

The Anatomy of an Entrepreneur (2009) - niggler
http://www.kauffman.org/research-and-policy/the-anatomy-of-an-entrepreneur.aspx#

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johnfuller
An important item this article is missing is their definition of entrepreneur.

In the Philippines in the area I live I can reach a dozen stores within a 5
minute walk. These are stores people run out of their homes. They generally
have a room with a barred window where people can walk up and buy basic goods.

Downtown, every parking area has numerous people who will park your scooter
and they work off tips. Kids go from bar to bar selling peanuts. Vendors walk
around selling fake viagra and cheap watches. People setup make-shift food
carts in areas which are heavily trafficked.

Most of these people are working without any sort of license. They are
hustlers doing what they need to do to get by. That's my definition of
entrepreneur. If you were to survey these people using the same questions the
article used, then they would get very different responses.

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dkroy
hustler!=entrepeneur, although I am sure it increases the chance of them
becoming a successful one.

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mbesto
> _Professional networks were important to the success of their current
> businesses for 73 percent of the entrepreneurs. In comparison, 62 percent
> felt the same way about personal networks._

And this is why this number is so:

> _Founders tended to be middle-aged—40 years old on average—when they started
> their first companies._

Business is primarily about trust, relationships and reducing people's fear.
Having 15+ years experience just _working_ with other people (like most middle
class working 40 year olds) is a massive advantage when starting a business.

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effbott
_> More than 90 percent of the entrepreneurs ... were well-educated: 95.1
percent of those surveyed had earned bachelor's degrees, and 47 percent had
more advanced degrees._

That really surprised me. Maybe it's just a tech entrepreneur thing but I
thought the "college drop-out turned founder" narrative was more common.

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dh
A very small sample and does not match actual real life experience. I don't
think these findings are true or good. #fail

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niggler
Kauffman foundation is a conservative group (certainly not as much as, say,
Chamber of Commerce, but it's right-leaning), so they will cherry-pick the
data points that advance their policy recommendations

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subsystem
You might be right, but critique like "does not match actual real life
experience" is cheap and might as well be "doesn't conform to my selection
bias". From doing my own comparison it seems clear that in companies with big
exits, a high level of education is very common. This doesn't necessarily mean
that a high level of education is better for making large companies, but does
challenge the picture of the entrepreneur as a dandelion child.

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chayesfss
Best quote for me "Eighty-six percent of Ivy-League graduates ranked
university education as important"

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niggler
It's a positive-feedback cycle: Ivy-League alums hire and promote other Ivy-
League graduates, who in turn hire and promote other Ivy-League graduates ...

