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Who becomes an entrepreneur? Insights from research studies

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Re: Who becomes an entrepreneur? Insights from research studies

#11

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

olalonde wrote: post #7
bushbaba wrote: post #6

It’s easy to choose a career in entrepreneurship when you either have enough inheritance wealth to not need to work OR living in poverty where there’s not much lower you could drop. For those in the middle, entrepreneurship comes with likely too great a risk to be worthwhile.

I'm not sure that's true given that immigrants are 80% more likely to start a business than people born in the U.S.[0]. That's the case in almost every country[1]. [0] https://www.wbur.org/news/2022/05/09/immigrants-are-80-more-... [1] https://hbr.org/2021/08/research-why-immigrants-are-more-lik...

A fair amount of immigrants are less likely to have resources like capital or relationships to accommodate a different path so parent is likely right that they are somewhat forced onto path of entrepreneur.

Re: Who becomes an entrepreneur? Insights from research studies

#12

Post by snapplebobapple »

bushbaba wrote: post #6

It’s easy to choose a career in entrepreneurship when you either have enough inheritance wealth to not need to work OR living in poverty where there’s not much lower you could drop. For those in the middle, entrepreneurship comes with likely too great a risk to be worthwhile.

Scared money don't make no money sir....

Re: Who becomes an entrepreneur? Insights from research studies

#13

Post by jackblemming »

paxys wrote: post #10
1970-01-01 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The secret sauce is "Make something people want" (YC's motto)

A lot of times people don't know they want something until it is in front of them.

And even more times people thought they were being Henry Ford or Steve Jobs when they were actually making something nobody wanted.

Re: Who becomes an entrepreneur? Insights from research studies

#14

Post by waboremo »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #8
paxys wrote: post #5

If you study 10 entrepreneurs you will find 11 different paths they took in their journey. While this is a good read, the advice to everyone looking for the "secret sauce" to starting a successful venture remains the same – there is none. You can try to emulate Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg or whoever else all you want. The moment you idea meets the real world you will be in completely unfamiliar territory with no op…

The secret sauce is "Make something people want" (YC's motto)

No, instead "make people want something"

Steve Jobs was a master of this. The first car itself was heavily marketed before release. You have to make people believe that their life will be improved by this thing. Failure to do so, even when you genuinely believe it can improve lives, will leave you in the dust while someone else eventually comes along with a nicer story.

Of course, if you don't even believe in your hypothetical rubbish product it's hard to make that storytelling believable. Even more so when you've become so deluded in your own thing that you can't tell what impact it does have.

Re: Who becomes an entrepreneur? Insights from research studies

#15

Post by TeMPOraL »

paxys wrote: post #10
1970-01-01 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The secret sauce is "Make something people want" (YC's motto)

A lot of times people don't know they want something until it is in front of them.

The trick: they didn't actually need or want it until you put it in front of them, engineered to induce the want.

Re: Who becomes an entrepreneur? Insights from research studies

#16

Post by Joel_Mckay »

A better question is "Who becomes [a successful] entrepreneur?"

There are many folks with side businesses that compliment their incomes, but primarily it is a tax strategy driven investment decision process.

I think most successful "entrepreneurs" clue into the pejorative connotation of the word sooner. =)

Re: Who becomes an entrepreneur? Insights from research studies

#17

Post by rxhernandez »

bushbaba wrote: post #6

It’s easy to choose a career in entrepreneurship when you either have enough inheritance wealth to not need to work OR living in poverty where there’s not much lower you could drop. For those in the middle, entrepreneurship comes with likely too great a risk to be worthwhile.

As an entrepreneur twice over, it had everything to do with being able to spend the most productive hours of my day on being an entrepreneur and being armed with basic full stack web development skills.

I had zero success in entrepreneurship in my 20s and I was delusional to think I could accomplish anything in entrepreneurship without both of those properties (and I tried multiple times a year for the decade of my 20s). It would take someone truly amazing* to pull off starting a successful business while working a full-time job.

* And I say that in contrast to myself, who has been called talented more than a few times by my managers and still couldn't pull it off until I earned enough money to take time off

Re: Who becomes an entrepreneur? Insights from research studies

#18

Post by Aperocky »

rxhernandez wrote: post #17
bushbaba wrote: post #6

It’s easy to choose a career in entrepreneurship when you either have enough inheritance wealth to not need to work OR living in poverty where there’s not much lower you could drop. For those in the middle, entrepreneurship comes with likely too great a risk to be worthwhile.

As an entrepreneur twice over, it had everything to do with being able to spend the most productive hours of my day on being an entrepreneur and being armed with basic full stack web development skills. I had zero success in entrepreneurship in my 20s and I was delusional to think I could accomplish anything in entrepreneurship without both of those properties (and I tried multiple times a year for the decade of my 2…

Wait so did you have full stack webdev skills or not? Or should we infer you learned it after your 20s.

Re: Who becomes an entrepreneur? Insights from research studies

#19

Post by rxhernandez »

Aperocky wrote: post #18
rxhernandez wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an entrepreneur twice over, it had everything to do with being able to spend the most productive hours of my day on being an entrepreneur and being armed with basic full stack web development skills. I had zero success in entrepreneurship in my 20s and I was delusional to think I could accomplish anything in entrepreneurship without both of those properties (and I tried multiple times a year for the decade of my 2…

Wait so did you have full stack webdev skills or not? Or should we infer you learned it after your 20s.

I was in the process of learning it at the end of my 20s but hadn't quite gotten there until the cusp of 29/30. I did firmware, data science, physics research, and developed a scientific software framework before that.

Re: Who becomes an entrepreneur? Insights from research studies

#20

Post by shon »

It’s an interesting article. In my view, Non-conformists start companies. Possibly aggressive non-conformists most of all.

In my personal case, I made many questionable choices, including turning down a job at Microsoft in the nineties (would have been better financially) and leaving multiple great jobs (one of which afforded me corporate apartments in Honolulu and London) to risk everything multiple times to start multiple companies.

So there’s risk-seeking behavior there as well as a refusal to accept “good enough” even when it was almost definitely a better choice from a financial and physical health perspective.

I can still see my dad shaking his head about turning down Microsoft…

It sort of worked out. I had a good exit but nothing like kicking it at M$ for 30 years would have been.

I’m not sure we why we glamorize this. But in the end I wouldn’t change it. I did it my way. I’m now trying to do it again.

This is why I can’t play any games which require grinding (looking at you Eve) because I know it’s more fun IRL. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

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