Number 60
Because it's still the likeliest, fastest, and best way to get rich.
Number 61
Because you can decide, if you want, that getting rich is beside the point and focus instead on accomplishing something else entirely.
Number 62
The BlackBerry
Number 63
Because fortune favors the brave--more than ever. In the words of serial company founder and strategic planning consultant Lanny Goodman, of Management Technologies in Albuquerque:
"The risk of making bold moves is less than it's ever been. The traditional risk-reward equation has flipped. It's maintaining the status quo that's dangerous now. Strategy, products, services, organization design, whatever--it's not breaking the mold, not adapting to new opportunities, that will hurt you. Think about it: We've been running our companies with a set of assumptions and tools that are a hundred years old. They were developed by some very bright and capable people, but it was a time when capital was scarce and expensive and talent was plentiful and cheap. Today just the opposite is true--and the old tools don't work anymore. Doing almost anything that breaks the legacy of 'check your brain at the door and do what we tell you to do' is likely to be an improvement. And is there anyone better positioned to break that legacy than an entrepreneur?"
Number 64
Because it's possible, if Scott Cook, founder of Intuit, is right, that simplicity is the virtue consumers now seek above all others. Simplicity in products, in business relationships, in services. Don't keep adding features, capability, complication, Cook hears them saying--make it easy for me. Give me only what really matters, what I really need. Make it simple, and I'll pay you for it. And big companies, so full of people whose job is to add something, have a hard time with simple. Simple requires a breakthrough. Simple is entrepreneurial work.
Number 65
Because as Drucker famously said, just because a thing has been done doesn't mean it's been invented. To be invented, a thing has to have been done over and over; it has to have been replicated. Entrepreneurship, finally, has been invented. Reinvented, in fact, though...
Number 66
...that doesn't mean it won't be reinvented again.
Number 67
Because the best and brightest in the pool of potential employees find you more attractive than at any time before.
Number 68
Because it's not for everyone.
Number 69
Because, despite that, anyone can try.
Number 70
Because customer service, despite the years of lip service and the scripting of client "care" interactions, can offer entrepreneurs a larger competitive advantage than ever. When I was a carpenter in a crew and only imagining my own business, I looked forward to the client contact--working with customers one-on-one to solve their problems. I knew I would like it, but I had no idea it would be as rewarding as it is, or that we'd be stepping up to it at a time when customer service in our everyday lives is so bad in spite of all the management BS over the years. Technology in particular seems to have turned customer service into a line of happy talk and useless phone trees instead of anything like real service. So now real service is valued more highly than ever. People crave it, which makes everything about our work better. Our customers have become friends. You get so much in return for serving them well. They're so good at referring us--and only to people they think are 'our kind' of job--that we don't even market or do bids anymore. Giving great service turns into job security, and quick payments, and working relationships that enrich your days."
Noel Ripley, co-founder, Ripley & Thorne Construction, Hingham, Mass.
Number 71
Because, if your company does well enough, you're virtually guaranteed a book deal.
Number 72
Because this list is incomplete and could extend longer if that would be seemly.
Number 73
Because of some reason spectacularly your own that you too rarely acknowledge. Take the occasion to name it. (And if you don't mind, send it to us: mail@inc.com.)
Number 74
Because, again, when the reasons are accumulated, we can see themes. It's good to be an American entrepreneur right now because of how universally accepted being one has become; because of the unprecedented availability of help; because so many barriers to competitive entry have fallen; because the basis for competition is no longer resource-richness alone; because more than ever a natural competitive advantage accrues to those practicing long-term commitment over short-term fix. Because it costs less and yields more. Because an increasingly anxious and chaotic, sometimes indifferent, and usually uncontrollable world keeps presenting new day-to-day problems, and being an entrepreneur keeps being the best day-to-day solution.
Number 75
Because, in the end, being an entrepreneur is more than ever the way you can choose your path and find the deep satisfaction of walking it. You can earn your days without being beholden. You can make something, affect the world, leave something behind where once nothing stood. You can turn work into meaning for yourself and for others. You can be proud. You can leave a wake. Come good or ill, you can assume responsibility for yourself, and be whole, and be who you were meant to be.
