On Becoming An Entrepreneur: Are They Born or Made?

Are you built to run a business or are you an unintentional entrepreneur?

Whether entrepreneurs are born or made is one of those popular questions with a myriad of reasonable answers. A question such as this brings to mind the age-old inquiry about successful parenting and whether one’s destiny is due to nature or nurture.

On Becoming An Entrepreneur: Are They Born or Made?

This idea will be explored in a book that’s due to be released. The debate is sure to fire up when “Born Entrepreneurs, Born Leaders: How Your Genes Affects Your Work Life” hits the shelves. Scott Shane and his colleagues at Case Western Reserve University made the book possible.

Shane and fellow researchers studied the entrepreneurial activity of 870 pairs of identical twins and 857 pairs of fraternal twins. Identical twins share 100% of their genes, while fraternal twins share 50%. Interestingly, their studies revealed that 40% of entrepreneurs are born and 60% of entrepreneurs are made.

Can You Enhance Your Entrepreneurial Potential?

This may sound far-fetched, but let me pose this question: is it possible to enhance your entrepreneurial potential with supplements or pills? Or to be blunt, is there something that we can ingest to make it more likely for us to achieve entrepreneurial status?

Recently Barbara Sahakian was the lead author of a study on entrepreneurial risk published in “Nature”. Sahakian, a clinical neuropsychology professor at the University of Cambridge, found that drugs used to manipulate dopamine levels in the body could be used to boost entrepreneurial abilities. Does this mean that because my parents were employees rather than employers, that I’m probably doomed to subservience and the 9 to 5 grind? Not necessarily so. Many people can, over time, develop entrepreneurial skills that they can eventually put to good use.

A Yale University study led by economics professor Dean Karlan in 2006 revealed that compulsory entrepreneurial courses can make a major difference. During the study, a banking program was introduced for female micro-entrepreneurs in a village in Peru. The women who took training classes enjoyed sales 16 percent better than their untrained peers.

Can Everyone Be An Entrepreneur?

Whether by nature or nurture, a person has to have the potential, ability and interest to become an entrepreneur. Just like with any other profession, not everyone can become a successful entrepreneur. A person must be receptive to learning and to really want to pursue this calling.

Randy Komisar, a partner at Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers and teacher at Stanford University, has stated, “I do believe you can teach entrepreneurial skills. But for someone without aptitude, I don’t think those things can be taught. I can’t make a librarian into a Broadway performer.” Before you can find business success, you must have at least some raw talent or aptitude for entrepreneurship to start with — even if it’s just a little.

Why Are Entrepreneurs Important?

New businesses are essential for the economy to grow in response to constantly changing market demands. The Kauffman Foundation has discovered that startup businesses create more than one third of all the new jobs in the United States. Firms less than five years old account for the new job growth between 1980 and 2005. Without entrepreneurs, our country would lose a lot of jobs and the edge needed to stand out in a fast-paced global marketplace.

For the adventurous among us, why not figure out how to start a new business, especially when employment prospects seem so weak?

On Becoming An Entrepreneur: Are They Born or Made?