The term “entrepreneur” means a lot of different things to different people. To the average joe or jane in college it means wealth, being your own boss and prestige. To venture captialist the entrepeneur is the person who can tell the best lies when giving a pitch. To the accountant he or she is the spreadsheet wizzard that seems to be able to make any idea worth $50 million in revenue in 5 years. To the average worker the entrepreneur is the big risk taker that usually looses it all. To the disgruntled employee that hates their boss being an entrepreneur means you answer to no one.

Personally I think they are all wrong. To me an entrepreneur is someone who sees an opportunity no one else sees and makes it into a thriving business making investors lots of money. Even if the “investors” is only the entrepreneur and the employees. Of course my definition leaves few people qualified to be called entrepreneurs, including myself. Sure I have the abnormality of the unusual vision of seeing things others don’t see, but until my company is the thriving business making investors lots of money, I can’t call myself an entrepreneur.

My expanded difinition of an entrpreneur also includes being poor, working for and answering to multiple bosses from investors, to customers to employees, no prestige or honor, but people thinking you are the cooky person with the wierd ideas that everyone thinks should get a real job. If you want to raise money you have to tell the truth and expect that the story isn’t going to be good enough for 100’s of investors you pitch to who still don’t believe you and think you are the cooky person who should get a real job.

You have to prepare financials that you can live by if you raise money, because the second you stop hitting your numbers they look to replace you with an expert CEO that can get it done. He or she changes all the numbers and if they hit those numbers stays or gets replaced with the next savior CEO. You have to know so much about your industry, product or service and the mind set and buying behavrior of your customers that you have eliminated as much risk as possible. You have to mitigate risk and set yourself and your company up for success while all the time no knowing if the decisions you make will work.

If someone has a better definition or even more insight, I would be interested in hearing your thoughts.