Rolling in Sour Grapes

Almost Entrepreneur of the year

Published on June 17, 2004 By Draginol In Business

So I didn't win Michigan's Entrepreneur of the Year award this year. I was a finalist and so I'm told everyone who makes it that far is a "Winner".

But the competition always brings into question, what exactly is an entrepreneur? How do you measure different levels of success?

For example, is someone who inherited their business an entrpreneur? If so, how do you measure their entrepreneurship?

And how do you measure entrpereneurship itself? Is it the number of jobs created? The revenued that is grossed? The influence it has on people's lives?

How do you define entrepreneurship?

Comments

Locamama

on Jun 17, 2004

I think an entrepreneur is someone who starts a business not someone who inherits it but nobody at the Michigan Entrepreneur of the Year Award committee asked me. I do think their should be some solid criteria to determine the top entrepreneurs. Anyway you can be Entrepreneur of the Year on Joe User. BTW, I thought you lived in Texas?

Draginol

on Jun 17, 2004

Born in Texas, live in Michigan.

dharmagrl

on Jun 17, 2004

I hardly think it fair that someone who inherited a business should be competing against someone who built their business from nothing. ....unless the business inherit-ee took a company that was millions in the red and made it millions in the black in a matter of months (a spectacular turnaround, in other words)

Those are some good questions, btw.

shadesofgrey

on Jun 18, 2004

Brad--if it's any consolation, I think you should have won--but I have no idea who the competition was!

I'm guessing the winner was a fellow blogger.

(was that too subtle?)

KarmaGirl

on Jun 18, 2004

Who did win this year, anyway?

In the realm of Ent. of the year, Brad is always the bridesmaid and never the bride

I, personally thing that they should focus on innovation and success in the industry over how much the company makes. I think "old" business should be thrown out. 3rd generation owners should be even in the competition.

Was there good food?

Draginol

on Jun 18, 2004

Food is always good. I won't accept nomination next year. As much fun as it is to dress up and eat (for free) at a very nice place and hang out with the "who's who" of Michigan, it doesn't have that much appeal to keep doing it.

The company that won this year I don't know very much about except that they're very huge now and gross a lot of money annually.

The thing that I don't tend to like about these things is that they don't seem to focus very much on how the companies got started. Did the own being nominated start the company in the first place? Did they do it with their own money or did they start out rich? How much risk did they take? Did they just use "their connections" to secure millions in VC?

I remember during the dot-com era feeling some angst (hey, I make no bones about it, I'm a competitive guy! <g>) when I'd see some dot-com CEO getting on the cover of Forbes when his company wasn't making any real money. That feeling reached a high point when I was told how the CEO of VA Linux was much more successful as a business person than I was (it was in a debate about Linux and I was not a supporter of the open source business model and was told that the CEO of VA Linux's opinion trumped my opinion) because his company grossed much more revenue than ours. But his company was "grossing" like $30 million but spending $60 million in the same time period. I think most people could do better than that (Sell $3000 PCs for $2000 and you'd do better than that).

I don't know if I deserved to win because I didn't know enough about the other finalists (they didn't go into much detail). But I do think there is somethign to be said about actually starting the company with no outside capital (or even ones own capital) other than just an idea and a lot of elbow grease.

stevendedalus

on Jun 21, 2004

starting the company with no outside capital (or even ones own capital) other than just an idea and a lot of elbow grease.

In my book, this defines entrepreneurism just fine.

Jay Walker

on Jun 21, 2004

Brad,

of course the plaques are nice in life, but I suspect you don't define yourself by them. In any case, congratulations - effort and excellence should always be celebrated.

Oh, and happy belated Father's Day.
Jay

Madine

on Jun 24, 2004

When I think of an entrepeneur in the business sense, I think of someone who starts a very small business and builds it into a medium or large business.

I looked up the definition of entrepreneur on Google, and I found 3 common themes in the definitions.

1. Risk

I think a good evaluation of an entrepreneur is how much of their personal wealth was/is invested in the enterprise. Putting their personal livelihood at stake is something that differentiates an entrenpreneur from someone who is just a business executive.

2. Starting the business

I think that only in extraordinary circumstances would it be correct to classify someone who took over an already well-established business as an entrepreneur. It would probably have to be something that threatened the survival of the business.

3. Operating the business

This would be where financial metrics like revenue, profits, and employees come into play.

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