

The Main Street Entrepreneur - spicer-matthews
http://cloudmanic.com/blog/84/the-main-street-entrepreneur?utm_campaign=blog-hackernews

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nmac
This article is interesting but it overgeneralizes. I don't think its fair to
say of tech entrepreneurs that they are somehow managed by their investors.
Sure, some might be, but they are the exception, not the rule. If you listen
to the rhetoric and read stuff (like venture hacks) about top VC firms, they
ultimately serve the entrepreneur. I'm sure that if they own a majority share
of the company and the entrepreneur is going off the rails they would
intervene and run the show-- but they are in the service business. This is the
golden-age of awesome entrepreneurs ditching the "pointy haired bosses" that
the author points to-- a bunch of pg's essays extrapolate on this concept.

At the other end, however, are startups that never make it big by design. Not
that they do not have the capacity to scale (it technically would not be a
"start up" in the traditional sense if it didn't), but they just strive for
organic growth in a niche market. These cases blur the distinction that the
author strives to make between the tech and main street entrepreneur.

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moonlighter
I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiments of this article. What Spicer calls
a "Main Street Entrepreneur" is what I like to call a "micropreneur": The
spirit, freedom of how/when/where but bootstrapped, without VCs involved. And
instead of just working on one big thing hopping to make it big, one can work
on a few smaller "micro businesses", which cumulatively might not make you
rich, but can you make at least viable, self-sustained and more importantly,
free and happy to pursue other things; be that trying out another micro-
business, or recreational freedom. I can't tell you how great it is to be able
to just go on a vacation or road trip when you feel like it without having to
wonder "how many vacation days do I have left; need a few for christmas etc."
and even having to ask your boss to get permission to take a few days off to
begin with. Freedom of action.

