Entrepreneurs are made and not born

I was working with my dad in the orchard last Saturday, and after a while we sat down, had a beer and a great discussion. It’s the discussion that pushed me to think about the topic, and write this.

We were talking about the people in the country we live in (Croatia), and how the regions are different, people in one region seem to prosper, and almost struggle to survive in another one. The main reason we found in it was industrialisation levels before 1990’s. The region that was highly industrially developed, was thriving, everyone who wanted to work had a job, an absolute employment rate, the pay wasn’t much, but there wasn’t much to buy either, and people survived, but they also had big ranches, with the government buying off anything that was produced, so they got lulled in.

The region without industry, where people struggled, had a small piece of land, couple chickens, and a cow if they were really rich. Those people fought to survive, day after day. After the war, and destroying most of the industry we had, the first people fell in agony. 20000 jobs lost in a city of 50000 inhabitants, almost overnight is a lot. Most of the people started working with agriculture, but expecting the government to buy off anything they produce, at a highly subsidised rate, and protesting by blocking the magistral roads if that rate is not met. However, the other group of people got adapted to their struggling and took the only way they knew, they become entrepreneurs, mostly doing manufacture and agriculture. And because the market was(is) bad in the rest of the country, they exported everything. So they prospered, had no recession, no big job losses, and are almost completely government independent.

The point that I’m trying to make here is, that entrepreneurs aren’t born, they are made, out of necessity. When there is no one to give you a job where you would earn enough, and you have to feed your family or just yourself, you find a way to earn the money. From this an entrepreneur is born, a regular person, maybe not willing to work in menial 9 to 5 jobs. Not settling for dull governmental job security, or cruising from college till retirement, but living the life, taking risks, and succeeding.