The Entrepreneurial Sequence

The Entrepreneurial Sequence

It can be argued that entrepreneurship is the backbone of our technological society, and keeps reinventing the way business is done. Each new company provides a different perspective as to how business should be handled. They also provide a very large portion of the new products that change the way we live our day-to-day lives. However, due to the risks involved in starting a new company it takes a certain "entrepreneurial spirit" to successfully launch a new business. This paper will step through the entrepreneurial process by examining two separate entrepreneurs and their reason for becoming entrepreneurs, why they chose their industry, how they obtained funding, their first customers, and the pros and cons of becoming an entrepreneur.

People don't always just up and decide to become an entrepreneur, there are often many different factors that contribute to them deciding to start their own business. In both of the cases presented here the entrepreneurs were over thirty, married, and had been holding previous jobs. Brenda Cantley had been working in the background for her husband for fifteen years. Her husband was a salesman and would sell anything he could get his hands on (steaks, ice cream trucks, printers, etc.) and was able to be very profitable. Brenda stayed on the sidelines never doing any sales but keeping records and doing paperwork. In 1994 Mr. Cantley became too sick to work and remained that way for months. The Cantley's entire income depended on him making sales, so Brenda had to find a way to make money. She had only a high school education and no real work experience, even though she had helped her parents when they started their own business selling trailers and helped ...

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...da's case if she were to get very ill or have something happen to her, her business would go down the drain. She is the total value of the company and without her working everyday it would go under. That is quite a big risk to take for a forty-plus year old woman with a family to support. Lawson feels that being an entrepreneur requires overall more work than most "regular jobs" because, unlike an office job, the work never leaves you.

In conclusion, it takes a certain breed of people to become entrepreneurs. One must be thick-skinned and determined and maybe a little lucky to start and operate a successful business. Both Guy Lawson and Brenda Cantley were able to do it but not without their share of hardships. Both of them, however, strongly feel that the rewards and satisfaction received are well worth the overall stressful occupation of entrepreneurship.