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| Are You Actually Building a Business or Just “Playing Entrepreneur”? | https://ehandbook.com/are-you-actually-building-a-business-or-just-playing-entrepreneur-3d419784efbb |
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2024-10-21 | 2024-10-29 | I was invited to speak at a local entrepreneurship event. It was the usual setup — a room full of ambitious young founders, lots of networking, and lots of buzzwords. After my talk, a young… |
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If you’ve been working on the same company for a long time and haven’t made much progress, there’s probably a good reason.
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I was invited to speak at a local entrepreneurship event. It was the usual setup — a room full of ambitious young founders, lots of networking, and lots of buzzwords. After my talk, a young entrepreneur approached me, eager to share what he was working on.
He was enthusiastic as he shared the vision for his company, and I could tell he’d been working on his pitch. He had a slick logo, a branded hoodie, and a stack of freshly printed business cards with his name followed by “CEO/Founder.”
Curious, I asked him a bit more about what his company actually did and how things were going. He started rattling off his plans for social media growth, his upcoming pitch competition, and how he’d connected with several “important” people on LinkedIn who could potentially help his business down the line. However, as he spoke, I realized something: he wasn’t actually talking about his business. He was talking about himself. More specifically, he was talking about the image of himself as an entrepreneur.
Clearly he’d invested lots of time and energy into looking like a founder. But had he actually done any of the work of a founder? Had he made any sales? Built a product? Secured a customer? He didn’t mention any of that, and I didn’t get the sense it was because he was trying to keep things private. I got the sense it was because he hadn’t moved past the part of his journey where he was actually building a business.
This isn’t an uncommon problem. Looking like an entrepreneur is very different from actually being one. ==If you’re not careful, you can get so caught up in playing the part that you never figure out the real work that needs to be done.==
The Difference Between Playing Entrepreneur and Building a Business
Strange as it might seem to people who remember when “entrepreneur” was synonymous with “unemployed,” being an entrepreneur has become a sort of glamorous career path. The lifestyle has a mystique surrounding it — the freedom, the potential for financial success, the thrill of creating something from nothing. Unfortunately, this idealized version of entrepreneurship is often just that: an ideal. The reality is much messier and far less glamorous.
But people who are simply playing entrepreneur never figure this out. Instead, they focus on the easy, surface-level stuff that doesn’t require much commitment. Anyone can build a website, order some business cards, create a snazzy pitch deck, and update a LinkedIn profile. These things make you look like you’re building a business, but they’re just props in an entrepreneurial play. None of them are the core elements that will actually grow a business.
In contrast, real entrepreneurship is about creating value. It’s about building something that solves a real problem. If you’re doing that, having a logo and cool job title doesn’t matter. Your business will speak for itself through the value it creates and the customers it attracts.
What Playing Entrepreneur Looks Like
Of course, writing about the importance of creating value is easier than appreciating what that means, particularly if you’ve yet to build a company that creates meaningful value. To help those of you reading this who might be trying to figure out whether you’re being an entrepreneur or playing an entrepreneur, here are a few signs you might be more focused on appearances than actual progress:
- You Spend More Time Networking than Selling: Networking is valuable, but if you spend all your time “connecting” with people who might someday help you, you’re missing the point. Entrepreneurs should be focused on selling — selling their products, selling their visions, selling their values. You should be thinking about customers, not hypothetical future connections.
- You Talk About Your Vision More than Your Product: Having a big vision is great, but if all you do is talk about your grand ideas without actually working to make them a reality, you’re not moving forward. Real entrepreneurs don’t just dream; they execute. If your big ideas don’t come with concrete steps to make them happen, then you’re just talking in circles.
- You’re Obsessed with Branding but Not the Customer’s Pain Point: Entrepreneurs often get caught up in creating a polished image. You spend hours choosing fonts, designing logos, and refining your color palette. But if you haven’t even talked to potential customers or spent time truly trying to understand their pain points, you’re not really building a business. You’re just playing dress-up.
- You’re in a Pitch Competition Every Other Week: Pitch competitions can be valuable for raising money and gaining exposure, but they can also become a crutch. If you’re constantly pitching but never building or selling, you might be addicted to the adrenaline of pitching rather than the actual process of growing your business.
- You’ve Been “Getting Ready to Launch” for Months (or Years): Waiting for the perfect moment to launch usually means you’re afraid of what will happen when you do. If you’ve been working on your product forever but never actually launch, you’re avoiding the realities of the market. A real business can’t exist in your head forever.
The Hard Work of Real Entrepreneurship
Playing entrepreneur is easy because it allows you to avoid risk. As long as you’re focused on surface-level tasks, you don’t have to face the possibility of failure. Sure, you can tell yourself you’re “just getting started” or you’re “waiting for the right moment.” In reality, you’re just avoiding the hard work of building something that might not succeed.
Real entrepreneurship is hard because it requires vulnerability. It requires putting yourself out there and risking failure. It requires accepting that your ideas might not work, that customers might not care, and that investors might say no. But this willingness to face uncertainty and overcome obstacles is the core of what defines “real” entrepreneurs.
Ultimately, the difference between playing entrepreneur and building a business comes down to whether you’re seeking validation or value. If you’re more interested in looking like an entrepreneur than in doing the work, you’re going to struggle. But if you’re focused on creating meaningful value — for customers, for employees, and for yourself — you’re on the right path.
Remember, entrepreneurship isn’t about the title, the business cards, or the networking events. It’s about solving real problems and building something that matters. So, before you order another set of business cards or perfect that LinkedIn post, ask yourself: Am I building a business? Or am I just playing entrepreneur?