What happened to being an ‘entrepreneur?’
Has the word ‘entrepreneur’ become a cliché for creatives who are looking for a label to justify their ideas?
Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the word ‘entrepreneur’. Living in East London I feel like it’s all I’m hearing about. Especially digital entrepreneurs. The line ‘I say I work in media I’m really on the dole’ from the hipster parody song ‘I love my life as a dickhead’ pretty much says it all.
Anyway, the other day I read an article on Inc.com saying that UK business owners did not want to be associated with the term entrepreneur. They’d rather be called simply business owners or self-employed. Those words kinda sound boring to me…
On the other hand I think I understand why.
To me it seems that ‘entrepreneur’ has been connected widely to tech-savvy youngsters with plenty of ideas and no business plan. The word has been thrown around as a common term used for creatives looking for some kind of label. Is this an issue? Has the word entrepreneur simply become a cliché? A buzz-word?
I’m not sure. But if the problem is that too many people have too many ideas but don’t have the gut to execute them or enough knowledge to make a business of it, that’s what I would call a high-class problem.
Instead I think all the existing companies should go to the market and shop for entrepreneur-minded employees. If these people don’t start up their own business the companies should let them practice with them.
If you give an employee the chance to develop his own ideas and let them grow within the company, not only will the company benefit from a great idea, it will benefit from a loyal, happy employee. And then hopefully the word entrepreneur won’t be associated with out-of-work digital wannabes, but actual bright, cool people…
Oh I’d so love to be one of them!
Read Camilla’s other posts here. Photos by Clara Roman.
Hi hi the perfect description of my life at the moment! Graphic and web designer, no education yet and with a dream project I don’t know how to start. Scared of call myself entrepreneur because I don’t feel like it, instead I call myself self employed.