A 2007 report by the UK Higher Education Academy entitled “Creating Entrepreneurship: entrepreneurship for the creative industries” discusses Stereotypes of entrepreneurs.

“The story of the industrial revolution is characterised by the shaping of our social, economic and physical landscape by a few highly successful industries. Mining, engineering and manufacturing are large scale and highly visible and tend to be rigidly hierarchical with few entrepreneurs at the pinnacle of each enterprise. In trade particularly world trade, the focus is on a few pioneers who opened new trade routes in the Empire or explorer-engineers who built railways, roads and plantations. Then there is the parallel model of the great scientist-inventor, the technological innovator, often successful in business but just as often a tragic figure battling in a world of small minded conservative financiers to materialise their vision, a vision with the advantage of hindsight seems self evident. The currency of these stereotypes is also reflected in the popularity of contemporary TV shows about entrepreneurship such as The Apprentice and Dragons Den.”

There is an alternative view of Entrepreneurs that I would like to suggest. It is one where start up’s are more common place. These start ups are driven by the Internet and Creative Industries. They vary between being content driven and technology driven ideas. They reach customers with the help of clever social network marketing strategies. Instead of being just a few super high value entrepreneurs there are many smaller scale entrepreneurs.

We looked at two inspirational videos: the first one is an attempt at definition of Entrepreneur and a call to arms. The second one is truly famous already and will probably be played for decades. It is Steve Jobs speech at Stanford graduation ceremony in 2005. It is a very personal speech and one that is very personal. Probably the start point for every would be entrepreneur is a deeply personal story. What is yours?