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Are You an Unemployable Entrepreneur?
Despite years of grinding, perhaps I am — ironically — unemployable.
In my experience as a startup founder, mentor, investor and advisor, I’ve met three different kinds of entrepreneurs: the ideas person, the opportunist and the fundamentally unemployable. I’ve written and spoken about this issue a number of times, and whenever I get to the last category, people often laugh. To make the point, I usually include a photo of myself on the unemployable slide, and lay out the reality that I’m an entrepreneur because I had no other options.
It’s funny because people think it’s self-deprecating and untrue. I’m happy to be the butt of the joke to make this important point. Millions of people around the world run businesses that are their family’s only viable source of income, predicated on their inability to find salaried employment. I have as much respect for them as I do for billionaire founders (and perhaps more).
But what if, after 20+ years of experience I am actually, really, unemployable? I was determined to find out.
The last few years have been challenging professionally, to say the least. After my startup Onward failed I fell into depression combined with some health issues. This further exacerbated the time and distance that had grown between my thriving gamification & public speaking work, and my…
