Do We Need A New Word For Entrepreneur?
Has the word entrepreneur become too trendy as to have lost its meaning? I’m hearing it and the word entrepreneurship being used in so many conversations incorrectly.
Here’s a simple example. On a daily basis, I have an email exchange with someone who says they are an entrepreneur. I respond “What company did you start?” They respond, “Oh, I didn’t start a company, I was the fifth employee of Company X.”
Another example is the email that I get from someone in a large company who says “I want to create more entrepreneurship within BigCo.”
Now, these are well-intentioned people so I’m not critical of them. But I’m critical of the use of the word entrepreneur in these contexts.
I like Wikipedia’s definition.
“Entrepreneurship is the process of starting a business, a startup company or other organization. The entrepreneur develops a business plan, acquires the human and other required resources, and is fully responsible for its success or failure.”
Merriam Webster’s is also solid.
“a person who starts a business and is willing to risk loss in order to make money”
This morning I read an article in the New York Times titled With Start-Ups, Greeks Make Recovery Their Own Business. Other than the fact that the New York Times hasn’t yet figured out that It’s Startup, Not Start-up or Start Up it was a good article that got me thinking about this rant.
In 2010, the Startup America Partnership finally got the US government to separate the notion of small businesses with high growth businesses. The wordstartup was firmly introduced into our lexicon as shorthand for high growth business and now is a comfortable one. While we are still stuck with one government organization – the Small Business Administration – that tries to help both small businesses and startups, the language around this continues to evolve.
For example, I think we are finally starting to differentiate between local businesses (your local restaurant, coffee shop, bookstore, gas station, movie theater, clothing store, art store, or anything else that sells to your local community) from a startup business (a company that might be small, but is selling to anyone anywhere in the world). The language isn’t quite right, as local businesses can evolve into startups (The Kitchen, run by Kimball Musk, is a good example). But we are getting there.
And then there are a several words trying to characterize different stages of startups. A scaleup is a startup that is scaling quickly. A gazelle, a word that has been around for a while and is becoming popular again, is a startup that has achieved critical mass and is a rapidly growing company, kind of like a scaleup, but falling comfortably into the animal taxonomy that seems to include unicorns and dragons.
And that takes us back to the word entrepreneur. Theoretically, the entrepreneur is a person who creates any one of these companies (local business, high growth business, startup, scaleup, gazelle, unicorn, but not a peppercorn.) And entrepreneurship is the act of creating and operating the business. Note the and clause – you need to be the creator and the operator to be an entrepreneur, not just the operator.
As I type this, I realize I’ve buried the lead. I’ve always loved the word founder to describe the person the word entrepreneur refers to. When I started Feld Technologies, I referred to myself and my partner Dave as the founders of Feld Technologies. This was well before anyone used the word entrepreneur (the 1980s) and for many years I used the word founder. Somehow my brain shifted to entrepreneur and entrepreneurship and that’s taken over for me. But it’s now uncomfortable, awkward, and tiresome.
I think I’m going back to founder. It’ll be interesting to see how hard it is to rewire my brain. We’ll see if it lasts. While it’s not clear to me that it matters, given my pedantic obsession with eliminating the hyphen in words like startup and email, it’ll be fun – at least for me – to see where it goes.
It may be too late for a change, the words entrepreneur and entrepreneurial are words that are so frequently used and misused. It would be difficult to replace them.
Managing Director - New Technology Ventures
8 年Been thinking a lot about this. Especially as financial services folks keep calling me to get me to be an entrepreneur e.g. be an independent financial advisor for them. I finally said, why do you think that makes you an entrepreneur? That just means you own a business. Being a partner in a VC firm, it is safe to say I hear that word a ridiculous number of times per day. As a result I have taken to talking to our portfolio companies and our EIRs as SDI. Self Directed Industrialist. SDI is just easy and yet also confusing, therefore perfect! Gotta have a little mystery in terminology these days!
Conscious leader | Board Member | Cross Industry digital transformation | AI and data analytics | Women in Tech | Scale up Mentor | Trade advisor (CEE) | Spain & USA
8 年Very interesting subject. And yet not an easy one as it has been time the discussion is in the air. The way we use the words is actually a big part of the quality of the communication so it is worth discussing. I believe everything answers to the laws of evolution, and since the 80's it is normal that the way we use the word "entrepreneur" has evolved. Not only it evolves with the way business is done but what connotation people want to give it. "Entrepreneur" beside its origins ("Entreprendre" from french) has now since few years a positive connotation, people want to be "Entrepreneur" so that they belong to this new "category" of reference people in business. "Founder" is actually for me the best and less controversial word to characterise the person who actually takes the decision and the risks of creating the business (whether they only put money in, have the idea or execute it too, they are the ones to create, develop and assume failure). During the past years, don't you think that the use of the word entrepreneur has evolved more toward a behaviour regarding to how people apprehend business and even life? A lot of companies are encouraging entrepreneur style in their companies (i.e. Intuit) in order to achieve objectives of risk taking, initiative, innovation in product development or management. I agree it is good to have a clear word and I would better use founder which is really less confusing (no space for one's interpretation). I believe we will still use entrepreneur/ entrepreneur spirit/ entrepreneur behavior to characterise a personality more than someone who actually has already launched a business. To add to the discussion an article from Justin Bariso in Inc. https://www.inc.com/justin-bariso/so-what-is-an-entrepreneur-anyway.html
NEIL HOWARD DE COLOMBIA search provides a key to a beautiful country
8 年I can recall my mother telling me about her father’s business and how my father got used by her father, my grandfather, in advancing his business. The time was circa 1934 and my grandfather had grown a coal distribution business within the City of Liverpool. Finding work for the average man was difficult and the large businesses on Merseyside hired and fired on a daily basis. It was common place for men seeking work to ensure that they were outside the gates of a company well before the company’s normal daily starting time. The Company would then have a “boss” stand on a box at the gates and point at the men he would take for a day’s work. Those left outside the gates, without being selected, then thought “I will become an entrepreneur” that’s for sure !!!. The word “entrepreneur” was first recorded into the French Dictionary in the year 1723. It defines a person who starts a business and takes the associated risks but it has now become trendy, original used word fashionable, to use it to describe oneself to raise a perceived profile. Similar words are placed on business cards such as International Business Consultant, Principle Engineering Consultant. The result is that it devalues the original word. Here in Colombia the word “Doctor” is used by working people who need to address someone in a higher authority than themselves. This has devalued the word “Doctor”. In Europe, car mechanics have upgraded themselves to “Automotve Engineers”. Accordingly, people who wish to have a "handle" should really ensure the "handle" is appropriate. I would recommend those using the word entrepreneur to read the article found at URL https://www.fastcompany.com/3006576/defining-word-entrepreneur-21st-century. If then the reader can tick of the check list listed for the specification for an entrepreneur they may be on the road to being able to truly describe themselves as one.
Vacation Rental Booking Expert - Legacy Airbnb SuperHost
8 年In other words, you must be fully vested in all aspects to claim the title of "Entrepreneur." I prefer Founder too, sounds way more solid and grounded. In my extensive airline background, the word Founder was always applied to, well, the Founder of the airline who was always fully involved operationally and financially.