Just because someone owns a business, doesn’t mean that person is an entrepreneur. Not by a long shot.
If you’ve followed any of Noah Kagan’s work, you’ve likely heard him throw around the term “wantrepreneur”.
By Kagan’s definition, a wantrepreneur “is someone who spends time and money on everything except creating a real business. They get distracted by all of the shiny objects around them and they never turn their idea into a successful and sustainable business.”
What differentiates a Nontrepreneur from wantrepreneur is that the former at least puts some thought and effort into what they believe will work.
To make things quick and easy, here’s a list of traits and anti-qualities one can commonly detect in nontrepreneurs:
They (sincerely) believe doing business is a zero-sum game — their wiring dictates that in order for them to win at business, their customers must lose.
They’ll cut every corner they can to pocket a few pennies.
They’ll always step over dollars to pick up dimes.
When the need to generate more money arises, they always default to raising prices instead of creating upsell / value-add programs, cutting unnecessary fat or improving their marketing systems.
Speaking of marketing, unless they’re “getting it free” on social media, most Nontrepreneurs are deathly allergic to it. They see paid ads as the biggest waste of money out there.
When you try to explain how keying ads is an effective way to measure how profitable marketing actually is, the Nontrepreneur’s eyes gloss over, because “now you’re making business hard”.
If there’s one thing many Nontrepreneurs really LOVE, it’s hearing new (yet proven) ideas that could help them grow by leaps and bounds…and then doing absolutely nothing.
When a nontrepreneur has to choose between watching his favorite football team play and working on a deal that could save his struggling “business”…his choice will automatically be dictated by the available balance he has left on his credit cards.
^^^ #9 ^^^
10. If someone was born into a business or inherited it, proceed with caution.
11. Nontrepreneurs respond to buyer inquiries within days. Entrepreneurs respond within minutes.
12. Nontrepreneurs think responding too quickly makes them look desperate, entrepreneurs have scripts and systems in place to make rapid responses come across as a valuable service and rapidly establish trust.
13. When the going gets tough, you can count on a Nontrepreneur to take cover and wait for the storm to ride itself out.
14. Wishing life was ‘easier’ is their favorite pastime.
15. Entrepreneurs spend countless hours reading and studying. Nontrepreneurs spend endless hours playing Fortnite.
16. If you make an appointment to meet with a Nontrepreneur, you might as well show up at least 30 minutes late — they certainly will.
As the list laid out here makes clear, Nontrepreneurs are little more than dreamers. In fact, their dreams are so low-bar they don’t even qualify as legitimate dreams.
If you’re hoping to launch a business of your own, simply start by the doing the opposite of everything described here and you’re kicking things off well ahead of the pack.
You don’t even have to be the smartest person out there or have the most refined systems in place — if you’re willing to do more than what you see listed, success will favor you over time.