The classic entrepreneur starts young, and usually as a sole trader. Buying bags of sweets on the way to school and selling them on at a profit is a cliché, as is the paper round and the carwashing business. Anything, in fact, to satisfy the instinct for trade and to start accumulating.
What happens after that depends on the character of the individual and what drives them: are they spurred on from childhood, or do they blossom much later when life takes an unexpected turn and forces them into radical change, perhaps with redundancy from a secure job, maybe a family break-up, or a chance meeting with a potential business partner?
However the enterprise begins, there are two crude shapes to the graph after that: one climbs gently and levels off at a stage where the entrepreneur feels comfortable and enjoys a good standard of living, keeping the business up to the mark, but with no plans for major growth. This is known as the lifestyle business, but it can range from, perhaps, a husband and wife team to an SME employing several dozen.
The other crudely drawn category is the growth business, where the owners are driven to build the company as far as possible, probably through organic growth at first, and then buying businesses to grow faster.
The difference between the two broad types is down, pretty much, to the mindset of the people in control…………….
