Becoming an Entrepreneur

Becoming an entrepreneur may sound fairly easy; have an idea for something that
people want, provide it, get rich. According to Forbes though, eight out of ten businesses
fail every year, that is an eighty percent failure rate (Wagner, 2013). There is a lot more
involved in becoming a business owner that most people dont see. I will be discussing
what it takes to become a successful entrepreneur and business owner i.e. what kind of
education may be necessary, what type of person it takes to get the ball rolling and keep it
going, and what to expect once your business is off the ground.
Job Description
Once your business is off the ground the day-to-day responsibilities of the
business owner can be anything from running the front desk to reviewing finance
statements. An article by Florida Tech says that in general a business owners
responsibilities are to promote growth, stability, direction, and daily operation of the
business (University Alliance [UA], 2015). An important note that I was told from my
interview with Ben Bateman who owns his own landscaping business is to make sure
your employees are happy. He told me some stories of when he was first starting and had
two crews at separate job sites, one which he was managing, and the other was being run
by one of his senior employees. That employee wasnt happy about the long hours they
were working at the time to meet a deadline and it reflected through the work that was
being done there. He ended up having to redo most of the work that was done to make the
customer happy which came out of his operating expenses. After running the business for
a few years he learned that it was necessary to reward employees for working long hours
during busy seasons in different ways to show his appreciation. To do this he would buy

them lunch and bring cold drinks to the work site which worked to help motivate the
employees to work hard and showed them that he was appreciative of the long hours they
were putting in.
General Career Path
Becoming a small business owner isnt necessarily something you have to start at
an entry level position to obtain. Most people start their own businesses because
opportunity knocks (i.e. a great idea like facebook), financial independence, control,
flexibility, or unemployment (Poatsy & Martin, 2015). When I was talking with Ben
Bateman he told me the reason he started his own business was so that he could have
control of his schedule and so he could spend more time with his family and so
eventually his wife wouldnt have to work anymore.
Average Salary
Before I did any research and thought of what an entrepreneur is, I thought of the
guys who made it big such as Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg who have made billions
with their own businesses. So I thought either you make it big or you crash and fail.
Obviously that is not the case while some do make lots of money there is a wide range of
salaries. Some people make enough to live while others make more than they will ever
need. The great thing about being the owner is you can decide how much you make or
how much you contribute to your community. Some very successful business owners will
only take a salary that is enough for them to live on and either donate the rest to nonprofit organizations, charities, or even reinvest the earnings in their business to make it
grow. To put an exact dollar figure on it though Fox Business used a study from

American Express OPEN, which states that the average salary for a small business owner
is $68,000 annually (Brooks, 2013).
General Education Experience
Although there arent any specific requirements as far as education goes there are
some degrees that can help run the business more efficiently. Pursuing a degree in
business management or marketing can help immensely in running a successful business.
According to Entrepreneur magazine the top five degrees that will help a small business
be successful are: writing and English, accounting or finance, communication, computer
engineering, and philosophy (Rampton, 2015). Having great writing skills can help your
business tremendously when it comes to drafting business outlines and appealing to
prospective customers through emails. Having technical writing skills can help your
business stand out amongst the competition and is a high demand career for graduates
since every company needs writers. Accounting and finance is a no brainer as it is very
important to be able to keep track of money that comes in and goes out. How you
communicate with clients and possible customers will say a lot about your business so it
is important to be able to communicate professionally with customers and be able to pick
up on non-verbal queues. Technology is how the world revolves now days so being able
to work with computers to write software can help your business or even be what your
business is about. Having a degree in Philosophy was one on the list that I didnt really
expect to be there. But as the article said its important to be able to think outside the box
and get to know what makes people tick will help you succeed in being an entrepreneur.

Biography of Richard Branson

One of the most successful entrepreneurs is Sir Richard Branson who dropped out
of school at the age of 16 to start his own youth-culture magazine called the Student,
which first published in 1966 (Bio.com, 2015). While living in London Branson started
his mail-order record company called Virgin to help fund his magazine. The company
wasnt a smash hit but it made him enough that he was able to open his own record shop
in Oxford street, London. With smart business he was then able to open a recording
studio in 1972 in Oxfordshire, England. Virgin records first recording artist Mike
Oldfield recorded his single Tubular Bells in 1973 and was an instant best hit staying
on the UK charts for 247 consecutive weeks (Bio.com, 2015). Branson had his eyes on
expanding the business even further adding the Virgin name to travel,
telecommunications, health, and even banking. There are now more than one hundred
Virgin companies worldwide employing approximately 60,000 people in over 50
countries (Virgin, 2013).
Beyond being a great business man Branson has gave back to his community and
the world through humanitarian efforts such as the Virgin Earth Challenge. The challenge
is to come up with an idea or a sustainable and large scale way to remove green house
gasses from the atmosphere with the grand prize of 25 million dollars (VirginEarth.com,
2015). Though no one has made it through the tough criteria of the challenge it has
brought attention to the matter and has brought new ideas to the table to combat the
global warming issue.

Pros & Cons

This career field has a lot of pros which are evident such as being your own boss,
being able to work when and where you want, and overall just the freedom of being in
control of your own success or possible failures. Choosing this as a profession could be a
great opportunity as it will give more flexibility to do what you want to do inside and
outside of work. The cons are that starting a business is no easy task, many people have
tried and failed. It takes a lot of hard work and determination to make a business work,
not to mention a lot of time. Usually when starting a business you will work longer hours
for less pay until/if it gets off the ground than you would just working a normal 9-5 job.
Becoming a business owner is like any other bet with high risk comes the possibility of
high reward. Just like the stock market or gambling you put in more you have more
opportunity to gain more.
Career Outlook
The allure of becoming a business owner sounds amazing. I would love to set my
own hours and come up with some great new thing that people would love to buy or use
like Richard Branson. Do I think that I can come up with something great, new, and
innovative? Hopefully one day I can, until then though I am going to continue to work a
regular job until opportunity comes knocking at my door and hopefully ill hear it and
answer.

References
1. Biography.com. (2015). Richard Branson biography. Retrieved from
http://www.biography.com/people/richard-branson-9224520
2. Fox Business. (2013). And, the average entrepreneurs salary is Retrieved from
http://smallbusiness.foxbusiness.com/entrepreneurs/2013/10/21/and-averageentrepreneur-salary-is/
3. Rampton, J. (2015). 5 college degrees that prepare you for small-business success.
Retrieved from http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/241197
4. Solomon, M., Poatsy, M., & Martin, K. (2015). Better business (4th ed.). Boston, MA:
Pearson
5. University Alliance. (2015). Business owner/entrepreneur career information.
Retrieved from http://www.floridatechonline.com/resources/marketing/businessowner-entrepreneur-career-and-salary-profile/
6. Virgin. (2013). Biography. Retrieved from http://www.virgin.com/richardbranson/biography
7. Virgin Earth. (2015). Removing GHGs. Retrieved from
http://www.virginearth.com/about/
8. Wagner, E. (2013). Five reasons 8 out of 10 businesses fail. Retrieved from
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericwagner/2013/09/12/five-reasons-8-out-of-10businesses-fail/