Frédéric Fréry, ESCP Enterprise College – The parable of the entrepreneur: when luck meets obsession – Methods and administration

2024-06-02 22:04:36

Whereas the shareholder is usually assimilated by most people to a profiteer and the supervisor is seen as a uninteresting bureaucrat, the determine of the entrepreneur enjoys a very optimistic picture.


Since its founding by the economists Richard Cantillon within the 18th century, Jean-Baptiste Say within the nineteenth century and particularly Joseph Schumpeter within the twentieth century, the entrepreneur has been seen as a necessary driver of innovation and prosperity. In accordance with Schumpeter, the entrepreneur is the dynamic component that enables the economic system to regenerate. Even Karl Marx emphasizes that what he calls the “entrepreneur-capitalist” performs a revolutionary position within the economic system. From Gustave Eiffel to Xavier Niel and from Steve Jobs to Elon Musk, the icons of entrepreneurship encourage generations of younger graduates, who see themselves extra simply as future Mark Zuckerbergs than as uninteresting cogs in an enormous bureaucratic machine.


This heroic illustration of the entrepreneur could be discovered within the well-known quote attributed to Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn: “An entrepreneur is somebody who throws himself off a cliff and builds an airplane through the fall. » Right here we discover two central components within the determine of the entrepreneur: stubbornness and luck.


Entrepreneurs are certainly characterised by their stubbornness, which typically borders on obsession. Strive, strive once more appears to be their watchword, like Thomas Edison, who mentioned: “The surest option to succeed is all the time to strive once more. » or Henry Ford, who added: «Failure is barely the chance to begin once more in a extra clever means. “.


Nonetheless, it’s not sufficient to attempt to succeed: you might be doomed to everlasting failure. Luck is due to this fact the second dimension of entrepreneurship. Behind each profitable entrepreneur, you’ll all the time discover others, equally proficient, equally persistent, equally visionary, however much less lucky, who sadly failed. Success is a mixture of components of such variety and complexity that nobody is ready to grasp the mechanics. Typically, by probability, the alignment of the planets occurs. More often than not it does not occur. Attempting once more simply requires luck once more.

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However behind luck and perseverance there may ben typically one other little-known situation for entrepreneurial success: legacy. The truth is, there are few entrepreneurs who shouldn’t have a mother or father, uncle, aunt or cousin who was not an entrepreneur themselves. This mother or father serves as a job mannequin and permits folks to dare to take dangers, whereas those that come from a household the place entrepreneurship is absent may have extra worry of leaping off the cliff, to take over the picture of Reid Hoffman.


Lastly, if the entrepreneur is an especially optimistic determine, do not forget that the qualities essential to create a enterprise usually are not those that can help you handle it: good entrepreneurs typically make dangerous managers. Their tenacity and their style for danger don’t mesh nicely with the imperatives of day-to-day administration of a corporation. Entrepreneurs, when their creation is full, should due to this fact typically give option to managers, higher capable of make it flourish.


All in all, when you really feel prefer it, do not hesitate to create a enterprise. Certainly, with out new firms, the technique would danger, little by little, turning into akin to geriatrics.

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