Chapter 1: What Do Entrepreneurs Do?
The Definition Is Broader Than You Think
entrepreneur, operator, visionary, risk-taker, classic entrepreneur, corporate entrepreneur
What Entrepreneurs Do
There are maybe three things primarily that entrepreneurs do. And I think the common, first impression everyone has is: you introduce something completely new — something that no one’s ever seen before. You’re starting from scratch, bringing something totally new to market.
Things like electric cars are a good example. Maybe what my company did, in terms of bringing mortgage lending to the internet for the consumer — those are brand-new things. Radical ideas. Some people are ready for it, and you’ll find that with brand-new, radical ideas, a lot of people aren’t ready for it. It takes some pioneers and some curious customers to go along on the ride with you. That’s really fun, and I got to do some of that, which I really enjoyed.
The Classic Entrepreneur
Variations on a theme — not something brand new, but a different way to do something established. That was my first very big project. This was check processing. Sounds really exciting, right?
So checks — well, people used to write checks to pay bills. Most people pay bills online now, right? That’s the way we do it. But back when I started, people were still writing checks by the millions, and someone had to take that paper check and convert it into a payment — move the money somehow from one bank to another. In the middle were a lot of big machines and computers that did that kind of work.
We built a company that radically increased the speed of check processing for a group of credit unions — actually it was the state of Missouri. We radically improved cash flow, cut the amount of time it took to clear a check, and cut the price of doing it dramatically.
That business actually lasted about two decades — maybe more than two decades. Big, big project. But it wasn’t something brand new. Check processing had been around since the early days of banking. We just did it differently, and we saved everybody a lot of money and sped things up quite a bit.
To the point where — back in those days credit unions were pretty small — I got a call from one of the big banks in town, and he said, “What are you doing?” I said, “What do you mean? We’re clearing checks.” He said, “No, you’re not only clearing checks — you sped up cash flow quite a bit.” At first it was not a good thing, and people kind of got used to it. So that was fun too.
The Operator Entrepreneur
And then there’s shut down, restructure, restart. I got to do this too — and we’ll call this maybe less fun in some ways.
My very first job: I showed up for my first day of work. I was hired as the chief marketing officer. The CEO sat me down and said, “We’re gonna close the mortgage bank in 30 days.” I’m like — I just got here. What do you mean? He said, “Don’t worry, you’ve got a job. But we’re gonna shut the bank down and we’re gonna reopen it a different way, and you’re gonna help lead that project.” Oh. Okay. Would have been nice to know that before I took the job — before I showed up and moved my family across the country.
Anyway, we shut it down, we restructured it, and we restarted it. A whole different approach to the business. And then not three years later we did it again.
So that’s a form of entrepreneurship — and it’s not a business process for everyone. And I think what I’m saying to you, without saying it directly, is this is a mindset. This is a constant-change mindset. A mindset that says, we could do this better, we could do this differently. And you’ve got to be willing to take the risks to do that.
This does come with reward. And for the right mindset, for the right people, it’s exciting and invigorating, and you’ll learn a ton of stuff doing it.
So let me stop there for a second. Any questions? By the way, you can ask me questions anytime you want — you can stop me anytime. Questions? Comments? Is this helpful? Okay.