Welcome to the world of the entrepreneur

The last chapter illustrated how subtle the differences can be between top down and bottom up strategies. It revealed a fuzzy separation between ideas and opportunities. It presented conceptual components as enigmatic entities without definition or tangible form.

Not surprisingly, several of the readers of the last chapter, who'd had no experience of being entrepreneurs, were left feeling bemused and frustrated. They'd been looking to be led directly into creating an e-business. Instead, they felt they'd been getting a kaleidoscope of inconsequential theory, a smoke screen, that was obscuring the real purpose of any e-business: which is to make money.

Reading the various posts at some of the tables in the virtual cafe, it was quite clear that some of the readers were still looking for algorithms: step by step guides as to how to set up a money making business. They wanted to be given roles, shown what to do. It didn't occur to them that the world of the entrepreneur isn't that simple; if it were, everyone would be an entrepreneur.

To an entrepreneur, such vagueness is power for the course because creating businesses isn't about following known paths and clear directions, it is about peering into a world of uncertainty and creating order where none exists. It is about adapting experiences from the past to deal with the present; it is about mixing and matching concepts, people and skill sets to produce systems of interaction.

To illustrate the essence of entrepreneurial activity, and to show how chance and opportunity replace ideas and planning I'll explain how years of training as an electronic systems engineer, together with an intensive study of marketing and investment strategy led to me sorting out piles of used clothing in rag merchants' yards.

From there, we'll see how the lessons learned in the smelly rag yards of England can be applied to the high tech world of electronic communications - proving that entrepreneurship in e-business is really about concepts, not technology.