What is Entrepreneurship?

Destructive innovation, Female entrepreneurship, and Rocky.

In the late sixties, Peter Drucker foresaw the “age of discontinuity”, predicting the onset of constant change. In 1997 Beckhard and Harris presented a formula to establish the probability of change. Here’s the formula:

= (Dissatisfaction) x (Vision) x (First Step) > Resistance

This is a simple metric tool is used to derive the likelihood of change, innovation or an appetite to create a Startup.

The importance of a Vision is evident, deemed to be a crucial element in the process, implying that in its absence change is unlikely to occur. Dissatisfaction, however, is the element that truly captures the essence of Entrepreneurship.

Derek Abell wrote about the existence of this ingredient, Dissatisfaction, in his article entitled Strategic Windows, highlighting the importance of timing strategies (Abell, 1978). Abell proposed that individuals must employ a flexible approach to adapt in a constantly changing environment, to identify and exploit new opportunities — by Bootstrapping!

Strategic Windows encourages the rejection of satisfaction, promoting a constant state of dissatisfaction by continuously probing cultural evolution. “Culture isn’t just one aspect of the game, it is the game.” (Lou Gerstner, U.S., former IBM CEO, IBM, 2008).

Entrepreneurs tend to exist in a constant state of Dissatisfaction, transcending an urgency through innovation and transformation.

“The only constant in our business is that everything is changing. We have to take advantage of change and not let it take advantage of us” — Michael Dell, 2012

Dell suggests that change solidifies brand proposition while underpinning competitive advantage.

What this article is about

The purpose of this article is to look at existing publications available with respect to Entrepreneurship and compare with people and events unfolding across the world.

Firstly, what is Entrepreneurship?

Popular television programs like The Apprentice, Dragons’ Den and Shark Tank have popularised the concept of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs, making it one of the most popular clubs to be part of today.

But this is not the answer.

Popularity aside, entrepreneurship has played an integral role across generations and continues to do so, good and bad, creating self-employment, employment and indeed unemployment in some cases. Such ventures have led to redundancies by decimating industries through:

“Destructive Innovation” — Schumpeter, 2011

It's fair to say that Entrepreneurship impacts economies, impacting value across multiple variables — society, innovation, creativity and of course finance.

In a relatively short space of time “digital technology has transformed economies”, creating value for consumers with an abundance of physical goods and services at our fingertips (McDonald, 2014).

At the center of global transformation lies E-commerce. Technological advancements have radically changed the face of the modern business world, evident by the ever-growing use of this channel to conduct online transactions. The use of electronic media to trade, exchange value, mirrors traditional buying and selling of goods and services, but virtually, on a global scale.

The implications of E-commerce is very much evident today, breaking down barriers and crossing boundaries on a scale never witnessed before. Much of which was incubated through entrepreneurship, underpinned by entrepreneurs, the driving force behind evolutionary leaps in trade and value creation in the digital era.

“Technology has made it possible for any small business to find a market globally, to access factories, to build a brand, to be open for business 24/7 and to innovate” — Priestley, 2013

Entrepreneurship and the entrepreneur

What’s the difference between the Entrepreneur and Entrepreneurship is a good starting point?

Entrepreneurship

Numerous definitions have flirted with the topic of Entrepreneurship, demonstrated through the Google search for “Entrepreneurship” that lists millions of results, epitomizing the sheer magnitude of research in this area alone.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change” — Charles Darwin

Entrepreneurship is an array of attributes that make “a person a pioneer”, an innovator, a visionary who has a dream and strives to fulfil that dream despite all obstacles and hurdles. “Entrepreneurship is about what entrepreneurs do”, put simply, it relates to activities that an entrepreneur engages in (Westhead et al, 2011).

The word entrepreneur derived from the French word entreprendre, referring to a person who undertakes a new venture or business … alone. Whereas the meaning of entrepreneurship refers to the attributes that a person, an entrepreneur, exhibits throughout their endeavor.

The Entrepreneur

As noted, the Entrepreneur is defined by the activities in which they engage. Merriam-Webster proposes:

“One who organises, manages and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise.” — Merrion Webster.com

Whereas Dictionary.com describes:

“A person who organises and manages any enterprise, especially a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk.” — Dictionary.com

These are but two examples, the word entrepreneur can have many meanings. The qualities of a true entrepreneur are defined in entrepreneurship.

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” — George Bernard Shaw

The journey that an entrepreneur embarks upon can at times be ridiculed by others as impossible, but despite setbacks, mistakes, and failure, sheer resilience keeps them moving forward. They embody a set of “characteristics that mark them out as different” with “particular insights not possessed by others” (Bridge, 2010).

Entrepreneurial people believe in their conviction, despite constraints and resource limitations. They build something that other people want. In the purest sense, they are those who identify a need — any need — and set about filling it.

“A primordial urge, independent of product, service, industry or market.” — Forbes.com, 2012

According to Simon Sinek, they are those who “Start with why” (Sinek, 2011).

Good and bad

Not all entrepreneurial ventures have a positive outcome, either by design or effect. While Aytekin Tank advises: “Don’t become an entrepreneur”, I’d recommend reading “Entrepreneurs: read this whenever you feel like giving up” by Mitchell Harper.

Schumpeter noted that while “entrepreneurial ‘acts’ create new sources of competitive advantage, products, and services, firms, industries, jobs and wealth, at the same time they also ‘destroy’ firms and jobs in now out-of-date activities” (Westhead et al, 2011).

Apple demonstrated this, impacting the music and telecoms industries/markets, prior to which they did not compete in, yet disrupted both with an air of ease. One casualty, Nokia, did not foresee Schumpeter’s ‘entrepreneurial innovations’, reinforcing creative destruction as a mainstay in capitalism.

At a recent finance conference in Dublin Castle (Ireland), former Trinity graduate Anthony Watson (CEO of a fintech start-up, Uphold), predicted that “money will be free as an email to send and receive in 10 years’ time”. He also issued a stark warning to delegates, resonating with his prophecy above:

“Half the people in this room and half the companies in financial services right now won’t exist in 10 years”.

A bold statement, but “if you look at traditional legacy banks, they won’t be able to cannibalize their systems to move at the speed we move. Incumbents can’t cannibalize to move at the speed of a start-up. We move in real-time.” (Independent.ie, 2016). Here Watson describes an important entrepreneurial trait, agility and ability to change. An Innovation performance model slows traditional banks.

Peter Oakes, a founder of Fintech Ireland, echoed this sentiment:

“Traditional forms of banking are all now trying to jump into fintech but they’ve still got problems in their outdated back-office systems”.

Problems with antiquated payment systems:

“Is where they should be spending their money, before jumping into new initiatives because those new initiatives are highly IT dependent”.

He continued:

“In Ireland, the banks weren’t very good at IT.” — Independent.ie, 2016.

The question is whether fintech start-ups can compete with cash-rich banks. IDA manager Denis Curran, predicts a more collaborative model, a convergence with technology and the financial services sector.

“The lines are getting blurred as there is more and more technology-led innovation in financial services. We are seeing a lot of disruption. There are a lot of young start-up companies that are dis-intermediating traditional business models that exist within financial services. From a start-up perspective, this level of disruption is high. Established companies are upping their game in terms of investing in technology as a defensive play against this level of disruption.” — Denis Curran

Sky high

Reuben May (CEO at DMAD) pitched to Ryanair’s CEO, Michael O’Leary, “to tell him about the digital revolution which Ryanair seemed to have missed”, he was soon “tasked with transforming Ryanair’s digital platform and taking it into the 21st century”. (Technews.net, 2014).

At the time Ryanair had just witnessed €1 billion wiped off its share value. A year later, Ryanair “raised its full-year net profit guidance by 25 percent”. Shares rose to “an all-time high after the announcement, rising 10 percent to €14.27 in early trading, up 40 percent on the prior year” (Irishtimes.com, 2015). This is ‘digital disruption’, upon which O'Leary intends “to disintermediate all the dis-intermediator’s … we have the scale to do it”, reflecting the words of Denis Curran above.

In the first half of 2019 Ryanair’s ancillary revenue has risen significantly, to €1.65 Billion on a half-yearly basis.

The execution witnessed a successful company (Ryanair) become even more successful. It’s reasonable to deduct that modern entrepreneurs are disintermediation-seekers, removing or replacing elements within a value-chain, a “Blue Ocean” appetite (Kim et al, 2005).

From my experience Entrepreneurs emit fearless energy, embracing ambiguity as par for the course, solidified by a high degree of Emotional Intelligence. Daniel Kahneman would set them apart from others by their “effective use of System 2 thinking”, slow thinking (Kahneman, 2012).

Ryanair is burdened as much as the financial sector with respect to regulation and governance, yet the latter lacks agility. By comparison, Ryanair is led by a decisive leader in O’Leary, who frequently exhibits entrepreneurial traits with courage and curiosity — A former accountant turned-entrepreneur, before Tony Ryan came knocking — “he was my mentor” (Telegraph.co.uk, 2014).

A trait that O’Leary lacks, ironically typical among accountants, is risk-aversion, an entrepreneurial trait. His media persona in the past conveyed a brash arrogance, with a cheeky childlike undertone, but he recently admitted that “I was wrong; the customer is always right” (Telegraph.co.uk, 2014).

“I’ve always been warm and cuddly-just a little bit misunderstood” — Independent.ie

It’s quite possible that many entrepreneurs are misunderstood, marginal innovators lurking in society, not bound by rules or constraints. Misfits who think differently, visionary disinter mediators — the essence of creativity.

Citigroup and other financial heavyweights have established Innovation Labs, an environment to incubate intrapreneurship. Thus far no unicorn or game-changing technologies have emerged, so the jury is still out.

By contrast, Fintech start-ups are springing up across the world. Realex, acquired by Global Payments in 2015 for €115m, is one such example, spawning a new venture in the process, Pay with Fire. Led by Colm Lyon, former head of IT at Ulster Bank, who had “a bird’s-eye view of where the sector was headed. I know it might sound bizarre, but it was never about the money. This is a labor of love which I set up years ago because I didn’t want to work for someone else,” (Irishtimes.com, 2015).

A desire for independence indicates a high level of Internal Locus of Control, exhibited by May, O’Leary, and Lyon, underpinned by a passion or a deep affinity for what they do. These attributes, coupled with Achievement Orientation are quite common among entrepreneurs. Other ingredients like agility, courage, curiosity, with a healthy degree of dissatisfaction (to disintermediate), formulate the entrepreneurial DNA.

There is also an element of luck, although Peter Thiel questions its validity with respect to serial-entrepreneurs like Jobs, Dorsey and Elon Musk:

“If success were mostly a matter of luck, these kind of serial entrepreneurs probably wouldn’t exist” — Thiel, 2015

Gender divide

According to the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM), “men are more active early-stage entrepreneurs than women in Ireland”, 10.3% compared to 4.2% for women, significantly behind the U.S. (10.4%) by comparison (GEM, 2014). “Women are commonly believed to have communal qualities, relating to expressiveness, connectedness, relatedness, kindness, supportiveness and timidness” (Westhead, 2011). Socio-cultural stereotypes heighten consensual beliefs about attributes.

The impact of this undercurrent has implications for female entrepreneurs. “The strange thing was everybody’s expectations of me when I was pregnant, that I didn’t have of myself. People would say to me ‘how will you cope being an entrepreneur when the baby comes?’ and the strange thing was that it was mainly other women who said it to me.” (Alex Depledge, CEO Hassle.com, 2014).

In Ireland, a gender gap has opened up in the tech industry. In 2015 “the average investment round for a VC-funded tech firm in Ireland with a female chief executive was €591,000. Representing just one-tenth of the average funding round (€5.46m) to a company with a male chief executive. Research conducted by the Irish Venture Capital Association shows that €415m raised by Irish tech firms last year, just €2.3m went to female-led companies” (Independent.ie, 2016).

While “female tech founders” are on the rise in Ireland, “there is a lack of female participation in top executive roles. Of 88 companies to receive venture capital funding in Ireland last year, just four list a female chief executive while 12 lists a woman as a co-founder”.

According to Sheryl Sandberg women are “being dismissed as ‘non-leaders’ in the workplace.” — Independent.ie, 2016

This is evidence of negative evaluation from a resource provider (VC’s), which can deter women from becoming entrepreneurs. Former Dublin Commissioner for Startups, Niamh Bushnell, said:

“I don’t know what’s stopping us, but there are a lot less women doing technology things and that’s a big factor. I didn’t know this before I came back from New York, but I heard in past few months that in the UK every single student has to learn coding skills from seven to 16 through primary and middle school. If the walls of difficulty and fear and all of that was taken away from the image of tech and computer science it would prompt a massive surge of female entrepreneurs.” — (Siliconrepublic.com.

Indeed Ireland has female tech leaders in companies like LinkedIn, Google, Paypal, Microsoft, and Airbnb. Bushnell added that there are “great female entrepreneurs in start-ups like Restored Hearing, Love & Robots, Pharmapod and Frockadvisor” (Siliconrepublic.com, 2015). The fact remains however that less than 1% of funding in the tech sector is invested in female entrepreneurs.

Female Entrepreneurship

Gender-typical businesses (products or services for women) and new government policy, designed for female entrepreneurs only, could reinforce or contribute to social stereotypes, albeit unintentional. Female entrepreneurs relay the same message as their male counterparts: “I’m passionate about what I do”, somewhat discrediting the gender-typical merit.

Westhead noted that women tend to have “communal qualities, expressiveness, connectedness, relatedness, kindness” and “supportiveness”, a good fit for eCommerce. If “women spend more money online than men, women are deciding on the majority of purchases, then it’s imperative that site owners respond to their interests and needs” (Huffingtonpost.com, 2016).

This logic suggests that Gender-typical businesses are more likely to succeed if built by women, for women. The existence of gender-disparity in entrepreneurship is possibly diminishing potential in its infancy.

Kelsey Ramsden highlighted certain qualities/necessities for female entrepreneurs: “the ability to think big and be bold” (Forbes.com, 2014). For women, these traits, coupled with those mentioned above, are key ingredients with respect to female entrepreneurship in terms of parity.

At times logic can be replaced by bravery:

“Women are very practically minded and when we feel we can’t put our arms around something we don’t go towards it. I think as a gender we tend to want to keep our feet on solid ground, do our homework and know what’s ahead of us more so than men do.” — Forbes.com

Undoubtedly there are similarities between male and female entrepreneurs, in terms of traits, influences, and attributes. There is however an underlying gender divide manifesting, especially in the tech sector in Ireland and beyond, as a result, women need to be more assertive than their male counterparts. One impact may result in female Entrepreneurs being more successful than males, assuming that factors force Women to raise their game to succeed, or rather only the elite get noticed.

Nature versus nurture

Stereotypes and false beliefs are entrenched in society. In Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Kiyosaki describes:

“in school we learn that mistakes are bad, and we are punished for making them. Yet if you look at the way humans are designed to learn, we learn by making mistakes. We learn to walk by falling down. If we never fell down, we would never walk” — Kiyosaki, 2011

This reflects Irish society and family, whereby failure is discouraged to the extent that if the likelihood of failure is high, avoidance is the best course of action. “You’re only poor if you give up. The most important thing is that you did something. Most people only talk and dream of getting rich. You’ve done something” (Kiyosaki, 2011).

With Rich Dad, Poor Dad in mind, Forbes outlined four advantages that entrepreneurs from wealthy backgrounds have over those from poor backgrounds. An argument that may be true in first world countries, but flawed when compared to other parts of the world, where entrepreneurship is the only option to survive.

“Developing countries are teeming with entrepreneurs. Men, women, and children of all ages sell everything you can think of” — Wider.unu.edu, 2015

People “tend to be more entrepreneurial in developing countries” compared to developed nations due to necessity.

According to the OECD, “30–50 percent of non-agricultural workforce is self-employed (higher ratio in agriculture) in developing countries. In some of the poorest countries, the ratio of people working as one-person entrepreneurs” far exceeds that of the developed world: “66.9 percent in Ghana, 75.4 percent in Bangladesh, and a staggering 88.7 percent in Benin” (Wider.unu.edu, 2015), by comparison, GEM measured western countries significantly lower.

This overwhelming evidence confirms that entrepreneurship is in fact learned and not born.

In his book, Profit First, Mike Michalowicz describes this as the Toilet-role entrepreneur, a crude but effective analogy of necessity. Michalowicz proposes that if you’re “sitting on the toilet, with only three sheets left, you’ll make it work” (Michalowicz, 2014). Akin to The lean Start-Up, whereby Eric Ries argues that “failures are preventable”, the validity of Michalowicz’s ‘one sheet method’ is quite plausible, enhanced even. Of course, in the developing world, where toilet-role is a luxury, Michalowicz could be misunderstood.

For educated, first-world dwellers, the mechanics of true entrepreneurship could not be more simplified than the Toilet-role entrepreneur. A skill that McCormack states :

“they don’t teach you at Harvard Business School”

— McCormack, 2014

Conclusion

Larry Kim shared the Ugly Truth about being an Entrepreneur. The reality is that Entrepreneurship is a storm-filled venture, where arresting calms are few and far between, certainly to begin with. To experience failure, rejection, criticism and do so under the cloud of financial pressure, can be exhausting. To emerge beyond that is the true measure of entrepreneurship.

Many entrepreneurs embark in a journey as a parent, a son, a daughter, a brother or a sister — a human being. Individuals who endure the relentless onslaught of risk and challenges with a curious resilience, courage that ignites human consciousness on a deeper level.

Entrepreneurs are warriors of the soul, those who inspire through sheer determination, in doing so give others permission to do likewise.

“In 1970 Sylvester Stallone was poor, evicted from his NYC apartment. For 3 weeks he lived in the Port Authority bus station, until he was cast for a pornographic film, earning $200. This inspired him to become a film star, unable to afford gym membership he would sneak into a junkyard to train at night, making ends meat as a Hairdresser and Cinema usher. 5-years later he sold his wife’s jewelry to feed his dog (Butkus), before eventually selling Butkus for $50, crying all the way home. Soon thereafter Chuck Wepner fought Ali, knocking him down in the 9th round, but staying the distance — that night Stallone wrote Rocky. Studio offers ranged from $125k to $350k to a man who had less that $100 in the bank. The deal-breaker was the casting role. In the end he secured $35k and the casting role, after which he went back to the store to find his dog, Butkus, paying upwards of $3k and a cameo role in Rocky” — Elite Daily, 2013

The movie Rocky exemplifies the entrepreneurial spirit. Sylvester Stallone epitomizes exactly what it is to be an entrepreneur; through his traits, attributes, actions, behaviors and life experiences. His unwavering resilience, belief, determination and drive (to see his dream become reality) while facing ambiguity, inspired a generation — he brought “about reality through thought” (Pedler et al, 2013).

Entrepreneurs certainly embody a complex array of traits, attributes and skill sets, discussed in detail throughout this article. Some inborn, yes, but others are taught, learned and developed over time.

To conclude, I’m at a loss for words surmise the essence of entrepreneurship or what makes an entrepreneur. That said, Rocky captured it quite well so I’ll finish this:

“Going in one more round, when you don’t think you can, that’s what makes all the difference in your life” — Rocky IV

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