Hacker News Reader

Comment by gerggerg | Hacker News Reader

I don't think it's bad to break the rules in either case. He's just not an entrepreneur, and this article proposes nothing truly interesting. He's selling shit on the subway. He didn't come up with a new and interesting way to sell shit. He's just selling shit. Panhandling. The only reason he can make a profit is because it's illegal and people are nice. He's taking advantage of both. Is it better than selling crack? Without the slightest doubt. But thats a terrible metric with which to judge your surroundings.

View on HN

"Entrepreneur - a person who organizes and manages any enterprise, especially a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk"

He is the very definition of an entrepreneur. Most of the stuff you see selling in the streets of NYC is not "legal" because of not having the proper permits or any number of bureaucratic issues but you damn sure are not going to tell me these people are not entrepreneurs.

See my further comment in this discussion made about this topic. TLDR: shouldn't have redefined entrepreneur.

a person who organizes and manages any enterprise (He is not managing or organizing anything.)

especially a business (It is a business)

usually with considerable initiative and risk" (He went to the store, bought some candy, sold it. No risk, limited initiative, certainly not considerable imitative.)

The world would be a better place without a guy selling candy on a subway.

I disagree with this criticism. The very act of going to the store and buying candy in the hopes that it will bring in more cash is risk. He's risking money that he could otherwise spend on a new television, a 401(k), or M&Ms for the kids. That he planned a route for selling and segmented the population and carries different products to meet demand is the core of what managing an enterprise is.

This is to make no comment on whether what he is doing is good or even legal; but clearly there is 55k worth of demand for a service that he is providing so it is difficult for me to accept that the world would be a better place without this particular gentleman selling candy on a subway.

Enterprise - 1. "A project or undertaking, typically one that is difficult or requires effort."

2. "Initiative and resourcefulness."

He at least fits one of the requirements for the word enterprise.

As someone said previously in this thread, most of the people on this site have no idea what it means to actually "sell" something. Anytime you put your own money on the line to gain a profit you are taking a risk.

"Limited initiative"? Do you have any idea what it takes to go out in public and get rejected 90% of the time to make that one sale? His initiative is definitely not limited.

Do you know why Jason Fried's article http://www.inc.com/magazine/20110301/making-money-small-busi... in Inc was so on point? It was because selling is a skill and you really do have to practice to be good at it. I would say for most people its harder to learn how to sell than it is to learn how to become a programmer. Humans have more variables.

Why would the world be a better place without a guy selling candy on the subway? I can see where it could be a problem if the subway became overwhelmed with these guys but that's not the case. I ride the subway all of the time and you know what, I ignore these guys just like most New Yorkers do. Are the guys selling water bottles on the sidewalk during a hot day a nuisance as well?

The world would also be a better place without a lot of social-media crap startups with "sell more ads" business models using other people's money to bid up the price of talent and office space. Nonetheless, the people starting those companies are entrepreneurs and so is this guy. That's a lean startup, right there. ;)

Are restaurant owners not entrepreneurs? If not, that is an overly restrictive definition.

"He didn't come up with a new and interesting way to sell shit."

He identified an untapped location/population, and acted on it. How is that not finding a new way to "sell shit"?

Untapped? Selling candy to nice people in an uncomfortable situation is an untapped market?

People are buying aren't they? And I reject the suggestion that he is somehow pressuring people into buying, if you've ever been on a subway that is rather implausible.

Some people are deathly afraid of people talking to them in public, especially if they are from a different social class.

I've had people try to sell me candy on the L before. I said, "no thanks" and that was that. I imagine this is the end result of 99.99999% of interactions between people on public transportation. (Someone stole my shoes once after he asked to read my newspaper and I gave it to him. That's the 0.000001% case :)

I meet panhandlers on a daily basis who pressure people in all kinds of ways.

If convincing people to spend real money on fake farms on Facebook counts as an untapped market, then this certainly should count.

And good point with the comment on me trying to redefine entrepreneur. What I should have said is i don't think he's an interesting entrepreneur.

You'd be amazed at the number of "uninteresting" entrepreneurs out there. Just because he's not in SV and his latest funding round wasn't featured in TechCrunch doesn't mean he's any less entrepreneur than any other business owner.

Besides, doing something because other people find it interesting is a terrible way to make life choices.

We're debating the relative importance of connotations of entrepreneurship; there's, say, a discrete (maybe multivariate) probability distribution of connotations, dictionary definitions are supposed to capture its peaks, and the debate is over where the "true" peaks are. I doubt most people would call the subway vendor a Steve Jobsian entrepreneur. But if he hired others to sell for him, took out loans to increase his inventory, and attached Sodoku puzzles and small pencils to his candy to give bored passengers something to do, more people would likely agree he can be called an entrepreneur. Nevertheless, I believe a high bar for innovation is not an essential component of entrepreneurship -- and the more interesting entrepreneurs are not necessarily more innovative. So the subway vendor's living between the cracks, he's breaking the law. Maybe that makes him more interesting! What types of people tend to strike up conversations with him? How often do policemen confront him? Which foods are more popular after a Yankees game? Interesting entrepreneurs may be engaged in very ordinary activities that afford them unique perspectives.

Incidentally, I love the NY subway for all its various distractions -- the breakdancers, the flashmobbers, and yes, even the panhandlers, because it's always interesting to observe how passengers react to them.

At least he makes a profit unlike 90% of SV's startups.

Well, fair enough. I do agree there.

"He didn't come up with a new and interesting way to sell shit." So now you have to be first to be an entrepreneur? Tell that to Brin & Page.

Did they not come up with a new and interesting way to do search? I think you're massively confused about the beginnings of google.

have you ever sold anything? you have to almost beg them, one on one. you have to be bold and walk down an aisle of people who give you the evil eye, and still make your pitch. before you take some high horse and put this man down, walk in his shoes.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com