That’s a fair point.

But you didn’t link to that discussion so I didn’t have the benefit of reviewing said pissing match before commenting. I only had your take on it which I addressed in an (evidently) “scholarly” way. And that brings me to ask, “How is your post and the subsequent comments of agreement here substantively any different from those forum posts other than simply being from the counter-perspective?” Isn’t a scholarly perspective a more genuine way to dissect the issue than pissing in the other direction?

Of course if you were just writing link-bait then never mind.

Sometimes I find myself feeling “inferior” to brick and mortar businesses some of my friends own but then I look at the types of things that come along with their businesses and realize that I far more enjoy operating a web biz.

So, I think the simple answer is to be the kind of entrepreneur that you enjoy being most. If you enjoy it then you’ll be willing to put in the sweat equity that will make it successful.

Mike, I just wanted to comment on your response. If I sensed that the forum discussion was a scholarly one. Ie, if they were debating about the macro economic aspects of various definitions of entrepreneurship, then I wouldn’t have had the same reaction. As it stands, the discussion pretty much turned into a pissing match where certain business owners were trying to make themselves appear bigger and better than the mom and pop shops.

“To me, an entrepreneur is anyone willing to take a risk to be their own boss. Someone who is willing to take control of their lives, call the shots and dictate the outcome whether it’s good or bad.”

Interestingly enough they were trying so hard to define what an entrepreneur is I didn’t understand the point they were trying to make, other than who had the right definition.

The real important question I think, revolves around what you create, the value it brings and the ability to generate passive or semi-passive income from building up processes that allow you to operate your business as an owner rather than as an employee.

I think sometime this year I will have to go back to a regular full-time job, but haven’t quite worked out how that will work for my health and business yet. Everything is up in the air right now.

In my industry, it seems like if you’re not going to give it everything, it just wont work.

Let’s say that I have my hands in (started or co-owned):

Brick and mortar (my parents’ mannequins, hangers, and hair wig shops—home based)
A very small web marketing solutions business — that hosts and co-owns any new brands that works with it
Lifestyle businesses — a wholesale BBQ business, with a vegetarian BBQ (sister site, expanded with a dedicated menu for people who are on a strict vegetarian diet)

And not forgetting my own blog.

Let’s say that entrepreneurs can be more fruitful and make a living by focusing their time and attention on actually running their businesses.

But there *is* a difference and it does matter, at least in the macro (economics) sense. But rather than spout opinion I’ll start with a discussion of research on the topic as I think this explains why some people view different entrepreneurs differently.

Many entrepreneurs do fit into your “lifestyle” category. They are actually a subset of an even broader category of entrepreneurs that an Arizona State University study calls “Replicative” entrepreneurs:

http://knowledge.wpcarey.asu.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1275

Replicative entrepreneurs make up a large segment of the economy and they serve population growth. Unfortunately they themselves do not grow the economy. Instead it is “Innovative” entrepreneurs that actually contribute significantly to economic growth:

http://knowledge.wpcarey.asu.edu/article.cfm?articleid=1299

The Kaufman Foundation is the world’s largest foundation devoted to entrepreneurship and a recent study of theirs…:

http://bit.ly/bKW9GJ

…found that:

“High-Growth Firms Account for Disproportionate Share of Job Creation.”:

According to senior analyst Dane Stangler in any given year the top-performing 1 percent of firms generate roughly 40 percent of all new jobs. Further so-called “gazelle” firms (ages three to five) comprise less than 1 percent of all companies, yet generate roughly 10 percent of new jobs in any given year. The “average” firm in the top 1 percent contributes 88 jobs per year, and most end up with between 20 and 249 employees. The average firm in the economy as a whole, on the other hand, adds two or three net new jobs each year.

So it really *does* matter what type of entrepreneur someone is, if you are someone who cares about economic growth of a region. Having lots of lifestyle entrepreneurs doesn’t grow the tax base significantly nor does it add a lot of net new jobs in a region. Having lots of successful innovative entrepreneurs in a region, OTOH, does grow the economy significantly.

A bit of personal commentary on “replicative” vs. “innovative” entrepreneurs: because of the nature of replicative startups I believe replicative entrepreneurs tend to focus less on growing the pie and more on getting a bigger slice of the pie. This puts them in direct competition with other replicative entrepreneurs in their market and lends them to a less collaborative nature than you often find among innovative entrepreneurs.

Let’s take two examples of which we find many where I live: interactive agencies and real estate brokerages. Both are run by entrepreneurs and both are in general cut-throat when it comes to their competition. They of course need to be driven; if their competitor gets enough projects and/or houses sold they may not be able to get that new house, take that vacation, or send their kids to college, etc. This can come across to many as selfishness on the part of the replicative entrepreneur and may be why some people “look down” on “certain types” of entrepreneurs.

But I don’t think it’s selfishness in most cases, it’s just the nature of being a replicative entrepreneur. And that doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with replicative entrepreneurs; indeed they are the backbone of the economy. It does mean, however, that many people (myself included) gravitate towards spending time with innovative entrepreneurs and away from spending time with replicative entrepreneurs.

Which brings me to a final point. I think the term “replicative”, “lifestyle” and “innovative” and often misapplied as an adjective to the word “entrepreneur.” Instead I think those terms should more correctly be applied to “startup”, “business” and “company.” Indeed, people are more complex and versatile than being just one thing. In past periods I have run “an innovative startup,” in other periods I have run a “replicative company.” And who knows, later in life I might run a “lifestyle business.”

So I’ll posit that we’ll all generally agree that economic growth is a good thing. And because of that I’ll also posit that most of us would agree that having more companies significantly grow the economy is better than having fewer. Thus I’ll finally posit that it’s better to encourage more people to launch innovative startups compared to having them launch replicative/lifestyle businesses.

If we can agree on that I’ll simply say that maybe what we need to do is educate people on the difference between an innovative startup and a replicative/lifestyle businesses because without knowing the difference I believe most entrepreneurs would never realize the ramifications and pursue replicative business models because they are more obvious.

I sure as heck didn’t realize any of this until after 20 years of “entrepreneuring”, 3 years of running the web entrepreneur group and then finally being able to read the research papers I just referenced. I really wish someone had told me the distinction way back in 1988 when I first graduate college and was 1.5 years into my first entrepreneurial venture.

So in summary I’ll leave you with this: *everyone* who works for themselves in some way is an entrepreneur. But clearly different type of ventures have different ability to affect economic growth and thus we should be encouraging entrepreneurs to be more innovative whenever possible. OTOH, if a lifestyle business is what is really right for someone then more power to them for taking charge of their own life’s direction!

Hope this helps.