Re:Ask HN: Why can't I make as much as I make?
by crasshopper on Tuesday April 12, 2011 @02:20AM
(#2436135)
entrepreneurs are dreamers
I think this is true of only a small subset of entrepreneurs. In my town I, the auto body shop guy, the boat trim guy, several bar & restaurant owners, the disposal business guy are just DOers - not dreamers. One of the guys who started a vinyard, a guy who bought a brewery, and the guy who bought a $1mm Titan waterjet might be classified as dreamers.
Walt Disney was much, much more than an entrepreneur. Do you think of Sam Walton as a dreamer?
Yes, most of these people never actually build successful companies. But if you're just working on another straightforward B2B e-commerce platform marketed at the 10% of companies left who don't yet have a web presence, although you might have a greater chance of getting rich, you're not chasing the dream. And the people who see nothing wrong with this never become entrepreneurs, they just avoid the risk altogether and make a good living working at a big company.
It obviously doesn't happen in all cases (and I certainly don't mean to imply that there is nothing interesting and game-changing to be done in B2B businesses), but I think this could be part of the reason why entrepreneurs are always building things they hope people will pay for rather than things people already do pay for.