The Freaks Shall Inherit the Earth: Entrepreneurship for Weirdos, Misfits, and World Dominators

7Are You an Employeepreneur?

This question is meant to determine if this chapter is for you. If it's not, go ahead to the next chapter.

An employeepreneur is someone who has a job in a company, but is executing it like an owner. They have a stronger interest in the business's outcomes than your average employee, and operates with the sense that they own and marshal the resources around them. This means you get a paycheck from someone. You're an employee. And yet, you think of yourself as a boss (not in that cool “like a boss!” way—http://hbway.com/likeaboss).

Don't confuse this with the sometimes-labeled “wantrepreneur”—someone with a day job seeking to exit their company to run their own business at some point. Whether or not that's true of you, I'm speaking to you in this chapter as if you're happy with the day job; you simply seek to build a better interface between your different mind-sets and the way business might be done in your organization.

What a Boss Wants

Employeepreneurs usually find themselves working through their own ambitions and goals, which is great and expected. However, because you're under someone else's employ, it's your responsibility to serve that person to the best of your abilities. It's never ever useful to be at odds with your leadership's larger goals, even if you're forever striving to change how they get there. Said another way, the only path for an employeepreneur is to serve your leadership through your actions.

Bosses want results without ...