Rachel Elnaugh recently blogged about me saying:
John Crickett has taken exception to my Blog about Peter Jones’ new ‘Tycoon’ show, posing the question ‘Jones vs Elnaugh: Who Do You Think is the Better Entrepreneur?’
That last one is an interesting one John, and tells me instantly that you are an ‘Alphapreneur’ - one of those ghastly males that is always comparing dick size and wanting to know who is ‘the best’. Take my free entrepreneurial profiling test at my own website and tell me if I am right!
N.B. I’ve made two minor edits - removing the URLs to improve readability, you can read the original on her blog.
Well I was a little surprised to say the least. Firstly I wasn’t expecting Rachel Elnaugh to be aware of what I was posting on my blog (or even on the site where I post teasers for it). Secondly I was not taking exception to her comments on Peter Jones’ Tycoon. My actual post was titled Rachel Elnaugh Versus Peter Jones and if anything I took exception to the advice she gave and the factually incorrect “proof” she offered. The title of my post, and the subsequent question was inspired by the fact that 40% of her blog seemed to be about Peter Jones, comparing him to herself and she seemed to be pleased to see him failing. Finally, I’ve never met Elnaugh so it seemed odd that she chose to launch into a somewhat personal attack on me.
None the less I accept that not everyone will agree with me or my point of view so I decided to ignore the insult as it would be interesting to accept Elnaugh’s challenge. I took her test immediately. In the interest of fairness I got my wife to review the answers as I wrote them the aim being to ensure that I’d been honest, but in actual fact there were some questions I wasn’t sure exactly how to answer and having my wife’s perspective on it gave me some useful insights into the entrepreneurial me.
Well after several weeks and a couple of emails to check she had recieved the profile answers, she sent me back:
Thank you for taking my entrepreneurial test. Based on your answers you profile as a…
Dadpreneur
Dadpreneurs are lifestyle entrepreneurs who have taken the decision to construct their lives in a meaningful way outside of the 9 to 5 corporate straightjacket. They tend to build their businesses around an interest or area that they love, while allowing themselves the freedom to construct their working hours exactly as they wish giving them the flexibility to spend time with their family.
Dadpreneurs are usually risk averse, particularly when it comes to taking on bank loans or debt. They would prefer to start their business on a shoestring and build it organically rather than have the stress of debt over their head.
Even as the business takes off, Dadpreneurs can be reluctant to allow the business to grow, preferring to maintain a healthy life/work balance. Those Dadpreneurs that do get the taste for success develop into Sociopreneurs or Passionpreneurs - although their motivation for growth is almost always about allowing larger numbers of customers to enjoy their product or service, rather than driving the business purely for profit.
Dadpreneur businesses are frequently cause-related and are often run with strong ethical values which will not be compromised for the sake of generating extra money.
Dadpreneurs can often be highly creative and great at marketing, but lacking the business acumen to ensure that there is a strong business model to ensure their business generates profits along with revenue. This is where it is important to consider bringing a good ‘numbers savvy’ or commercial partner into the business, even if only in an advisory role. Many Dadpreneurs opt to run their business from home - or they choose a setting which is distinctly non-corporate. Dadpreneurs prefer to be based close to their family rather than commute, and often create ‘virtual’ internet based businesses.
Because of their desire for work/life balance and aversion to the stress of financial burden, Dadpreneur businesses do not always achieve their full potential. Their businesses are restricted by a lack of development capital as well as their desire to keep the business manageable.
But the majority of Dadpreneurs would prefer to settle for a well run lifestyle business than have the headache of running a larger operation.
Dadpreneurs can also be suited to lifestyle franchise opportunities or other ‘ready made’ businesses, which require minimal capital investment and can be run on an extremely flexible basis.
To be honest I didn’t expect anything quite so detailed (although it is one of eight generic entrepreneurial types she has defined and not specific to me) nor did I expect that I’d actually agree with quite a bit of it. The bits I don’t believe fit me are:
- Dadpreneurs are usually risk averse, particularly when it comes to taking on bank loans or debt. I don’t have a problem taking on debt, in fact it’s a crucial part of my property business.
- Dadpreneurs can often be highly creative and great at marketing, but lacking the business acumen to ensure that there is a strong business model to ensure their business generates profits along with revenue. I’d disagree in my case, in fact I’d argue I have more business acumen that most entrepreneurs I’ve met. I’d also possibly argue that this is possibly my biggest weakness as an entrepreneur, if a business doesn’t have a sound business model and a way of making profit from day one I’ll view it as too risky for me.
Overall though I think it’s probably the category that fits me best, though out of interest I’d like to read the descriptions for the other seven. If you consider yourself an entrepreneur then I can only suggest you take Rachel Elnaugh’s free entrepreneurial profiling test yourself. Then post a comment or trackback here and let me know what type of entrepreneur you are.
This blog is about business opportunities and ideas that I spot, think of or hear about and think are useful and interesting. It is intended to provide ideas and inspriation for you to help you find the right business idea for you to then grow it into a successful business.
I did two tests. The first she told me that I should not ever run a business as I didn’t have the right mindset and was also “risk-averse” or similar - and have been building and running my own businesses with the associated risk for nearly 20 years. The second she emailed me and asked me to take again as she wanted to keep in touch - and that was over a month ago and I have heard nothing since.
My first submission to her apparently went missing due to her PA, so it might be worth sending it again.
I’d love to hear more about your business…
Thank you guys - I do appreciate the feedback.
In response to your comment Jeff, the first test was an Entrepreneurial Profiler ‘borrowed’ (with permission of course!) from a company called Human Factors - you may have seen it featured in the Sunday Times back in February. We trialled it at the Growing your Own Business Show at Olympia back in March.
Having met the entrepreneurial ‘guru’ behind that original test - Dr Adrian Atkinson - he was very adamant in his view that only a very small percentage of people ‘qualify’ as entrepreneurs. Indeed on the trial we tested less than 10% profiled as such.
I felt there was more to it - that there were many more kinds of entrepreneur and that ’success’ in business is very subjective, and most definitely not just about money.
Also, in working with many budding businesses it became apparent that there are lots of tensions between the drivers - people want to go into business and be a huge success but don’t want to take any risks for example; people who want to make a lot of money - but when you probe that driver, the reason behind the ambition is that they actually want the money so they don’t have to work any more - when in fact most successful business people are extremely focussed and hard working, at least in the beginning.
So, in response, I created my own Profile Test. I realise it is not perfect - which is why I appreciate the feedback - but the responses I have had have on the whole been positive. At minimum it is making people stop and think and perhaps gain some self-awarenesss.
I’m sorry if you didn’t receive a response to your second Profile Jeff (yes it is true I have had PA problems, but hey the buck stops here - I did choose her after all) but if you re-send it direct to me I’ll ensure you get your result asap.
Regards
Rachel
Rachel,
I’d have to agree with you there’s more to it than money, have you read Ben and Jerry’s Double Dip - there’s a hugely successful business built by people that would most certainly fit your Sociopreneur label.
I’ve just read the profile about my brother and I can say that its pretty accurate. The only things I would disagree with are the business acumen. John is very astute, he’s always concerned with “running the numbers” before he gets into bed with an idea.
I would agree that he is quite risk averse, and doesn’t like getting into debt. I don’t believe it really counts when borrowing money on a mortgage against a property. In my opinion, getting into debt as a way of providing capital to get a business off the ground or continue growing it is different to borrowing against an asset that provides an income - such as a rental property.
John’s business ethic is definitely about lifestyle. I think he would prefer to work as little as possible for as much money as possible, to enable him to spend as much time as possible with his wife and newborn baby. He’s tried the rat race, and in fact had a succesful career before turning his skills to his own businesses. Since doing so, his income has probably remained similar, however the number of hours worked have probably reduced significantly, and the commute has reduced to nil, effectively giving him a much better quality of life.
PS
Tried to do a profile on myself and got this response:
“This web page has attempted to run an ASP script.
However, ASP has not yet been enabled for this domain.
If this is your website, you can enable ASP or ASP.NET, using the Server options facility on your control panel.”
Tristan,
The URL on her site has changed since she blogged about it, I’ve changed my link to the right one.
We’ll have to agree to disagree about mortgages
Just to follow up, Rachel has now contacted me with the results from the second profile I sent her - and it is spot on.
Jeff,
Come on then don’t keep us in suspense - what type of entrepreneur are you?
Oh sorry! I am a Passionpreneur. Not that I particularly knew it before as that, but the description kind of fits a lot of where I am.
I took the test and was also a Dadpreneur and found the description pretty accurate.
If I read the other dexcriptions though, would I also think they were pretty accurate about me ?
Once read that Paul Daniels passed around zodiac personality traits (without telling the recipients that he had actually swapped the descriptions of the 12 signs around from the originals) and they were all commenting about how accurate the description were.
Rachel was kind enough to show me the other descriptions and I did agree it was the most appropriate for me. As I could think of an entrepreneur for each other the other types I thought they were quite good too. Several were clearly not me.