The myth of the serial entrepreneur
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The myth of the serial entrepreneur
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Re: The myth of the serial entrepreneur
#2This was extremely well written. A very nice change from typical meta-startup fare. Nicely done!
Re: The myth of the serial entrepreneur
#3I can't help but feel that there's some sample bias going on here.
Each example given is an person who is currently well-known for being an entrepreneur. By definition, they haven't moved on to something else.
There's a tonne of people who've succeeded as an entrepreneur and then gone onto something else; venture capital (in fact most VCs partners are ex-entrepreneurs), politics or philanthropy, for example.
The point is that these people are now known for something other than entrepreneurship, so they don't spring to mind as examples of one-time-entrepreneurs.
/rant
Re: The myth of the serial entrepreneur
#4I can't help but feel that there's some sample bias going on here. Each example given is an person who is currently well-known for being an entrepreneur. By definition, they haven't moved on to something else. There's a tonne of people who've succeeded as an entrepreneur and then gone onto something else; venture capital (in fact most VCs partners are ex-entrepreneurs), politics or philanthropy, for example. The poin…
Can you name a handful? I don't argue that there are no such people, but I don't think there's a tonne of them.
Re: The myth of the serial entrepreneur
#5Great quote to finish:
"It means you should not burn relationships, piss off people, take damaging shortcuts - because you're in this small world of entrepreneurship for a long time to come. It means you should always act as if your behaviour as a founder will be with you for the rest of your career - because it will." so true. Thank you!!
Re: The myth of the serial entrepreneur
#6I can't help but feel that there's some sample bias going on here. Each example given is an person who is currently well-known for being an entrepreneur. By definition, they haven't moved on to something else. There's a tonne of people who've succeeded as an entrepreneur and then gone onto something else; venture capital (in fact most VCs partners are ex-entrepreneurs), politics or philanthropy, for example. The poin…
Can you name a handful? I don't argue that there are no such people, but I don't think there's a tonne of them.
Mitt Romney (who founded Bain capital), Bill Gates, Pierre Omidyar to name a few
Re: The myth of the serial entrepreneur
#7I enjoyed and agreed with most of this. I've never understood the term "serial entrepreneur" beyond the idea that it solidifies the fact that a certain individual has sold ( if that should be their goal - not mine ) more then one company.
Ultimately all entrepreneurs come from the same cloth of success driven business (value) invention. Some want to follow the hollywood IPO story. Some want to bootstrap. It's all a matter of preference beyond those details and to some it's not about being defined as a "serial entrepreneur". Personally I wouldn't sell my company just to start another until I met my professional goals.
Re: The myth of the serial entrepreneur
#8I can't help but feel that there's some sample bias going on here. Each example given is an person who is currently well-known for being an entrepreneur. By definition, they haven't moved on to something else. There's a tonne of people who've succeeded as an entrepreneur and then gone onto something else; venture capital (in fact most VCs partners are ex-entrepreneurs), politics or philanthropy, for example. The poin…
Can you name a handful? I don't argue that there are no such people, but I don't think there's a tonne of them.
Marc Andreessen,
Ben Horowitz,
Robin Klein,
Bill Gates,
Silvio Berlusconi,
Michael Bloomberg,
Niklas Zennström
Re: The myth of the serial entrepreneur
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can you name a handful? I don't argue that there are no such people, but I don't think there's a tonne of them.
Mitt Romney (who founded Bain capital), Bill Gates, Pierre Omidyar to name a few
Romney might be a rare exception - though it is debatable whether he ever ran a startup by the typical definition, since from inception, Bain Capital was pretty damn big.
Bill Gates I've addressed in my article. If Bill Gates had been kicked out of MS in, say, 1985, he would most likely have done what Steve Jobs did, and started another business.
As for Pierre Omidyar, he has started something called Civil Beat, an online news service, as well as Omidyar Network, which is an investment firm, which would put him halfway between the typical case and a Morten Lund case.
Re: The myth of the serial entrepreneur
#10I agree with a lot of what the author says, but I am not sure I agree with the main premise in his title.
Luck and timing often play a big role in setting up a business. I think there are some people who saw an opportunity through being in the right place at the right time and created a business out of it. Often these evolve into being what people call lifestyle businesses. In my mind these people don't fit into the 'compress 40 years of work into 4 years' camp and are non-serial entrepreneurs.
To me, the mark of a serial entrepreneur is someone who has started a business up, got it to the point where it's been successful, and then having had the option of staying on very comfortably with either a lifestyle business, working in a bigger company, or early-retirement has decided that they want the buzz and excitement of a startup again.
A good serial entrepreneur is by extension of that someone who can do this more than once successfully. To create a single business that works out can often involve a lot of luck/timing; to do it 3 or 4 times is something else.