The Evolution of the Professional Entrepreneur

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Research backwater > > > > Research mainstream
Research backwater: In the early '80s, when Congress wanted information on entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship, it didn't exist. Entrepreneurship research? Never heard of it.
Research mainstream: David Birch, Zoltan Acs, Bruce Kirchhoff, Bruce Phillips, Paul Reynolds, John Jackson, Donald Sexton, Howard Aldrich, Howard Stevenson, Jeffry Timmons, Bill Wetzel, Karl Vesper, and so on

Dozens--maybe scores--of academicians now specialize in entrepreneurial study, scrutinizing and analyzing processes and behaviors in organizations of all sizes and in all stages of development. Look for a lot more academic research on what makes entrepreneurial companies work.

Price takers > > > > Value makers
Price takers: Me-too competitors--Wendy's, for instance--could set prices at any point--as long as they were lower than the McMarket leader's.
Value makers: New competitors--Nike, for instance--create new categories and new price points.

Personal financial plan is the business > > > > Business is part of personal financial plan

Art > > > > Science
Art: What entrepreneurship was presumed to be
Science: "'Professionalized' means having a set of disciplines and routines that can be taught and applied. Professionalism doesn't eliminate the art in entrepreneurship, it strengthens it."
--Amar Bhidé, associate professor of entrepreneurship, Harvard Business School

Equity = control > > > > Performance = control
Equity = control: Vincent Yost, founder of Intelligent Devices, was reluctant to raise additional capital. To do so would have meant reducing his ownership of the company to less than 51%. By his logic, that would result in losing his control. "He'll discover," says Harvard Business School Professor Bill Sahlman, "that by not raising much capital, he'll have given up real control of his destiny anyway."
Performance = control: "Control comes from performance, even for CEOs. If you do the job well, you have all the control you need. If you don't, it doesn't matter how much stock you have. You won't be in control of your company."
--Mitchell Kertzman, Powersoft founder

Company > > > > Career
Company: Henry Ford, David Packard, Ken Olsen, Lillian Vernon, and countless others: the companies they founded were their careers.
Career: Career transcends company. Consider the résumé of Eric Kriss:

• CEO, MediQual Systems, 1993­present
• Functional chief financial officer, Commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1991­1993
• Founder, MediVision, 1984; grew company to $50 million, then sold it, 1989
• Consultant, Bain & Co., 1979­1984; launched Bain Capital, 1984­1990
• Produced jazz and blues albums, 1970s

"It's more painful to sell a business," Kriss says, "than to start one."

Also read Creators of the New Economy, Part One by Tom Richman. "A new group of people is emerging out of the swelling entrepreneurial mainstream: genuinely professional entrepreneurs..."

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