The Truth about the role of an Entrepreneur
Scour the profiles across LinkedIn and you’ll be blinded by the countless “Entrepreneurs”, and “CEOs”. Rummage through the business cards you collected at the last networking event and you’ll find an endless sea of “Founders”, and “Owners”.
While non-entrepreneur types may be impressed by these lofty titles, the rest of us can see right through you. Those lovely euphemisms actually stand for “monkey”, “gopher”, “donkey” and various other creatures from the animal kingdom, and here’s why:
- Monkey: Running around (sometimes aimlessly) fixing things
- Gopher: Searching and fetching, then repeating the process
- Beaver: Busy as one, sometimes biting off more than you can chew
- Donkey: Getting kicked around by investors and customers
So who do you pretend to be, and who are you actually?
Learning from my Business Card Mistakes
When I launched my own business I instantly printed business cards emblazoned with my self-appointed title. I might as well as written “your royal highness Excellency”. I didn’t have a product but I had a shiny stack of glossy business cards declaring me as the head of the kingdom that didn’t exist yet.
What happened? Well within a couple of months, my logo changed, my website name changed, my company colors changed, and (gasp) yes my role changed. And here I was gazing at my pretty stack of unused business cards! I’m not committing that #entrepreneurfail again.
Alternatives to Business Cards?
I’m now here to overturn the conventional sport of printing and passing around business cards when you are just starting out. Now introducing the MVP of a business card: No business card! This is what I recommend:
- Everyone has a smart phone. If you meet someone interesting, do the green thing and take a photo his or her biz card. Email the person on the spot.
- If they don’t have a biz card, compose a blank email before you go your separate ways. Ask them to fill out the To: field. You should fill out the cc: field with your own email. The subject can say: “Nice to meet you today. Stay in touch.”
- If email isn’t your style, ensure you have the LinkedIn app on your phone. As you meet an interesting person, ask them if they are on LinkedIn and before you bid adieu send them a request as a contact.
Do you have business cards? What do they say? Do you find them useful? Let us know in the comments below.
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Kartik R
OR .. you could print only a 100 of those via print portal , save a lot of your time at the event and hand him your business card that cost less than 1/- re.
Carrying post-its with co-ordinates on it works too !
Sumit Panjabi
love the idea but i think it is important to segregate the audience as well…meeting you at a startup event and handing over a monkey card might work but give the same to a member of sr. management of a prospective client and they might not take you seriously enough to give you business.
Kriti B Vichare
Great thoughts Kartik!
Kriti B Vichare
Ah, I meant it as a joke Sumit! I don’t think I’d really be able to pass around a “monkey-work” business card!
Sumit Panjabi
but won’t it be fun if we really could 🙂
Kriti B Vichare
DEFINITELY!!!! 🙂
Nitish Mehta
Reminded me of movie social network where mark printed business card I m CEO, Bitch !
Kriti B Vichare
Isn’t that the truth! 🙂
pavan srivastava
nicely written Kriti
I could so much relate to this article , that business card incident has happened with me also 🙂
Kriti B Vichare
Thanks Pavan! Hopefully we can prevent others from making that mistake:)
pavan srivastava
yes we surely will 🙂
Pawan Deokule
I have never had any designations printed on any of my or my employees cards.
However, this does change the perspective to giving longer designations in the likes of what we do.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Kriti.
Kriti B Vichare
Good thinking Pawan – perhaps there is no need for designations on business cards!
Anmol Rajdev
I could very relate myself to this – been there in the same situation myself.
I started my digital agency – 42Works a few months back , I was looking to get my business cards printed and it really was a one man show at that time, so I didn’t want to go with the title of a CEO right away. I wanted to go with something easy going but at the same time wanted my business cards to shout that I am the “karta dharta” and decision maker. Another reason I wanted to go for a different title was I wanted that when one looks at the card, it prompts him/her to start a conversation as to what services I am actually into. 😉
Mark Zuckerberg had “I’m CEO, Bitch” on his business cards for a long while. but i guess as the worlds youngest billionaire, you can get away with that 😛 Not in India for sure 🙂
So I took the aid of some forums and similar discussion threads – came across some really interesting titles:
Finally went with “Chief Web Strategist” – one who’s doing all the planning and implementing strategies for my clients- design, branding, development and marketing. I feel it has worked well till now, people do get curios when they get the card. So it’s helping the purpose well.
Kriti B Vichare
Glad you enjoyed it Anmol! Chief Web Strategist sounds great – authoritative yet not unrealistic!
I’ve heard of some other “unique” ones too – like “Chief Superstar”, “Executive Go-Getter” and “Queen of All Things”. Ha!
Best wishes on 42Works!
Amit Joshi
This is so very perfectly articulated Kirti..
I am sure all of the Entrepreneur community can relate to what you are saying to the extent of 100%
🙂
Kriti B Vichare
Thanks so much Amit! Where are you on the spectrum? What’s your title?