Anytime that you make a generalization about any group of people you are destined to be off base. But at the same time generalizations do help identify trends and garner understanding about people’s thoughts at a high-level.

One of the generalizations that we often discuss at WV is that entrepreneurs love sports with many of them being ex-athletes. This discussion caused us to ask the question, “why are athletes drawn to the entrepreneurial mindset?”

Our answers:

1. Sports have clear winners and losers. Entrepreneurs like to know a score and the feel of victory. These are almost always self-evident in start-ups/emerging companies
2. Athletics are a form of creativity. Entrepreneurial thinking people love to create things. They like having tangible things that they feel like they formed.
3. Great athletes like to push themselves. By definition, an entrepreneur is someone who believes they can do things better than they are currently being done.
4. Athletes have an appetite for taking risks. Although we don’t believe that most successful entrepreneurs are just crazy risk-takers, we do believe they have a certain appetite for risk.

Once again, generalizations are never full proof. But there are things you can see if you identify in yourself or other entrepreneurs you work with.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 31st, 2007 at 8:08 am and is filed under Philosophy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.