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Entrepreneurs 3,865 views

Some Extremely Successful Entrepreneurs Don't Love Their Companies (And Why That's More Than Okay)

Businessman With Idea Light Bulb

We’ve argued throughout that everyone will have to become an entrepreneur.

Some people take to the idea of becoming an entrepreneur like a Labrador retriever puppy entering a lake for the first time: After about ten seconds of nervousnessy, they are incredibly enthusiastic and once they are immersed, it’s virtually impossible to get them out.  (If you are not a Lab owner, ask one.)

These happy swimmers in the entrepreneurial pond are people who either always wanted to have a business of their own—and had been thwarted for some reason–and now have the chance to thrive on their own—or they just found a place they belonged, once they started their own company.

But do you have to feel that way?

Absolutely not.

You can use entrepreneurship as a means to end.

Sure, the people who extol entrepreneurship treat the businesses they starteds a member of the family. They have an extremely personal relationship with it. However, you need not feel that way.

When franchising started to become incredibly hot back in the 1970s and ‘80s there was a tendency among some “serious” entrepreneurs to refer to a franchisee as someone who was “just buying themselves a job.” The thinking went, these people were plunking down say $500,000 for a franchise that would pay them $50,000 a year for the rest of their life, thanks to the efforts of the parent company, and they were just trading their old corporate job for a new one, in slightly different form.

Well, the patronizing attitude was wrong. In the for-profit world, an entrepreneur is someone who creates and runs a new business where one did not exist before.  No, the McDonald’s franchisee didn’t create McDonald’s. But he certainly created a McDonald’s where there never was one. Franchisees are entrepreneurs, despite that “buying themselves a job” snide analogy.

But the deeper point behind the analogy can be right. One of the reasons people who start companies look down at franchisees is that the franchisee does not have a passionate relationship to his business, since he did not give birth to it. But that is more than fine. The business you start does NOT lead to fulfillment in and of itself. (You just may not have that gene.) But it can provide you with other substantial benefits such as: replacement income, more control over your life and seeing a direct relationship between what you do and the end result.

That is pretty fulfilling in and of itself.

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  • Devin Thorpe Devin Thorpe, Contributor 2 years ago

    This is such a great piece. Entrepreneurship is easier for those who take to it like a Labrador Retriever, but you can succeed even if you find yourself feeling more like a fish out of water at first.


    Devin, your analogy is btter than mine. Thanks for the comment