This is a very common question people usually ask, at least for me, I have been thinking about it in my little head for hundreds of times.Since I was a little girl, my first dream of my professional career is to be a teacher, because teachers never need to hand in homework. Then the second one maybe fashion designer, because I was happy making cloths for my barbies. Then the third is maybe to be an architect, because I thought design a building is a damn cool thing. Then, a lot of then after this…. But in the past two years, I really start to consider to be an entrepreneur, or joining a great start-up team, very seriously. So I couldn’t help to wonder, why I want to do that, and I have no answers till now.

Obviously I am not born to be one, or I will never have all these doubts. And seems I am not very well trained yet, too, or I will just quit my boring civil engineering study but do something real and I love, who cares about how to traffic lights shines, or how water flows under the ground!

So are entrepreneurs really born to be? Let’s look at Bill Gates, whioes father was a prominent lawyer, mother served on the board of directors (attention: not founder) for First Interstate BancSystem. But he just happened to be one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world. How about the Jews, who are primarily became merchants and shop-owners when they first landed the United State, the real entrepreneurs, but now, their sons, grandsons are probably listed at some well-known law firm as a senior partner.

Are the entrepreneurs really can be trained? If so, maybe I should count all the great entrepreneurs who are school drop-outs for you. Sounds a bit old fashion? How about we just look at the NOC alumnus, I am sure they are more inspired, motivated, well trained than us, but how many of them are really starting or trying to start their own business now? Hardly say ten. The things we can be trained are like how to write a good business plan, how to give a good presentation, how to persuade people to agree with your ideas, blablabla, but are these enough for an entrepreneur?

So what is it? What is the thing make so many people are so eager to be entrepreneurs? I feel is more on  the influence, the influence by successful stories, the influence by great ideas, the influence by the spiritual mentors, the influence of brilliant books, the influence about their own practical dreams. Maybe these are the things really affected our thinkings, changed our perspective,  and brought us to SV.

Enjoy our trip, we will figure things out! A nice quote for everyone!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009 at 5:00 am and is filed under Random Ramblings, Talks, reflections. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.