Entrepreneurship is a rewarding pursuit. It is vaunted by many as the height of accomplishment. Choosing successful investments and guiding projects with potential into their own as full-fledged businesses is a fantastic challenge that can pay big dividends.
However, there are high barriers to entry. You need at least a little money to start, and you need to know what you’re doing and who to talk to. Whether or not you have the golden spoon, there are valuable insights that can help you reach your destination. So where does your entrepreneurial spirit come from? Is it…
In the Blood?
Some enter entrepreneurship through their family ties. When you come from a family of businessmen and entrepreneurs, you tend to have access to two things: money and connections. Much of entrepreneurship revolves around knowing who to talk to, how and when, and then having the money to act on what you’ve talked about.
It may sound almost obvious, but having family members in an industry makes a big difference for this. Even if they do not themselves invest in businesses, learning a business passively as you grow up within a family can do a lot to give you the leverage you need to get started.
In the Class?
Some pursue education directly as a means to learn about business. Steve Wynn is a fantastic example of someone who has leveraged an education into a career in entrepreneurship. Education isn’t a mark of skill or a guarantee of success, but individuals armed with knowledge about entrepreneurship and how it works tend to fair better.
The key is in understanding the history of entrepreneurship and how to identify things that will work, as well as filtering one’s own emotional responses. While we are frequently told to “go with our gut,” the truth is that this can be a major liability in entrepreneurship.
Those that say they make decisions purely on instinct may be misjudging their own analytical minds. Education can help entrepreneurs to make much more informed, intellectual decisions that will not be vulnerable to the psychological pull associated with a strong presentation and a pleasant smile.
In your personality?
However, some individuals don’t have any particular business background. They simply use their paycheck from their usual nine-to-five job in as a resource to bootstrap their way to entrepreneurial success. This is by and large the hardest way to get yourself into entrepreneurship, but there are plenty of examples of those that have made it. The world wide web has become an important resource for individuals like this. While it isn’t a magic bullet, there are a number of resources that allow individuals to run much more successful campaigns.
Kickstarter is a great example of this, and crowdfunding in general. Aspiring entrepreneurs can pick projects not to back through the crowdfunding system exclusively, but in other ways, offering what support they can and reaching out. By making it easier for would-be business owners to get into business, it gets easier for entrepreneurs to pick their marks and strike out to make connections.
Does it matter where?
Entrepreneurship is always a challenge, but it isn’t as mystical as it can sometimes seem from the outside. As with most industries, the hardest part is getting started. Once you have an idea of what you’re looking at in the industry, picking yourself up and going for it becomes much more possible, and there’s nearly nothing to stop you no matter what your background when you get momentum.