Accidental Entrepreneurs

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© September 2007 Anthony Lawrence

2007/09/12

"The fact that nearly 20% of small business owners have at some time in their career been fired really made me sit up and wonder if there is a potential culture clash between the SME owner and the typical 9-5 brigade".

That was someone from www.kashflow.co.uk/ (link dead, sorry) Kashflow quoted at THE MAKE UP OF ENTREPRENEURS REVEALED

Culture clash? Gosh, really? You mean that people who start businesses are actually different from people who don't? No..

OK, sarcasm off. The statistics from that article are interesting. Apparently they interviewed nearly 1200 small business owners and asked why they went off on their own. Over 80% either thought they could improve their lot or saw a definite market niche they could serve. I'd say that figure represents most successful self employed people.

But what about the rest? "No other option" was the answer from 5.4% and 7.6% apparently just fell into it because they got laid off. Those "accidental entrepreneurs" are the ones I'd like to know more about: how many of those succeed compared to those who went in deliberately? How long before they realized they were staying self employed?

If you do a Google search for "accidental entrepreneurs", you'll mostly find stories about people who really aren't. Most actually seem to be quite deliberate: maybe the circumstance that made them realize they could succeed was accidental, but the desire was already there. There are a few that really do seem "accidental", though:

http://troutgirl.wordpress.com/2006/12/13/the-accidental-entrepreneur/
http://julietteblog.blogspot.com/2007/01/accidental-entrepreneur.html

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