| "...We’re all failing this generation of entrepreneurs by not being tough on them....we need to stop encouraging entrepreneurship without acknowledging the extremely long odds of success, the numerous downsides..." I completely agree with the thrust of this article. My only qualm is that the word "entrepreneur" is too broad. Let's put it this way. Need money? Go downtown and go door-to-door looking to help people. Maybe you can clean their office, or walk their dog, make a website, or cook a hamburger for somebody. But if you have some reasonable amount of skill and are willing to physically go out and meet people and adapt to what you hear, I can guarantee you that you are going to make money. It probably won't be in the way you imagined, but it'll work. This is the basis of entrepreneurialism: making something people want. Get out there and find what people want. Match your abilities up to that. It's a wonderful thing. The problem comes when we try to add any qualifiers at all to this. What this author is talking about is internet or technology startups. That's a whole nother can of worms. It's like going downtown and looking for work as an accountant. Yes, it might work, if you are already an accountant and your town has a lot of accounting firms. But the odds suddenly increase a hell of a lot. The problem I see with many recent college grads and many startup fans is the belief that they already know what kind of entrepreneur they are going to be. Once you start qualifying things, you are killing your odds. Business is a conversation, not a soliloquy. We've got a lot of people terribly dedicated to some long-shot, 1-in-50 chance venture. That's not a startup. That's gambling. But I completely agree that for purposes of this article, we have let a lot of people down. We deserve to give them a much more realistic view of how things work instead of spending so much time on Facebook, Google, and Instagram. We're making this into some kind of perverse lottery, and that's not good for anybody. Just don't use such a broad term as startup and then make some sweeping case that "people just aren't cut out for it" Yes, most people aren't cut out for some specific description of a business venture. But I'd argue that just about anybody can sell apples on the street corner. This isn't an intelligence thing, this is an engagement thing. If anything, you can be too smart for startups. |
Entrepreneurship is not complicated nor is it necessarily difficult to execute. This article is way too specific on what it is (a technology startup game that requires outside investment for success).
The alternative to entrepreneurship is to work for someone else. When you work for someone else, it's not mentioned enough that your boss is making more money off of you than he's paying you. If you can offer the same service directly to your customer, whether you're selling hot dogs or bottled water or cruise missiles, then you will absolutely make more money and live a more independent lifestyle.
There are far far more entrepreneurs out there making $60k a year than there are entrepreneurs working at startups that will soon become worthless. Those exact same entrepreneurs probably don't have a marketable skill that would make them any more than $30k working for someone else. But the market loves it when you assume some level of risk, and the risk isn't nearly as high as this article or some of the comments in this thread seem to imply.