Jean Fahmy

I often ask the question to my university students : "'Why do you want to be entrepreneurs, to start your business ?"

We then go through the usual more money, more power, more glory and more pleasure arguments. And then, inevitably, one student says : "I want to be my own boss".

I love that answer, mostly because I get to burst a well known bubble.

The entrepreneur is not his own boss. At least not in the sense the students usually means it. We have to be able to manage a dozen different relationships at one time and make sure EVERY single one is a happy one. It is an absolute necessity for the entrepreneur to maintain healthy ties to the actors in his environment. Failure to do so results in ... well... corporate failure.

Here are the actors in the entrepreneur's world that are actually his collective bosses :
- Suppliers
- Clients
- Associates
- Employees
- Bankers
- Investors
- Shareholders / Stakeholders
- Boards
- Unions
- Business partners
- Government
- and most importantly, the family.

That sound you hear is from entrepreneurs-to-be's bubble bursting.

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