An entrepreneur can run a small business or be a business owner. One term describes a person way of creating something and the other is a more of legal job description.

I don’t see why a business owner can’t be an entrepreneur. If you are an entrepreneur you need to have a business right? Otherwise you are just a dreamer.
My two cents… I guess it depends on how you define the two terms

Hello John – there’s no right or wrong answer here, I just wanted to get a sense of where people stood on this subject. Either way, both run a business as you point out.

It will be interesting to see some how others see it as well.

Always great to see you in here sharing pennies from on high

…well to me, an entrepreneur creates a business while a business owner creates a job for himself.

You know the chef who owns his own restaurant and works there non stop? He owns a business/job..an entrepreneur starts a business, makes it automated or semi-automated and then goes on to start another business.

Yep Dino — you’re spot on here and it really expands my thought as well. The chef has a skill that he turned into a business thereby creating himself a job. Most entrepreneurs I’ve been around, including myself in this list, don’t stop seeing ideas for businesses. They don’t usually stay interested in one particular company for a long period of time.In summary, I’ve always taken an idea, written a 5 to 10 page business summary around it, hired the best talent I could recruit to manage it, Advisory Board, C-level team – all with serious track records of running companies in the same industry, secured $1 to $5 million in seed capital and called it a day. I’ve literally done this within just a few months and then off to another company. To secure the management team typically takes 10 to 20% of the stock in the company in the form of common shares — some preferred, depending on the stock structure of the company and the rest is hopefully building long term value that I can reinvest in other companies. I live for the next company. This is not easy mind you. I live by creating value in companies, so for the life of a true on entrepreneur, they make their money starting and building value in companies — not off any kind of salary. So feast and famine is the lifestyle, steak and lobster one-day, rice and beans the next and sometimes a season of a lot of fasting. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Hey Mark – great topic here! This is one of those that has the potential to get people really amped up!

My thoughts….

Business Owner – The business owner has keen sense of business practices and understands the ins and outs of what a business is, and how it operates. The business owner thrives on utilizes proven process and concepts in order to find the ways to enhance their business.

The Entrepreneur (or as I call it…the Hustler) – The entrepreneur creates business practices in order to make it happen based on wild ideas that come to their mind. They are willing to take calculated risk, and they often fail. Their failures, however, are simply bumps in the road that often lead to smooth downhill terrain. The entrepreneur hires ‘business owner’ types to run specific aspects of their operation while they operate as the chief creative artists.

This was a fun one. Great topic!

Well, you just single handedly Amped up the conversation here Jk!

I would add a bit of flavor to your analysis… I started my first business when I was 19 years old – a landscape construction company. I specialized in upper-scale out door living spaces in the $50K to $150K range. Because of some key relationships, I participated in the atrium at the then newly constructed Mirage Hotel and Casino – about $15 million dollars worth of the total $34 million that went into just the atrium. It was beautiful, met Michael Jackson and many other stars who were friends of Steve Wynn during the construction phase.

I went into this diatribe to just point out the fact, that while I was a master landscaper, I didn’t know anything about business. I basically took a skill I had and turned it into a business and boy did I learn what running a business is really about through this tough lesson in life. I think many business owners make some of the EXACT same mistakes, hence a high failure rate among startup businesses.

I built the company up to 60 employees and had secured around $20 million dollars in contacts in less than two years – but because I didn’t understand accounting (counting every penny in and every penny out) my employees robbed me blind and my first business almost turned into a personal bankruptcy. It wasn’t until I hired an accountant to manage my finances did I discover my employees were using my accounts for plants, trees and sprinkling systems to do side work that was costing me $30K a month in losses — and come to realize what business is really all about.

It was the most valuable lesson I ever learned about running and building a profitable business and because of this experience, I can run just about any business profitably now.

Just food for thought Jk – and thank you for adding to the conversation!

Great reply. Thank you for the detail and “color”. You’ve been within success since early adulthood – can’t beat that!