The Anatomy of an Entrepreneur (2009)

http://www.kauffman.org/research-and-policy/the-anatomy-of-an-entrepreneur.aspx#

by niggler • 13 years ago

10 9 13 years ago

chayesfss• 13 years ago

Best quote for me "Eighty-six percent of Ivy-League graduates ranked university education as important"

niggler2• 13 years ago

It's a positive-feedback cycle: Ivy-League alums hire and promote other Ivy-League graduates, who in turn hire and promote other Ivy-League graduates ...

johnfuller• 13 years ago

An important item this article is missing is their definition of entrepreneur.

In the Philippines in the area I live I can reach a dozen stores within a 5 minute walk. These are stores people run out of their homes. They generally have a room with a barred window where people can walk up and buy basic goods.

Downtown, every parking area has numerous people who will park your scooter and they work off tips. Kids go from bar to bar selling peanuts. Vendors walk around selling fake viagra and cheap watches. People setup make-shift food carts in areas which are heavily trafficked.

Most of these people are working without any sort of license. They are hustlers doing what they need to do to get by. That's my definition of entrepreneur. If you were to survey these people using the same questions the article used, then they would get very different responses.

dkroy• 13 years ago

hustler!=entrepeneur, although I am sure it increases the chance of them becoming a successful one.

dh• 13 years ago

A very small sample and does not match actual real life experience. I don't think these findings are true or good. #fail

niggler2• 13 years ago

Kauffman foundation is a conservative group (certainly not as much as, say, Chamber of Commerce, but it's right-leaning), so they will cherry-pick the data points that advance their policy recommendations

subsystem• 13 years ago

You might be right, but critique like "does not match actual real life experience" is cheap and might as well be "doesn't conform to my selection bias". From doing my own comparison it seems clear that in companies with big exits, a high level of education is very common. This doesn't necessarily mean that a high level of education is better for making large companies, but does challenge the picture of the entrepreneur as a dandelion child.

mbesto• 13 years ago

> Professional networks were important to the success of their current businesses for 73 percent of the entrepreneurs. In comparison, 62 percent felt the same way about personal networks.

And this is why this number is so:

> Founders tended to be middle-aged—40 years old on average—when they started their first companies.

Business is primarily about trust, relationships and reducing people's fear. Having 15+ years experience just working with other people (like most middle class working 40 year olds) is a massive advantage when starting a business.

effbott• 13 years ago

>More than 90 percent of the entrepreneurs ... were well-educated: 95.1 percent of those surveyed had earned bachelor's degrees, and 47 percent had more advanced degrees.

That really surprised me. Maybe it's just a tech entrepreneur thing but I thought the "college drop-out turned founder" narrative was more common.

The Anatomy of an Entrepreneur (2009)

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