The Entrepreneur’s Playbook: Start Up or Finish Up

A start-up doesn’t make you an entrepreneur any more than idea does.

Too many young people, enamored with and influenced by the great technology and social boom, mistakenly believe that being an entrepreneur is about the start-up culture. They think it’s about getting venture capital money with a slick idea, some technology, and a deck. It’s about hustling angel investors to fund the business from the start.

They worry about the logo, the schwag, the parties, and identifying themselves as “serial entrepreneurs.”

Worst of all, too many “could be” entrepreneurs think about becoming a unicorn, exit strategies, comparables, and getting rich quick.

Be a Finish Up

Entrepreneurship isn’t about starting up. It’s about finishing up.

Entrepreneurs start real businesses. They believe in their business concept enough to go and get real customers and clients. They don’t ask people for money to test their idea. They get money from customers.

Entrepreneurs bootstrap their growth by taking a pay cut, working for little money, and working long hours. They love the business enough to pour their heart and soul into it, putting it before anything and everything else.

They’re not worried about impressing anyone with their logo, and they don’t buy schwag in an attempt to convince others that what they are doing is cool. The only people they want to impress are the people who will buy what they sell.

Entrepreneurship is about selling, not about flipping a business. It’s about selling the product, service, or solution to the people who benefit from it. It’s about selling other people to join your team and helping you get the business off the ground. It may be selling the bank for a loan using your invoices as collateral, or signing personally and risking what you own.

America needs more entrepreneurs. It doesn’t need more start-ups. We need more finish ups, real entrepreneurs who are interested in starting a real business they intend to lead and grow.