Entrepreneur Solo
A bit of a joke really. I realised a long time ago that you cannot get anywhere alone but at the same time you need to be prepared to go it alone to make things work. Living in Spain is a strange experience for an entrepreneur. Why? Well, as the tagline says;
“Being an entrepreneur in Spain is like being a snowboarder in Jamaica”.
It may be an exaggeration but Spain is a country where more than most people define themselves by what they do and what they want to do rather than who they are. Ambition is measured by wanting to be a civil servant because you cannot be sacked. I am sorry but it doesn’t float my boat.
So who am I and why am I an entrepreneur? From a young age I realised that I didn’t want to work for anyone else. I prefer working for a slave driver; Me. I set my own goals and start up my own businesses because I don’t like being told what to do by people that usually I consider to not have a clue. (I know this sounds arrogant but it all comes as a reaction to my first job as a trainee accountant back in the day when I could see that the medium sized company I was working in was definitely in trouble. After two weeks there I was asked to check the accounts and found that there were huge mistakes on the books. I resigned after three months) Like everyone I had to suffer the “When are you going to get a real job? questions from my parents. But when you don’t want to it is difficult to come up with a satisfying answer.
Nevertheless, I realised early on that you cannot do everything yourself. There are a limited number of hours in the day and so many things that you might want to do. At one stage in one of my businesses here in Spain there were eight people working for me in a company that had no organisation, my fault of course, but we were just too busy. It was an accident waiting to happen and eventually it did. Now I outsource and joint venture and if you keep coming back to the blog over the next few weeks you might just find out how.
Related Websites:
(Oh and by the way there is a Jamaican skier but not a Jamaican snowboarder. Go to www.errolkerr.com for details of Jamaica’s skiing legend)
And a PS: The Tagline Comes From A Tweet By @martinvars on Twitter
January 10th, 2010 on 5:41 pm
Congrats on the new site – and I love the fact that I’m the first to comment!
(By the way, I’m a Lazaraoteño snow boarder!)
Looking forward to reading more and contributing.
February 10th, 2010 on 10:28 am
Very interesting blog, shall be bookmarking and returning!
I would disagree on one significant aspect of your theme though, I find the *expat* community in Spain VERY entrepreneurial in character, and having relocated here from a commuter town in the UK home counties, where everyone was all about corporate careers, I find it incredibly refreshing!
Just by emigrating to the sun, we are part of a group of people who are creative, hardworking and open-minded enough to engineer our own lifestyles, and I have met so many people who are here doing very different things to their ‘old’ life/day-job, truly working to live rather than living to work. For me, that’s what it’s all about…
February 10th, 2010 on 1:35 pm
Thanks for the reply. I may not have explained myself well here. I live in a country, Spain, that is not at all entrepreneurial traditionally, in fact it is one of the most conservative in Europe in that sense and even a corporate career ladder is seen as risky compared with the security of being a civil servant. I agree that a lot of the expat community are very entrepreneurial, I actually produced an audiobook with interviews with English speaking entrepreneurs to show people how it can be done in so many ways.
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March 21st, 2010 on 1:19 pm
I agree- I spent a couple days researching this last week, although didn’t find as much information as you’ve displayed here. Thanks for the in-depth post, it certainly clarified a few things for me.
March 22nd, 2010 on 6:57 pm
Interesting perspective about Spain and the culture of entrepreneurship (or lack thereof). In the US there are many accidental entrepreneurs — people who have lost jobs and have taken the step to go into business for themselves because of the opportunity created by the loss (even if they tried to find another job). Your post is a good reminder that although you may be the head of the ship, you still need a good crew to help you steer.
March 22nd, 2010 on 7:13 pm
Thanks for the comment Frank. Too true in the current climate both here and in the US. I actually think that long term being an accidental entrepreneur is still better than working for the man!!
May 17th, 2010 on 11:45 am
Have just spent an interesting and enjoyable twenty minutes or so perusing your blog, which I found via a retweet from Mike@ Mikeslife. When I saw the title of this post, and some others, I began to bristle, which is, after 23 years of living in Spain, my default reaction to Briish ex-pats criticizing where they have chosen to live (why for god’s sake if you dislike it so much??), but quickly realized that your remarks are both researched and very articulate. I would be the first to agree with your analysis, but relucant to discuss it with the host of know-it-all, ex-pat wannabes or whenIs who live here in Tenerife.
I think, actually, the Canary Islands are different. I have seen more businesses set up here over the years than my 86-year-old dad has had hot dinners, and that would be set up by people of all nationalities, including Canarian/Spanish. Of course, I have also seen a huge per centage of them fail, mostly because the “entrepreneurs” were dreamers and not doers. I used to compare it to the gold rush in California. Almost everything I’ve read about that you could change around the types of business and names and make a fit. Natch, the Gold Rush is over now, was a while before La Crisis, and these days you have to be more savy or you last a shorter time and crash heavier. Of course the ex-pats blame Spain and not their own lack of enterprise, work ethic or common sense, hence my reluctance to engage in discussion with them.
Many congrats on your blog, which is well-informed, amusing and extremley readable.
May 17th, 2010 on 12:51 pm
Aw shucks Linda thanks. You may well be right about the Canaries being different. I think for some reason an island mentality encourages entrepreneurship a bit more, would love to know why! People who fail always tend to have someone or something to blame, usually external forces supposedly beyond their control. As that may or may not be the case I think that it is usually more to do with how you view those external forces.
I don’t criticise Spain in general because I love working and living here however things have to be worked around at times because the way things work is sometimes unfathomable. Telefonica are a particular bugbear. And I have a history of ranting against them on my other blog Houses For Sale in Spain.
Thanks for the well thought out comment and I look forward to hearing more from you
June 2nd, 2010 on 11:17 pm
Well, here I am trying my hand at it, by accident not choice, and keeping my fingers crossed.
Anyway, I think Spanish people are entrepreneurs, since many people work either as “autonomos” or in the so-called PYMES. But I agree with you that the obsession to become a civil servant as the only way to attain a “safe” way of living is probably killing the entreprenurial drive of Spaniards in general.
I don’t have much free time right now, not even to update my own blog, much less to read others’, but I’ll come back asap, because I like your neutral perspective. Best wishes from Green Spain
June 3rd, 2010 on 12:03 am
Thanks for the comment. I lived in Asturias for seven years. Loved it there. Good luck with the Entrepreneur stuff.