Enough with the term entrepreneur! I thought it was just me and then Jason from the Artist formerly known as 37Signals made it a chapter in his book a few years ago. I was delighted, people far too near me were running around saying ‘I’m an entrepreneur’. There was also another whole bunch of people with even less money than the ‘I’m an entrepreneur’ lot, they had usually swallowed a Tim Ferris book sideways and brought a PDF copy (this was before Kindles) to ma-ster-bate over everyday and pay homage to the ‘out source everything’ movement.
This last lot knew nothing about business models so I was wasting my time hangout out with them, I knew nothing about business models either and did not have nearly enough white clothes or suntan to keep up with them. Also I had never been to Thailand or Barley (is that really a place?) Nor did I have a tattoo of a dolphin or use the words ‘create’ and ‘manifest’ out of context so I was never going to be accepted.
Outside of my small circle were other ‘entrepreneurs’ who did TV things like Dragons Den and The Apprentice – really we should swap all those ‘guilty until proven innocent’ people in Guantanamo Bay with everyone that produces, ‘stars’, advises and wants to be on these programs.
I will reserve a bit of compassion for people who take products onto Dragons Den, if one of those knob head dragons was going to throw some money at me I’d take it and not use it so I could game the publicity from being on TV. I have heard more than one story of someone who has been on Dragons Den and then come up trumps a few days after, this really hurts me to write it here but that show does have its uses.
After that I am not sure what is most toe curling, being a Big Brother runner-up of being an Apprentice runner-up. At least you can where your own clothes and sit around in a hot tub on Big Brother.
What scares me most it that people who know you were on the Apprentice are the sort of people who WATCH the fucking program so are hardly going to be the most sharp-witted people. When ever I have accidentally local Chamber of Commerce meetings there have been rows of people drinking shit champagne out of plastic glasses lapping up words of wisdom from people who had not even won the bloody thing, they’d only been on it! They were here to ‘tell their business story’ to a bunch of people old enough to be their Grand Parents and help them realise their business dream.
There is riff brewing in these blogs pages about how much the media sucks, it is not ready yet – I’d hate to fire off and whine without thinking about it……
I was at a business awards ceremony earlier in the year and was torn between being inspired and jumping on stage to throttle a few of the people. The was ‘A LADY’ person who really was an entrepreneur she spoke good stuff, was realistic and asked awkward questions to people who were basic enough to call people out if they did not know but not humiliate people. It might seem like fun ripping people down but I think it is a cruel sport if someone is trying their best at that time. Of course if they have just got off the Apprentice and are convinced that they are a real entrepreneur keep asking them business questions until they shit blood.
The ‘LADY’ person who really was an entrepreneur also said that she is often asked to be on the boards of companies, which is nice. She always asks why they want her and often the answer is ‘we need a woman’, to which she always declines. This made me love her even more, she did not have that crappy Karen Brady ‘I am a modern-day Thatcher’ element to her, or the sense of I am a woman and I have given up a lot to be here. She had an air of ‘we’ve got work to do’ about her and seemed void of the “I’m a successful entrepreneur, don’t you know?” insecurity that so many ‘we-are-not-really-entrepreneurs’ have – which is why they need to quote Rich Dad Poor Dad and Richard Brandson all the time, and wet themselves when they might be on telly or win anther shit award to put on their website that is not ready yet.
