My thoughts on entrepreneurship, and common delusions

What the buzz also fails to say is that, entrepreneurship is not for everyone. It's for few people who have certain number of characteristics, to name a few:

• They're self starters, go getters, they don't take no for an answer.
• They're stubborn, defiant they will pursue something despite surrounding sentiments
• They have loads of self-esteem. Bordering, if not exceeding, arrogance.
• They are risk takers. They believe in luck and chance. But once successful claim they made their own luck
• They're completely convinced that they will be successful
• They have something to offer, or can easily obtain like, Talent, innovation or money.
• They try to have enough connections that will help them get things done
• Some tend to be smarter than average, but not the smartest.

However, only one in ten actually manages to stay afloat for ONE YEAR. Even after that, most have a very rocky road.

The majority of the entrepreneurs will end up barely making it. Even the ones who are able to sustain a business, only less than 1 in 100 has a chance of making it, big time. As in, becoming a millionaire.

But we've seen people kill each other for odds way less than that! So it will not stop people from getting into it.

The perspective that should be taken into account is that everyone NEEDS employees. We can't all be entrepreneurs. It just doesn't work like that.

So why do we keep hearing voices continuously chanting and pushing people into this "brave new world"? Well, turns out, there is money to be made on the corpses of failed businesses, especially at the macroeconomic scale.

You see, any time a business starts, it means some of the frozen assets have been freed. This is accomplished through liquidation of assets (land sales, stock sales, etc), withdrawal of savings, applying for credit.

What all of these amounts to is more money in-the-market, which means more jobs, and more fuel for the economic wheel to turn. Of course it comes at the expense of the 9 businesses who fail. But they have contributed positively to the national and even global economy.

The question that remains, is it worth it?

If you happen to fall in the fewer than 1% that actually make it big. You'll publish a book, and say it was worth it.

Many will not even come close, but would still talk about the glorious possibilities that could come to those who dare.

It's unfair to compare entrepreneurship to lottery. But there are similarities. If it wasn't for the fact that most entrepreneurs work their butts off lottery or roulette would have pretty much similar odds for people to make it big.

Sadly, many entrepreneurs enter the whole endeavor as a gamble, in a game where the house always wins.