What Makes An Entrepreneur

from the a-different-thought-process dept

An interesting articles about a professor who studies how entrepreneurs think. Her research had some interesting (though, not very surprising) findings. Entrepreneurs tend to expect problems and to deal with them as they come up. They aren't "goal oriented" in chosing a single goal and aiming for that. Instead, they make their own opportunities out of the situations handed to them. They also tend to have a few failures - and use those as learning experiences - such that future failures tend to be on a smaller scale than previous ones. I don't think any of this is all that surprising. Of course, it's not clear from the article if the professor had any "control" groups. For instance, how do career Fortune 500 execs do in the same situations? What about students? Or factory workers? I'm not sure how valuable the study is without controlling factors. Also, in the study they mention that entrepreneurs tend to shoot first and aim later - as if this is a good thing (in some cases, it might be...). But, if you found evidence of a Fortune 500 exec doing the same exact thing, people would complain that it was a bad thing. It's all relative, it seems.