Editor’s note: This article was first published in June 2013, and its reference to a climate of lack of jobs refers to Spain’s unemployment crisis in 2013.
Many people would like to become entrepreneurs for the wrong reasons, and in a way, those are the very reasons that will probably make us fail. Why do you want to be an entrepreneur?
If we asked this question, many people would tell us that they want to be entrepreneurs to earn more money, to be rich. Of course, in a climate like today’s, it’s also true that some people don’t so much want to be entrepreneurs as have no other choice, given the lack of jobs. Others want to be entrepreneurs so they don’t have to put up with “jerk bosses” or work for anyone. But if we were all entrepreneurs and nobody wanted to work for anyone, there would be no companies. Every company needs qualified, professional workers, and ideally workers who don’t think their boss is a jerk.
If we ask a dancer why they want to be a professional dancer, they’ll tell us it’s because they love to dance. The Mexican singer Luis Miguel said at a press conference that he wants to be a singer because his passion is singing and his audience. He lives for his audience.
How many of us (entrepreneurs or future business owners) would say we want to be entrepreneurs to change the world with our product, improve our customers’ lives, create jobs, or generate wealth for a town, a city or a country? That is the true entrepreneur, and as a rule, when someone becomes an entrepreneur for these reasons and does a good job, the money comes by itself.
In most cases, when someone goes into business solely to make money, they tend to give up or fall apart at the first difficulties. In other cases, if money is all that drives you, you cross the line as soon as you get the chance. In Spain we have hundreds of cases of business owners who looked more like mobsters than entrepreneurs.
To sum up: if at some point you’re thinking of starting your own business, make sure you’re driven by something more than money or necessity, because otherwise, sooner or later, you’ll grow tired of this profession, which is less stable than a job, with an unknown and uncertain income, and loaded with management problems, occasional cash shortages and so on.
Make sure that when someone asks you why you want to be an entrepreneur, you have an answer that shows some passion and enthusiasm for something more than money.
Paulo Coelho defined perfectly what an entrepreneur is: for him, the entrepreneur starts from the premise of improving what he doesn’t like, knowing that if he wants to change it, he’ll have to do it himself. An ideal example of an entrepreneur would be John Crowley, the entrepreneur with two sick children who had no choice but to create his own company to bring a treatment for his children’s disease to market, given the inaction of the pharmaceutical companies.
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