Very Short Interview with an Entrepreneur No. 1

I had the pleasure of interviewing a good friend of mine this week.  His name is Robert Minchin, and he is an entrepreneur.  As long as I have known him, he has been an entrepreneur.  In high school, he bought computer parts, put them together, and sold them at a marked up price.  He then assisted in a start up company valued at over a million dollars.  Mr. Minchin now works for himself as a freelance editor of scholarly papers and articles.  I asked him 3 brief questions.  I will list the questions and his answers below.  Enjoy!

1. Tell me about your experience working for yourself.  What made you want to do that?

"I have had so many entrepreneurial pursuits over the course of my life that I can't boil them all down to one simple reason. As a reseller of laptops and video games in high school, I think I was just seeking the thrill of cash flow. As a cofounder of a startup, I simply caught the vision o a forward-thinking, innovative individual and wanted to be a part of making it a reality. And as a freelance editor currently, the opportunity was merely a convergence of skill, the desire for flexibility, and the immediate problem of how to pay for my master's and law degrees."

2. What do you wish you had been taught in school before becoming an "entrepreneur"?

" I don't know if this can necessarily be taught, but I wish I had learned how to not spread myself too thin in terms of ideas, scheduling, relationships, etc. For instance, when I cofounded the startup, we talked to way too many people way too fast about way too many possibilities. We were looking to provide a service with potential applications to so many industries, and we started talking to all of the industries all at once. Before we knew it, we had people from blood banks, pharmaceutical companies, fruit farms, grocery chains, and flower distributors all willing to work with us, but we did not have the resources necessary to follow through on them, and we ended up letting a lot of people down."

3. In your words, what does it mean to be an entrepreneur?

" Entrepreneurship requires some aspect to be "yours." Whether it be your own schedule, your own idea, your own process, your own product, or your own service. It doesn't require being your own boss; you just have to have to apply innovation to whatever you are doing. "

I thoroughly enjoyed Mr. Minchin's willingness to work with me and share his wisdom.  The thing that surprised me the most is that he wished he would have been not so "narrowly focused" in his pursuits.  I thought he was very diverse in his work and expertise. This shows me that I really need to think differently, and I need to be willing to try new things.  Thank you for taking the time to read this, and thanks to Mr. Robert Minchin for his help.