You Are Not An Entrepreneur

Entrepreneur “A person who sets up a business or businesses, taking on financial risks in the hope of profit.” (source: www.oxforddictionares.com). Does this sound like you?

When I Google the meaning this is the one that comes top organically.

The next definition of an entrepreneur that comes up via www.Entrepeneur.com"a person who starts a business and is willing to risk loss in order to make money".

If none of these definitions applies to you then why are you claiming to be an entrepreneur?

You will note that all three of these definitions say that you have to "set up" or "start" a business. None says that you are an entrepreneur if you were given the family business or takeover another business or work for a billion dollar multi national corporation running their innovation department. Start is start from new i.e. it wasn't there before. If you didn't do this then you are not a true entrepreneur.

The other word you will note in all definitions is "risk". If you work for a billion dollar multi national corporation and have a venture on the side you are not risking anything. If you have a family inheritance/trust fund and this company was part of it this does not make you an entrepreneur. You have a safety net. You are not taking a risk. You are therefore not a real entrepreneur.

I ask the question because I am a member of Entrepreneurs’ Organisation (Eo) and after attending a few of their events I wondered why my version, Google's version and various dictionaries version of what an Entrepreneur is and theirs are so different.

I will give you an example. I attended an Eo event in Hong Kong. I met some very interesting business leaders but only some of them were actually entrepreneurs. Probably 75% of the people I met were running family businesses. They had been handed the business by their parents who in turn had been handed the business by theirs.

Someone in their family who actually started this business actually was an entrepreneur. The people I met, in my view, were not. They were doing an amazing job, sometimes they liked it, more often than not they didn’t appear to be enjoying and would rather be doing their own thing. Ironic. Total respect for them taking it on but an "entrepreneur"?

All of them are merely custodians of the family business for the next generation. They have not actually created anything new themselves, they did not start anything. They have also not funded anything themselves, they have not risked everything themselves. They are basically not entrepreneurs.

The second part of the evening which seemed to go against everything being an entrepreneur is about was centred around the Piaget watch. We actually met in the Piaget watch boutique for cocktails before the event which I found odd and then I found out why. Piaget have been sponsoring this awards night the Hong Kong chapter run every year for 14 years.

The members seem to be more dazzled by the watches that their wealth could bring them than actually talking to fellow members about being an entrepreneur. The invite actually asked all previous winners to bring their Piaget watch to the awards! It even asked people with older Piaget watches to do the same.

This was supposed to be an entrepreneurs event not an event to show off your bling! I was shocked. This was not what Eo and being an entrepreneur is about to me. It seemed to be that every member would get a chance of winning, they seemed to take it turns, which again isn’t especially entrepreneurial.

The owner of the Piaget brand in Hong Kong seemed totally nonplussed and offended that not only did I not wear a Piaget watch, I didn’t wear any watch to his event and in fact had never heard of their brand before.

More to the point he really could not comprehend that I did not actually care less about his brand nor felt that I was missing out in anyway by not having one of his watches or wearing one of his watches. Not really his target audience. I was the only person without a tie at the event. I did at least wear a jacket with my black t-shirt....

In answer to his question of how did I tell the time i replied “I have a mobile phone”, “why do I need a watch?”. He seemed lost for words at this insolence and moved onto to someone more open to being sold an overpriced timepiece which they could show off to someone who cared and which all seemed to look the same to me. He should probably read some of the many articles out there talking about how smart phones are replacing watches.

(myself and fellow entrepreneur Laurent Verrier who set up and runs One9Ninety and whom joined us in floating on NASDAQ as part of TMG)

Now I understand that many Hong Kong, Singapore and China locals are obsessed by luxury watches and being seen with them. They are the top markets in the world for luxury watch sales. It’s a status thing. I get it. But within the context of a supposed “entrepreneurial” evening I found it contradictory to the ethos of being an entrepreneur.

Of course luxury watch sales like luxury goods in general are plummeting as they were used as corrupt gifts to win contracts a few years back especially in China/Asia. The current Chinese President, Xi Jinping, has clamped down on this practice. The fact that luxury watches were used to win contracts through corruption rather than through the quality of the work, service or product seemed not to matter to the EO members or they didn’t care about the negative association. Did they not think to question if other people would say that they only received the watch to get a favour or win a deal? It clearly was not a concern.

They also didn’t seem to notice that no one else cares what watch they had or how they got it. I don’t judge someone by their watch. I don’t care if it’s a Swatch or a Rolex or you have none. It says nothing to me about you and your personal brand. In fact I probably think more negatively of you for wearing such a thing. If you wear an expensive watch that costs many times our fees and then complain about the cost of our fees then I know where your mind is at and that you won’t be becoming a client of ours anytime soon. You value the wrong things to become a successful client.

Piaget watch sales like many luxury good sales and luxury watch sales in general are plummeting. There are countless articles on their demise in every media such as the Wall Street Journal. There are many more about how they are coming down in price so what used to be a bling show off for those who cared can now be copied by non-millionaires too. Kind-of ruining the whole point for some people of buying the watch in the first place. To show off their wealth.

I then was supposed to attend another Eo event in Singapore and on the list of people going were “entrepreneurs” who worked for financial services companies and multi nationals (being an MD of a regional hub does not make you an entrepreneur - you have no risk and you didn't create the company) and sme’s as well as family businesses. Most of these too had not started the company, they had not even been a co-founder, they had basically been employed. I failed to see how many of them were actually entrepreneurs. I decided that my time was better spent elsewhere with real entrpreneurs.

At another Eo event I met some fascinating people in Sydney, most of whom were actually entrepreneurs. Some of which were ex-entrepreneurs, I did wonder why they wanted to continue to be in an organisation for current entrepreneurs. Maybe they missed the buzz. None had family businesses so clearly this could be a cultural thing in Asia. But surely an entrepreneur is an entrepreneur there are no variations that you can pick and choose.

Now I will probably be sanctioned again by Eo for this blog. They like their rules at Eo. Ironic I know for an alleged “entrepreneurial organisation”. Surely being an entrepreneur is all about breaking rules and pushing boundaries? Not following rules and conforming. Again I clearly have a very different view of being an entrepreneur than they do.

Then it struck me that if you type in “entrepreneur” into LinkedIn you get all sorts of people, most of whom are not actually entrepreneurs. If you work for a multi national corporation in a leadership position or head a regional arm then you are not a real entrepreneur. If you work for an accelerator or innovation lab as part of a larger multi national/single national bank or tech firm this does not make you an entrepreneur. It makes you an employee who's innovative.

If you basically do not rely on your own company to generate your own income then to me you are not a real entrepreneur. You are not risking everything to create something from scratch and launch your own venture with nothing and no one to rely on but yourself. You are a hard working professional, no shame in that. Just not an entrepreneur.

Below is a great video of 17 entrepreneurs as part of my co-founded agglomeration vehicle listed on NASDAQ, The Marketing Group.