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Earlier quoted context omitted.
We could look at through a different lens and state that if you aren't jumping into startup after startup - successful or not - are you even an entrepreneur?
Well, that's sort of my point... serial entrepreneurs are the norm. Perhaps we should come up with a term for those rare entrepreneurs who are satisfied with a single attempt at the business game...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, Robin Klein, Bill Gates, Silvio Berlusconi, Michael Bloomberg, Niklas Zennström
Marc Andreessen: cofounded Netscape and then OpsWare and Ning and now is a VC. Serial to the max. Ben Horowitz: Opsware and then VC. A Morten Lund character. Bill Gates: already addressed in both the article and another comment Silvio Berlusconi: I don't know much about his business history, but a quick glance at his Wikipedia page shows he started multiple businesses. Definitely not a one-business-and-retire type. M…
Also, Gates went on to set up the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which is arguably a different kind of startup.
Really good article, at first I started reading on the defensive because I am a serial entrepreneur. For 28 years of my life I never had a payroll check from anyone but my own companies. It was amazing and painful at the same time. I thought about starting my sixth company and I got a chance to be an SVP at a very large public company. I did that for a while and really enjoyed it and actually moved on to a new compan…
I agree with this. I came across the following definition of an entrepreneur, which I also really liked: "[the] definition of an entrepreneur is someone who makes things happen despite not controlling the resources necessary to achieve them."
I 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…
Confidence from repeated success - do not underestimate pressures from family and self doubt in their contribution to start up cave ins.
Another perspective; can you call yourself a true entrepreneur if you haven't had more than one entrepreneurial endevaour (I'm not talking that you need to have IPOd a tech company before but rather had a lemonade stand as a kid and vice versa)?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
which suggests to me that debating over labels like "true entrepreneur" (or not) or "serial entrepreneur" (or not) is a waste of time.
The same discussion also smacks of a sort of elitism that I associate with the idiots to run around talking about what metal bands are or aren't "tr00 kvlt". None of this strikes me as very productive.
If I'm successful on my first venture, there is no doubt I'll try again with something new.
I 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…
That's an interesting angle, though I would argue that what you're defining here is a very successful serial entrepreneur, rather just a "serial entrepreneur". I'd say that someone who willingly jumps into startup after startup is a serial entrepreneur - successful or not. Max Levchin was clearly a serial entrepreneur already after his 6th company, even though he hadn't started Skype and Slide yet...