Being poor is what made me an entrepreneur! When you have nothing to lose, then there's little risk in rolling those dice.
For example, I and many of my colleagues are battling large amounts of student loan debt; if we were truly starting from 0 and had absolutely nothing, pursuing entrepreneurship would be at worst 0 gain and wasted time, but at best a successful endeavor.
Realistically, however, many of the young and poor are starting from a disadvantaged state where in reality, taking a large risk is dissuaded by the risk of defaulting on student loan payments or shredded credit scores.
What I'm getting at is, many people would love to be truly poor rather than in the pit, and being in the pit brings a lot more risk to the average person (who otherwise might have the drive or skills to really make something worthwhile)
I'm not sure that I understand the distinction you're making here. Yes, one path to being poor is losing what you have. But in the end, such people are just as poor as those who never had anything in the first place. They both have nothing (more) to lose.
> many of the young and poor are starting from a disadvantaged state where in reality, taking a large risk is dissuaded by the risk of defaulting on student loan payments or shredded credit scores.
Most poor people are living in a trap of debt -- that tends to go hand-in-hand with being poor, as is having shredded credit scores.
It's very hard to find a poor person who isn't saddled with debt, whether they have student loans or not. Being poor is very expensive, after all.
That said, I don't think a person's monetary wealth can be measured by their income alone. It has to be measured in net terms: assets (including income) minus overhead and debts owed. A lot of people who consider themselves wealthy are actually poor and living on borrowed (i.e., somebody else's) wealth.
I wouldn't say I was ever discouraged from entrepreneurship, even at my lowest. But it did make the math a hell of a lot harder. When you're poor, there's always something more you can lose. Choosing between investing in your business or what you eat that week is a difficult decision.
What I would say is that those circumstances give you the motivation to find the clever, efficient solutions, and to make wiser, less risk-adverse decisions. I never wanted a startup that burned money just to get acquired. I wanted one that could make me real money from the very beginning.
Being poor raises the bar on the quality of the business you intend to create, because failure is worse for you than anyone else.
I agree!
Although many years back my preferred business model became developing a business so that I can sell it whole-hog to somebody else, that has never meant that I was OK with burning money (or even using other people's money in the first place).
Coming from a place of poverty is probably why I am extremely reluctant to actually go into debt for a business. My preferred method is to live lean and bootstrap up.
Before I consider selling a business, I want it to be a real, profitable business that is standing on its own. If it's not that, then I don't have anything to sell.