Nontrepreneurs

I know someone who started and sold a company many years ago. In the past two years, he has started three "projects" all with the intention that they might become real companies. He met with failure on all three -- one for personal reasons, one for technical reasons, and one for business reasons.

To those who don't know his history -- but who do experience his regular and excited descriptions of the ideas he's "working on" -- he might seem exactly like a nontrepreneur.

This means that there are a lot of things that never make the cut: painting, DJing, learning French, etc. I've taken first steps in them and have paint brushes, turntables and French books, but never pulled the trigger to take them seriously. Other things won.

As long as I'm getting stuff done in my life this is fine, and those options are still there should I choose to go back to them at some point.

What seems a little more dangerous is picking one thing and lingering on the cusp of it indefinitely. I think some people do that as kind of a romantic escapism: one of my best friends always talks about being a bike courier. She doesn't really want to be a bike courier; it's just romantic contrast with her job behind a desk.

Wow, this pretty much describes a lot of people I meet at uni entrepreneurship clubs.

My excuse is mostly a time thing, school and work generally take up 90% of my time. Every time I start something I really should be working on a lab or studying for a test.

I've got plenty of time to figure it out.

Idea mode is a good place to be at the beginning, and you might stick around in it for a while for good reasons. Eventually though, you need to transition into "doing" mode and build your idea, brining it to fruition. That's a big leap of faith for most, and it's why lots of people like to talk about starting a business, but very few do.

I have another word for them though: scenesters