Plenty of information out there about what motivates an entrepreneur or about what it takes to be an entrepreneur. In fact I wrote a couple of articles myself about this, what keeps an entrepreneur moving. We should probably make a distinction between entrepreneurs and business owners (probably it’s well documented as well) but my own version is that a business owners is an employee that pays his own salary – has a business and doesn’t plan to expand or to create new ones. While the entrepreneur is on a constant look for new opportunities, starting and exiting businesses depending on the way they go and provide whatever the entrepreneur goal is.
Ok, now about entrepreneurs, I really think they can’t settle for average. Let me explain. I’m the kind of person very hard to please (friends and family have always complained about this at personal level). At the business level I always think there is place for improvement (and if it doesn’t I usually exit the business) – and because being also hard to please at the personal level I thought it’s just me. But if it’s just me, then I have some questions for you:
- why entrepreneurs don’t stop at the first million?
- why do we have serial entrepreneurs?
- why do entrepreneurs work so hard to make a business work?
- and how do they find ways to do things better than anyone else in a way to make a business successful?
If you look at the Kathryn’s list of Top 25 Teenage Millionaires you will see that some of the businesses that brought them fame and fortune are not looking like million generators. In fact I wouldn’t put my own money in half of them and still they did it big. I don’t think I’ve ever met a real entrepreneur planning to generate $100k per year and settling there for good no matter how improbable their business was. I watched growing under my own eyes the most unlikely businesses because their entrepreneurs didn’t settle for average.
Actually this thing with settling for average works on multiple levels.
You know how they say that entrepreneurs find something that they can do better than the current solutions in the market and turn this idea into a business? That’s because for them there is no average! There is always something they could do better somewhere. And most businesses are not based on completely new needs or ideas. Most are remakes of something that already works.
You know how it works that real entrepreneurs are the last ones to leave the office working day and night? Doing anything that nobody else could or fixing and patching what has already been done to a better state? That’s because they don’t work with average.
You heard about serial entrepreneurs and wonder why do they start one business after another even though their bank account looks quite nice by now? Why would you work your butt off if you have enough for an easy life? Because there are always opportunities ahead, things that could be done more than average.
Average has a different meaning for a real entrepreneur. If for most of the people means good enough, for a real entrepreneur is the lowest level possible and their business are conceived as average being the absolute bottom from where they have to work their way out to excellence.
Then again, maybe it’s just me just needing to find a shrink. Or maybe this is just what makes me an entrepreneur.
