The Reluctant Entrepreneur: Turning Dreams into Profits

CHAPTER 1

WHAT, EXACTLY, IS A RELUCTANT ENTREPRENEUR?

Philip Knight has a net worth of about $11 billion. That makes him the twenty-third-richest person in the United States, according to Forbes.

If you don’t recognize his name, you wouldn’t know how he made his fortune. He didn’t inherit it. He didn’t develop an Internet technology. And he didn’t make it trading derivatives.

He made his money as an entrepreneur.

When most people encounter the word “entrepreneur,” they think: “Risk taker. Rule breaker. Someone very different from me.”

There is a good reason for this. The media has long portrayed the entrepreneur as the daring visionary, willing to sacrifice almost everything to realize his dream. Whether it is about one of the great industrialists—such as Carnegie, Rockefeller, or Mellon—or a modern-day example like Ray Kroc or Victor Kiam, these are the stories that capture the public’s imagination. These are the stories that sell.

And there is some truth to it. Ray Kroc, the founder of McDonald’s, famously said, “If you’re not a risk taker, you should get the hell out of business.”

Victor Kiam, president and CEO of Remington Products, put it this way: “Entrepreneurs are risk takers, willing to roll the dice with their money or reputation on the line in support of an idea or enterprise.”

But not all entrepreneurs approach business with such reckless abandon. Some take a more conservative route.

That brings me back to Philip Knight …