Entrepreneur is a hype word today and people often forget that entrepreneurs are characterized by the greater risks they take. Today an entrepreneur is anybody and everybody, especially young persons who wish to start a business. And all those businesses are called startups even if it’s just a clone, a copycat of an existing successful ventures. 

Be novel not new

These clones and many other new businesses may be new businesses but their ideas are about as “new” as one to start an ice cream truck business. Let’s get real and create something really new and useful like airbnb or dropbox. But you don’t have to go searching for a new problem. Take an existing problem, for example project management and develop an elegant solution with a real time twist, like Flow from MetaLab or social workspaces from 6wunderkinder. Those are creative and novel concepts. 

Real entrepreneurs take risks

I’ve met too many ‘entrepreneurs’ recently who are convinced that this doesn’t exist yet in Germany or in a particular space (e.g. car sharing within companies) and that is why their startup will be successful. Worse still, they seek startup funding and some even receive it! There are many programs here in Germany, esp. Munich to support startups with funds in the 5-50k range. The problem is that they remove the the entire risk of being an entrepreneur. 

I’m not against venture capital. If you want to found a startup in renewable energy you probably need venture capital. But it makes me sad to see people get 10k to build an app. Because as Drew Wilson said it best, “that’s an app. It’s not a business”. If you’re not taking a risk and spending someone else’s money, are you really an entrepreneur?

Be a real entrepreneur and approach problems creatively. Spend your own money. Build stuff on your own. If you’re not a designer or a developer, at least do your own marketing and research and approach one with more than someone else’s business plan. Lastly, if you really believe in your startup idea and you’re feeling really adventurous, save some money, build it, take a leap of faith and quit your day job.

Be a real entrepreneur.