Thoughts on entrepreneurship

For a while now I have been doing the customer support for The Jump Manual. It’s really strange that I have been able to step in and take Jacob’s spot, but really he created a flawless organized method to do it. So now I am training someone else to take my place.

My Dad gave Jacob this book for Christmas. I ended up reading it, and it turned out to be the perfect training for someone new to customer support.

Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com

This book is an autobiography of a self-made millionaire (billionaire?) who started entrepreneurship at a young age. I’ve read it before, and I’ve started to wonder if it’s true: are entrepreneurs born that way or can you become one? Many people believe that not everyone can be one.

I know that I am constantly amazed at how Jacob has this sort of inborn sense of what will and what won’t work in a business. He always has this incredible drive to teach himself new skills and take the business in the right direction. He has always had the vision, like the author says in the book:

“I always fantasized about making money, because to me, money meant that later on in life I would have the freedom to do whatever I wanted. The idea of one day running my own company also meant that I could be creative and eventually live life on my own terms.”

I know that, on my own, I would not have been able to do what he has done. It’s much easier to have someone tell you what to do rather than to start something on your own.

But I’d like to think that entrepreneurs aren’t just born, that they can be trained, too. Because I’ve began to realize there isn’t anything quite like having your own business to develop and take to the next level. Especially as a married couple, it is quite wonderful to have a shared vision and a project that we are always working on together. When we first got married, I barely knew what “SEO” was. Really that meant I didn’t know a large part of what made Jacob tick! Now Jacob can tell me all his ideas and plans and I can actually give meaningful feedback because I know the terminology.

What do you think? Are entrepreneurs born or made? Could anyone be a successful entrepreneur with the right business model?