Is a Career as an Entrepreneur Right For You?

Being an entrepreneur has undeniable appeal: being your own boss and not having to report to anyone else; not having to consult others and get their "buy-in" before making a decision; not being pulled into internal political battles for turf and power; not being part of a layer in a bureaucratic pyramid; not having your agenda and work schedule determined by others; and, of course, the possibility of making millions by starting the next Microsoft or Hewlett Packard. Note that this is a long list of "nots" -- followed by one very big "maybe."

Talk to most entrepreneurs and what you'll hear is that now they have as many bosses as they have customers (assuming that they are lucky enough to have customers!); that they now have no one to consult about their decisions even when they want to; that now there is no shortage of work to do (they can choose any twenty-four hours of the day and any seven days of the week to work); that they rarely have anyone to delegate to, or even get support from; and that the glamour of being the next Bill Gates seems a very far glimmer in the distance. All of which is to say that before you go down this path you need to look very carefully at what it involves and look very honestly at yourself.

How well do you match up with what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur? Too many would-be entrepreneurs focus only on whether they have the "risk profile" of entrepreneurs, somehow seeing entrepreneurs as the modern day riverboat gamblers of the business world. In reality, successful entrepreneurs dislike taking risks as much as anyone else, and do whatever they can to control and minimize whatever risks they have to take. In any event, being able to tolerate taking risks is only one small part of the picture. Let's take a look at the larger picture.

About the Authors

Dr. Timothy Butler, Director of MBA Career Development Programs at Harvard Business School, and Dr. James Waldroop, his associate at HBS for 18 years, are principals in CareerLeader, LLP, a Brookline, Massachusetts consultancy offering career development services to individuals and corporations. In 1997 they published Discovering Your Career in Business (Addison-Wesley), focusing on helping readers to discover what their interests in the business world really are, and have since expanded this work into CareerLeader®, the premiere business career self-assessment program available via the Internet. CareerLeader® in its first year is currently being used by 75 top business schools in the US and Europe and has been used by nearly a thousand individuals currently working in the business world.

The first point we want to make is that there is no such thing as one "entrepreneurial type." Many different types of people choose to start or acquire their own businesses. Entrepreneurs come from many backgrounds, have many interests and will find career satisfaction in different types of businesses. They will also assume different roles and have different styles as the leaders of their own companies. Our research has shown that there are personality and interest dimensions that differentiate entrepreneurs as a group from non-entrepreneur business professionals as a group.

We studied a large sample of individuals who own their own companies, and who truly enjoy their work, and compared them to business professionals who do not have their own companies. From this research we developed the Entrepreneurial Attributes Scale (EAS). The EAS is composed of Business Career Interest Inventory® items that differentiate people with interests and self-descriptions that are similar to entrepreneurs from people without. Having deep interests that are highly similar to those of people in a particular career is an important variable -- in our view the most important variable -- in predicting satisfaction and success in the career.

If you want to assess your interests and learn how they compare to other established entrepreneurs using the Entrepreneurial Attributes Scale, simply click the button below and begin the Business Career Interest Inventory. It will take you about 30 minutes to complete, will score automatically, and will provide you with interpretive materials on-line.