Businessman or Entrepreneur ?

I often think of this thing, I always call myself as an Entrepreneur (it sounds cool, right?) but how much of an Entrepreneur I am ? I am running a company, makes very decent money but this certainly doesn’t make me an Entrepreneur, this just makes me a businessman.

I see lot of people starting companies who are very bright and call themselves Entrepreneurs but unfortunately most of them like me are just businessman, they are doing it for the money (sad but true). I bet, 98% people who are starting the startups are doing it for money. If you tell them that you have a great product and service, why not make it free and non profit, no will do it as everyone wants to make millions of dollars.

There is absolutely nothing wrong in it, as I am also just like the other 98%, I comes from typical middle class Indian family, in life have struggled a lot (and thanks to my stupidity, I have made things look more tough they what they were, I will talk about it some other time) and have fought for limited resources (engineering seats/CGPA/Campus placement/railway tickets) at numerous moments just like millions of others in the country. Because of this struggle at every moment, there is a strong desire in Indian youth who comes from middle class families to do something bigger and because Indians give so much value to money (money == success), everyone wants to make lot of money as people feels this is what success is all about and to large extent it is true as lot of money means you are getting everything easily for which you had to struggle in life which result in happiness.

Now I can write a lot on happiness, money, dreams, ambition but this post is not about them. This post is about, how the “founders” are not able to differentiate between being a businessman and an Entrepreneur. I strongly feels that there has to be a balance between the founders being both businessman and Entrepreneur, as if you are just a businessman then you become a “dukaan wala”, you are not building something big and awesome and are not looking to make change in the world and making it a better living place, you are putting yourself at the center of eveything and will avoid any kind of risk, which may make you money but that is it. And if you are an entrepreneur only, who is least bothered about the market, clients and profit, you may have to shut down your company after 18 months when you run out of money.

I hope this post don’t sound like random incoherent rambling (which I often do), the gist of the post is, keep a balance between being a businessman and an Entrepreneur