What is Entrepreneurship?

Is it a Skill?

Can Entrepreneurship be learned? Can it be taught? Those are two different questions. In fact, I would say that even if it could be taught, a true entrepreneur would be unable to teach the class and a true entrepreneur would be unable to learn from it! Most of the entrepreneurship classes offered by universities are more along the lines of "how to run a small business" mixed with some management and/or finance classes. If you are lucky, you get a few marketing classes thrown in. Is this information valuable to an entrepreneur? Absolutely. Is it entrepreneurship? No.

Is it a Sickness?

Yes. And it is terminal. I'm sorry to have to break this to you. If you have it, you will always have it and it might actually kill you. If you don't have it, do not fear; it is rarely, if ever, contagious. In fact, as a carrier, if you try to infect others, you will fail miserably. It is best to mix with those who already have it. I am talking about entrepreneurship here, right?

Is it a Blessing?

It is great to be optimistic, to see opportunity every time you turn around. Oooh, I just had an idea, what if... Wouldn't it be cool if... Dude, how awesome would it be if we could... Yes, it is a blessing. When an entrepreneur walks down the street, they can see a million ways to make a million dollars. This is *not* something most people can do, and probably something "mere mortals" should not try at home.

Is it a Curse?

It is great to be optimistic, to see opportunity every time you turn around... but sometimes it would be nice to not. To turn it off. Stop thinking about all the different ways you could develop a new business model for that widget. In fact, even if you aren't one of the entrepreneurs who doesn't sleep at night because their brain won't turn off, you still might be so full of ideas that you never execute. There are lots of people who "execute" on business ventures, but are not entrepreneurs. Think real estate investors and small-time franchisees who keep their "day jobs". Those aren't entrepreneurs, those are investors.

Reid Hoffman, Chairman of LinkedIn, said it best in this podcast from the Stanford Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders series:

I'm going to jump off a cliff and assemble the plane on the way down

That does not sound like the words of a sane individual... I'm going with "yes", it is a curse.

- Lincoln