Is the person who coined the term Wantrepreneur the same person who coined the term Web 2.0? Did Godin have something to do with this?
You're not an entrepreneur unless you own/owned a company (the rest of the details are very debatable). I hate sales jobs that describe themselves as "entrepreneurial" in nature. You're still taking orders from someone else.
An entrepreneur is anyone who can see an opportunity or an idea and turn it into hard cash. If you can do it through someone else's business then even better. You are simply reducing the calculated risk.
A few years ago several bartenders and waitresses went out and bought investments properties because another bartender had done it and made lot of money. They had a few properties, incorporated their business and rolled over the taxes, and got loans easily. That did not make them entrepreneurs. Those business owners helped to drive house prices all the way up, then all the way down taking the economy with them along the way.
On the other hand, take Google. A great search engine, a good amount of visitors who love the product. But someone outside the founders came up with Adwords and executed it pretty well. That s an entrepreneur.
> An entrepreneur is anyone who can see an opportunity or an idea and turn it into hard cash. If you can do it through someone else's business then even better. You are simply reducing the calculated risk.
note that "adwords" isn't just the idea of putting ads next to search, but mainly the auction aspect of it (so google always gets the highest price possible; and advertisers never pay more than needed - the idea is it's a little market), and linking it to search.
Overture/goto.com was basically adwords alone (no search results), and was quite profitable I believe.
Unfortunately, my little correction doesn't contribute to the topic of the debate... um, departments can certainly be entrepreneurial, also, in some companies, with skunkworks and so on, you are certainly doing all the things an entrepreneur does: funding, new products, marketing. The only difference (and perhaps a key difference, according to fallentimes) is that it ain't their money. Entrepreneurialism certainly has a gut-test component... and maybe that risk/reward of ownership is essential.
Otherwise, you're gambling for matchsticks. Using all the same skills, but you ain't gambling.
Speculators are transmitting information about future prices to the present, which is a useful thing to do.
For instance, after Katrina and various other oil shocks, speculators sent oil prices up in anticipation of shortages. This sent consumers the message: "please use less oil right now."
Usually, this is a good thing, though collective insanity ("house prices never go down!" or "it's a new economy, earnings don't matter!") can cause problems.
You're not an entrepreneur unless you own/owned a company (the rest of the details are very debatable). I hate sales jobs that describe themselves as "entrepreneurial" in nature. You're still taking orders from someone else.