated.
Steve S.
on 22 Apr 09I have a different experience with the word entrepreneur: everyone I meet who has done /any/ freelance work at all in the past 5 years calls themselves an entrepreneur. Jump on any webdev-related channel on IRC and you’ll see someone call themselves an entrepreneur within 3 hours. :)
seth godin
on 22 Apr 09As George Bush said, the problem with the French is that they have no independent spirit. In fact, they don’t even have a word for entrepreneur in French.
Ilya Grigorik
on 22 Apr 09I don’t get it. Guys, what’s with the obsession with “working hours”? Have you ever considered that some people do what they do, for 15 hours straight, because it doesn’t feel like work? Yes, I’m one of them. I love it. I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else.
That is not to say that there isn’t a great story towards “I work 4 hours and make a bazillion”, but please, that’s but a small fraction of businesses.
Gabe da Silveira
on 22 Apr 09@Robert Gaal – You couldn’t be more wrong about this. Dedicating every waking hour to something is not the difference between mediocrity and greatness. It’s obvious from the results. How is Markus Frind making 7 figures while thousands upon thousands of people in the valley are working insane hours for what will inevitably end up being a low wage for the majority?
The painful truth is that there is no magic gain from going from working 40 hours to 60 or 60 to 80. Yes, you have to be dedicated and put the time in. But if you work yourself ragged you will not only see diminishing returns, you also run the risk of getting tunnel vision, and becoming so detached from reality that you no longer even understand how normal people think (which is key to making a successful product).
If you are a workaholic, you should beware of using justifications like “it’s the only way to succeed” as a rationalization for your lifestyle. Taking time to be healthy and have a balanced life can fuel your passion, and you can end up being more productive in 8 hours than you would be in 16 if you stretch yourself too thin.
That’s not to pass judgement on anyone. Different people can thrive in different environments. Live your life as you see fit. However my main point is that your statement is objectively false and needs to be put down with extreme prejudice.
Sandeep Sood
on 22 Apr 09I like the word ‘hustler’, because:
- it evokes grit and dedication, but not painful drudgery - it implies the creative intelligence you need to accomplish something on your own terms - it makes you feel bad-ass
Dave!
on 22 Apr 09I couldn’t disagree more. To me, the word “entrepreneur” does not have any of the association of someone who is a workaholic and puts in 15 hour days, ignoring everything…
To me, an entrepreneur is someone who works smarter, not harder. An entrepreneur is someone who has a vision of what they want to create—and is taking the steps to make that vision a reality. There are many entrepreneur wannabes but so few real entrepreneurs.
Instead of looking for a new word, maybe you just need to reexamine your own preconceptions. None of the entrepreneurs I know fit your stereotype… but a few wannabes do.
Soniei
on 22 Apr 09Thank you soooooo much for mentioning me in this post!! I’m truly grateful. Merci x millions. =D
When people ask me what I do for a living, I tell them that I’m an artist. I never once called myself an entrepreneur, even though I work 80+ hours a week (for fun) trying to grow my business. I see work as just another hobby of mine. lol
Robert Gaal
on 22 Apr 09@ML: I don’t know what you’re trying to say with this quote, but it doesn’t have anything to do with the way I mentioned Amazon. You need full passion to do something as awesome as Jeff’s company. That was my point. Not a 50% commitment.
David Andersen
on 22 Apr 09Entrepreneur has no baggage for me. Great word. Embodies individualism, freedom, doing it my way, blazing my own trail, etc.. It’s a beautiful word.
BrianR
on 22 Apr 09nickd: wow, i remember daniel danger from when he first started in the gigposter scene years ago… glad to see he’s making a living doing his craft.
Eric Falcao
on 22 Apr 09What’s wrong with the word entrepreneur? That’s how I choose to define the free time and money I spend working on side-projects that I hope make me money someday. Being an entrepreneur is all about having that spirit and drive to build a business.
When 37signals was a building basecamp and supplementing with consulting how could you not call that entrepreneurial? You were just smart, hedging appropriately and growing organically. Did you not invest some portion of your “life savings” to get your merchant account, etc up and running?
Granted there are still a lot of b-school types who thing being an entrepreneur involves an MBA, raising a bunch of money and then spending it on people who can actually build the product. Likely, their historical success rate is a lot lower than technologists who did what they loved and built amazing businesses out of their passions….but the bottom line is that if they intended to make money with it they were/are entrepreneurs too.
Joe W
on 22 Apr 09I feel the same.
My boss hired me as an “entrepreneur” or at least as “entrepreneurial” – because I took some classes in it at University.
I love small business and the ideas behind it, but somehow he’s romanticised this word in his head.
ML
on 22 Apr 09None of the entrepreneurs I know fit your stereotype… but a few wannabes do.
Yeah, it’s this romanticized notion of the entrepreneur that causes problems. The bootstrapping, startupping, maverick risk-taker who’s gonna dominate the world with his genius idea by betting his life savings and pouring in every hour he has, consequences be damned. It’s a fanciful image but it’s detached from the reality of what people like the ones mentioned in the post are doing these days.
Scott Handsaker
on 22 Apr 09The premise of this post is not supported by the argument – to be honest it feels a little “straw man”.
Essentially your point is that technology has made it easier to start low risk, low cost businesses that can grow organically over time without working 80 hour weeks to make that happen. No-one is going to disagree with you on that point, but it has zero to do with the definition of a word.
Furthermore, just because there are exceptions to the rule doesn’t mean that risk and reward are no longer strongly linked. Higher risk = higher reward underpins much of the system we all operate in, and technology has done little to change that.
ML
on 22 Apr 09Essentially your point is that technology has made it easier to start low risk, low cost businesses that can grow organically over time without working 80 hour weeks to make that happen. No-one is going to disagree with you on that point, but it has zero to do with the definition of a word.
Apple dictionary:
entrepreneur |ˌäntrəprəˈnoŏr; -ˈnər| noun a person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater than normal financial risks in order to do so.
The “taking on greater than normal financial risks in order to do so” does seem related to me.
Newmediaist Online Marketing
on 22 Apr 09Just one small correction – Markus Frind spentyears spend 20 hours a day infront of a computer screen link building, optimizing PPC campaigns, etc… to get to where he is today. I would think he is a great example of someone who did work brutal hours and it did pay off.
David Andersen
on 22 Apr 09@ML:
Well that’s one definition of the word. Hardly the only.
Steven Kovar
on 22 Apr 09Hustlers.
Sam Diener
on 22 Apr 09The ability to develop a company that runs it self while the creator is off doing something else is fantastic – provided it doesn’t “walmart” real-life businesses. Separate discussion on that one. Its pure inventorship/entrepreneur ship at its finest. Is inventorship a word anyway?
The people spending 80 hours a week to build new ideas or businesses that have a non-online presence may require just that. 80 hours a week. Aren’t they the same entrepreneurs as the guy who spends 70 hours a week working for themselves repairing cars?
I wish I had the know how to build my ideas without outside funding or help. But I can’t. Does that make me less of an entrepreneur?
Times have changed, but happiness and independence haven’t. If that’s what someone works to achieve, no matter what monetary gain, then I believe they are an entrepreneur.
Ben
on 23 Apr 09Why do you care about what people think about entrepreneurs?!
It’s about identity – you want to define yourself and you don’t feel comfortable being called an entrepreneur. Don’t bother others with your identity issues. If you want to call yourself entrepreneur, then do so, if you want to call yourself something else, then do so.
It’s all ‘look at me, I’m an entrepreneur, I’m unique’. But then when everybody starts calling themselves entrepreneur, it’s ‘ooh no, I have to redefine myself, my self-confidence is leaking, I’m not unique enough anymore’
Once your self-confidence is based on how other look at you, it’s always going to be tough…
Chris
on 23 Apr 09The “Entrepreneur” title is definitely glorified these days. I think magazines and movies kind of contribute to that—almost like its one of those cool titles like “Venture Capitalist”. Just pick up a copy of Fast Company or Entrepreneur and its the same garbage rehashed over and over again. It’s pretty rare you see a story about some beat-off client complaining to you that the label on your form should be “day” and not “date”. That’s the type of thing ordinary people deal with.
And there’s nothing wrong with working 70 or 80 hour weeks if you choose to. I just hope you’re paid hourly. If you’re like me and work 50-60 hours weeks you already know you can get the same amount done in less than 40 with less distractions, less socializing, and more intensity.
Remember the kids that never brought their books home because they finished it all quietly in study hall? I think that is the adult version of work today. Bring more intensity to those precious hours and enjoy the time you saved. Others will be jealous.
Russell D'Souza
on 23 Apr 09The 80-100 hour web entrepreneur is especially interesting because the beauty of a website is that once its created it should run itself. Sure there is maintenance and adding new features, but what is supposed to make software and internet solutions so attractive is that they are scalable and at some point can “run themselves.”
I understand the need for working around the clock sometimes, especially when building a product. But its almost as if web / software entrepreneurs are inherently defensive about the notion that a website can “run itself” and pour in hours of work just to show that its not the case.
Happy
on 23 Apr 09Risk and reward are absolutely intertwined.
The risks do not have to be financial. The risks could be time, reputation, or anything else. Stop thinking just about the only risk being money and it’s clear that risk and reward are intertwined. The employee takes little risk with their time. He knows what he is earning for his efforts: his paycheck. Their risk is low and their reward is fixed. The self-employed business owner may spend $0 on their business, but they are still risking their time. Their risk of getting nothing in return is higher, but their potential reward is infinitely larger than the paycheck employee.
Beth Terry
on 23 Apr 09Thanks for the mention!
condor
on 23 Apr 09the term already exists, businessman/woman
PHT
on 23 Apr 09@Seth : sorry to correct George Bush again (that’s going to sound soooooo French ;) ), but we actually have a word for “entrepreneur” in French, the world is … “entrepreneur” (rooted on “entreprise”, which is the most valid translation for “businness” you might get. ).
Now, there are definitely differences between entrepreneurs in both side of the ocean … notably the fact that it is much more complicated to start a business here than there, especially on your own and without serious financial backup.
But than again, “translation is treason”.
Dan
on 23 Apr 09I hate to be a jerk, but the last 95 out of 100 people I’ve met that call themselves, and are proud of being, an entrepreneur have been… Well, not cool.
It’s almost like they don’t want to care about the project, just that they can make tons of cash off of it.
I realize that having the abilities to help people and organizations make more of a profit is a very valuable skill. But when you separate any feelings toward a project and just focus on the money, something depressing happens.
An obnoxious combination of intense ego and intense insecurity starts to surface. Not even sure how that’s possible.
I love, love, love people I would classify as entrepreneurs that don’t call themselves entrepreneurs. They just like building what they want, and make some cash while they’re at it. They’re almost always cool!
Edison Thomaz
on 23 Apr 09I am getting tired of hearing about how everything is inexpensive these days (hardware, software, bandwidth) and that you can build a business on the cheap.
Let’s not forget that while it is true that you may no longer need a round of investment to build a product, you still need to support it, sell it, market it, update it, etc. How do you stand out when there are hundreds of new products/services being released every single day?
The idea that anyone can build and do anything because resources are available is too focused on the technology. Building something is just part of the equation – there’s a lot more to a sustainable business than writing some code and hosting it somewhere.
Barry Moltz
on 23 Apr 09Entrepreneur comes from the French word which means to undertake with complete responsibility. Entrepreneur has always sounded too sexy of a word for what we do…
The Happy Rock
on 23 Apr 09“Entrepreneur has no baggage for me. Great word. Embodies individualism, freedom, doing it my way, blazing my own trail, etc.. It’s a beautiful word. @David Andersen “
YES
Geoff
on 23 Apr 09@Barry Moltz “One who undertakes with complete responsibility” is precisely what entrepreneur means to me, and personally, it evokes a bunch of positive images.
Kyle Maxwell
on 23 Apr 09“Bootstrapper” works, but I’d submit that (as seen above) “entrepreneur” still does as well.
More interesting to me is just combining “independent” with X: “independent writer”, “independent toymaker”, and at some level “independent artisan”.
Carries the thought of doing it on your own without referencing risk or reward (as those things clearly vary from project to project and person to person).
ssk
on 23 Apr 09Thanks for the mention!
Kevin Compton
on 24 Apr 09“Entrepreneur has no baggage for me. Great word. Embodies individualism, freedom, doing it my way, blazing my own trail, etc.. It’s a beautiful word.”
I very much agree! Love the word and wish to truly embody it!
Andrew
on 25 Apr 09I agree with @David Andersen @The Happy Rock and @Kevin Compton. Obviously it’s just a matter of what you consider the word to mean—and judging by all the comments, people have a wide variety of preconceived notions.
ML - this group your describing is great - people who don’t accept the traditional job and are creating what they want out of life and business. I applaud them for their efforts. It’s tough to listen to people complain about the job where they just punch the clock and hate it. It takes courage to go out and create something for yourself and I’m happy to see more people doing it—whatever we want to call them.
Barb Hranilovich
on 26 Apr 09Have to agree with another commenter that I like the word – other than having to spell it. I’ve done a lot of things along the way and entrepreneur is a great umbrella word with a lovely definition.
Lloyd Lemons
on 27 Apr 09One term being used more and more for people like you describe in your post is, microBusiness. The word entrepreneur is still viable though. That’s the term I would use for people like T. Boone Pickens in his energy initiative, or most anyone who is seeking venture capital to launch a new business. Financial risk and reward are very much intertwined. The micros and soloists who use technology to make a living from home is a beautiful thing, but there is still a vast start-up universe out there that I think can only be called entrepreneurial.
gulliver
on 27 Apr 09For more than thirty years I’ve personally shied away from the term, specifically because if too-often evokes a ‘respect only force, it’s all about money’ egomaniacal stereotype with which I don’t want to be associated.
And, most of my enterprise has always been about more than money… there’s an element of personal satisfaction (which isn’t the same as ‘welcoming challenge’, ‘overcoming adversity’, ‘achieving goals’ etcetera), and social change in what I do commercially.
With this, whilst being passionate-about and committed-to what I do, it’s always been important to take time out for personal non-business activity. Moreover, doing so often enables stronger performance through renewed energies and increased perspective.
Recently, I’m happy to have encountered ‘Innerpreneur’ for those ‘who use their business to find personal fulfillment (creatively, spiritually, emotionally) and create social change’.
Is this a bit pretentious and woosy? Oh, undoubtedly. And to me, it’s far better than all the big-swinging-dick ambition-and-goal driven behavior.
Ultimately (and of course, initially) the semantics should matter little. But, in a world in which ‘desire to belong’ is increasing, the view of entrepreneur as an aspirational tag clearly draws many… some of whom I’d clearly like to shift sideways toward ‘Innerpreneur’. So, now we know, plug over.
Mustafa Sabuwala
on 27 Apr 09In Malaysia they would be called technopreneurs. Small businesses esssetially built around leveraging technology.
ahmet kekilli
on 27 Apr 09There’s nothing wrong with them, mind you. It’s a very valid option, and if what you want is to run a business for the sake of running a business, working 10 hours a week is just fine.
martin pannier
on 28 Apr 09@seth godin
Sorry to correct you but the word “entrepreneur” actually comes from the French language … Love your blog BTW !
Regards, M.
Iain Dooley
on 29 Apr 09@martin pannier: seth’s comment was a parody of a quote by George Dubya Bush the Latter. I hope you’re not from the United States.
So, Frind. The overnight web success who did nothing and made everything. Really? First of all he’s obviously been around the traps in several tech companies, for YEARS. Then he said he wants to spend a few hours in front of a screen each evening in addition to his job, which is in front of a screen, to develop a crude dating site. That means he’s working, what, 11 hours? 12 hours? Probably sometimes 14 – 20 hours a day depending on hour enthralling he’s finding that particular challenge of the evening?
Then, from “Frind’s account of his own exploits”, we have that:
“I spent every waking minute when I wasn’t at my day job reading, studying, and learning. I picked out ‘enemies’ and did everything I could to defeat them, which meant being bigger than them. I refused to accept defeat of any kind.”
Yeah so like, image of the care free web-non-entrepreneur” be damned.
You don’t have to work forever, but if you haven’t paid your dues you won’t make a dime. Articles like this that romanticise the fly-by-night web entrepreneur success story; that tell us all that if you’re not already a web millionaire then it’s just because you’re not spending enough time at the tanning salon, only serve to support the bullshit spam messages that encourage inept mental deficients to hand over their bank details to buy into web business creation schemes that “can’t fail”.
I’ve only used the Frind example but I’m sure all the other examples you included in your article, if properly researched, make the statement:
“These people are thriving without risking it all or leveraging their lives”
seem like patronising drivel. Some “entrepreneurs” love it when it seems like they became rich by accident and the rest of the world can suck it, but I’m guessing anyone who really has something to teach will be putting their hand up and saying “Excuse me, but, um, it was actually really hard so stop making it sound like anyone with a 56k modem is a failure unless they’ve got a multi-million dollar advertising empire”.
Please try to be a little more discerning with your descriptions of success. The whole world doesn’t run on Fairy Tale rules. Some people need all the hours in a day to achieve what they consider to be important (and that doesn’t include war games … unless you’re in the army).
This discussion is closed.