This is a good, sobering post. I think, you might take it one step further and say that entrepreneurship is the wrong thing to do. It's largely self-destructive choice when you make the choice whole-hog -- that is, no other job on the side. Entrepreneurs have an extraordinarily high rate of divorce and bankruptcy.
We mostly hear about entrepreneurs who start very young and make it big early. However most entrepreneurs never make it big, and as they get older and older the risks of entrepreneurship are more and more difficult.
Penelope
girk
· 10 months ago
Thanks for the great comment. I originally made that point, then took it out because I felt it was to divisive. However, I added it back in after you made this comment. Here it is:
"One way to prepare yourself is to keep your job and do it on the side. Dedicate all of your spare time to it, sacrifice sleep and fun for it. What is that you say? You don’t have time? Well, if you don’t have time to do it now, you probably don’t have time to do it full-time, because all of that sacrifice is quite an accurate preview of what it’ll be really like."
Aaron Greenspan
· 10 months ago
I enjoyed this.
Jun Loayza
· 10 months ago
Hey Melissa, this is the first post I've read of yours and the topic really attracted me to it. I write about the realities of entrepreneurship over on my blog, so this is right up my alley.
Being a young entrepreneur is pretty much one of the hardest things you can do in life. Jumping in straight out of college means you're starting your life out in Hard mode: you don't have an established professional network, your skillsets are limited to your college major and whatever extra curricular activities you did, and your friends and family call you crazy for not taking the high-paying corporate job.
What young entrepreneurs do have on their side is energy, tenacity, and the dream of become "the next Zuckerberg." Unfortunately, most young entrepreneurs don't realize that they WILL fail, and the true measurement of someone who will be successful is how much they're willing to get back up after failing.
Curious: what was the startup you started? where do you work now?
Great blog and I look forward to staying in touch
Ben Casnocha
· 9 months ago
I like the distinction between "being entrepreneurial" and "being an entrepreneur" as you note. I always talk about entrepreneurship as more a life idea than a business one, more a way of mind than anything else.
gl hoffman
· 9 months ago
HI M. I saw this link on Twitter. I have been doing start ups for 25 years or so, and I have put together a list that maybe you and john might find some common attributes. http://blogs.jobdig.com/wwds/2007/12/10/a-compl...
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We mostly hear about entrepreneurs who start very young and make it big early. However most entrepreneurs never make it big, and as they get older and older the risks of entrepreneurship are more and more difficult.
Penelope
"One way to prepare yourself is to keep your job and do it on the side. Dedicate all of your spare time to it, sacrifice sleep and fun for it. What is that you say? You don’t have time? Well, if you don’t have time to do it now, you probably don’t have time to do it full-time, because all of that sacrifice is quite an accurate preview of what it’ll be really like."
Being a young entrepreneur is pretty much one of the hardest things you can do in life. Jumping in straight out of college means you're starting your life out in Hard mode: you don't have an established professional network, your skillsets are limited to your college major and whatever extra curricular activities you did, and your friends and family call you crazy for not taking the high-paying corporate job.
What young entrepreneurs do have on their side is energy, tenacity, and the dream of become "the next Zuckerberg." Unfortunately, most young entrepreneurs don't realize that they WILL fail, and the true measurement of someone who will be successful is how much they're willing to get back up after failing.
Curious: what was the startup you started? where do you work now?
Great blog and I look forward to staying in touch
I saw this link on Twitter. I have been doing start ups for 25 years or so, and I have put together a list that maybe you and john might find some common attributes.
http://blogs.jobdig.com/wwds/2007/12/10/a-compl...