You would think that a start-up CEO is a terrible risk taker. The likelihood that a new business will emerge from nothing and be able to compete against tremendously bigger competition is next to none. And yet, the start-up CEO puts everything on the line for a chance to show that his idea and business skills will take the company to incredible heights.
That isn’t the whole story though. For most CEOs, being part of a start-up isn’t a risk-benefit analysis, it is about a calling. Just as very few people go into teaching because of the money, very few entrepreneurs decide to quit their jobs, work incredibly long hours, receive little compensation, and invest most of their life savings, for the remote chance that they will be the next Google.
The mind of an entrepreneur is wired to differently. We want to build and we want to create. It is not so much that we see inefficiencies in this world, but rather we see solutions.
We also tend to be rather competitive – we welcome the chance to go up against bigger and stronger rivals.
We love the business exercise of molding a company from the ground up, having to puzzle it all together, making every decision from the color of the carpet to the font of the logo.
Yet I think that the most important element driving an entrepreneur is an innate need to make a mark on the world – to build something that will last. In a way you can say an entrepreneur is no different than anyone else out there, it is just the method chosen that is a little different and crazy.
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