I cringe when hearing the term "serial entrepreneur."
Entrepreneur is a silly word, and you sound silly when you call yourself one
21–30 of 73 posts
Re: Entrepreneur is a silly word, and you sound silly when you call yourself one
#22Yay pointless, judgmental semantics. Let's worry about this instead of doing the other things.
Amen. We need a word to distinguish someone who founds a startup with a brand new product nobody's ever seen before and aims for high growth from the person who opened a bakery on the corner. That word happens to be "entrepreneur" and I don't have a problem with someone making that distinction in conversation if used correctly.
Ironically, I have a problem with geeks using the word "silly" and "it's" when they mean "its", as OP did.
Re: Entrepreneur is a silly word, and you sound silly when you call yourself one
#23Funny, I had this discussion with a friend a few days ago. I see the term entrepreneur as a description of a persons character. I don't think you have to be a millionaire or even need big succes (yet).
If you're starting a few companies or projects, spend all your time, money and energy in those and try to generate money in creative ways; you're an entrepreneur.
Re: Entrepreneur is a silly word, and you sound silly when you call yourself one
#24Complaining about the word "entrepreneur" is itself a bit tacky, since for posers to annoy you that much, you must be spending too much time around them. In the US, it also seems to be a complaint exclusive to the software industry. I don't see anyone complaining about people who open storefronts using the word to describe themselves. And if someone starts businesses in multiple fields, what are they then?
Also, what about anyone who grew up in poverty, worked hard, and was the first person in their family to create a new business, like a bakery or a hair salon. Are they now also running the risk of getting ridiculed and having their accomplishments diminished if they use the word?
Re: Entrepreneur is a silly word, and you sound silly when you call yourself one
#25This really gets annoying to me too. I think the media is largely to blame for it. Every city with a kid who started a website is referred to as "Silicon ".
Likewise, they call every person with a blog an "entrepreneur". I think the reason it annoys me is because it gives people a false impression of what it means to start a real business at a time when we need more people to start businesses. They have unrealistic expectations, and end up getting turned off to the whole concept when it doesn't work out like in "The Social Network".
Re: Entrepreneur is a silly word, and you sound silly when you call yourself one
#26"Entrepreneur" is a french word. "Entre" means between and "Preneur" means parts. A indirect english synonym would be middleman. Traditionally, it was referring to people in the building industry that set up building site with plumber, electrician, workers... So, a freelancer is not an entrepreneur. Strictly speaking if you don't have any employees you are not an entrepreneur.
That's interesting. So, it the U.S., we would call such a person a General Contractor. The person in the building industry who coordinates all the various building trades to get the building built.
Re: Entrepreneur is a silly word, and you sound silly when you call yourself one
#27Same argument can be made about people calling themselves CEO of startups with no employees or product.
Everyone starts somewhere. Now who's pompous. :)
Re: Entrepreneur is a silly word, and you sound silly when you call yourself one
#28"Entrepreneur" is a french word. "Entre" means between and "Preneur" means parts. A indirect english synonym would be middleman. Traditionally, it was referring to people in the building industry that set up building site with plumber, electrician, workers... So, a freelancer is not an entrepreneur. Strictly speaking if you don't have any employees you are not an entrepreneur.
It is also an English word that means a person who starts businesses that mostly fail but has at least one that hasn't failed yet.
Re: Entrepreneur is a silly word, and you sound silly when you call yourself one
#29There's no problem with the word. The problem is with people overusing it, most of the time as a synonym for unemployed.
And no, if you're working on a cool project/idea that no one is using, that still doesn't make you an entrepreneur.
Re: Entrepreneur is a silly word, and you sound silly when you call yourself one
#30It's one of those words that somehow become a status symbol and lose their meaning. Like, well, hacker: I cringe every time someone writes "hacker" in his/her bio without stuff to show for it. Usually it's UI developers, I don't know why. All around, I started to discard every word that comes with this burden. Words should convey information, not a self blowjob.
UI developers can certainly be hackers. There are probably plumbers who are brilliant hackers. Consider "Hackers and Painters", by pg. Superb book.