Vincent Chia on the Entrepreneur

About a month ago, BL wrote an article on sgentrepreneurs.blogspot.com reflecting on another that Vincent Chia, Co-Founder of Oaktree Research, wrote in Today Online. Vincent has responded to this article via an email sent to me and in the following, you can read his thoughts on certain fundamental issues that concerns the entrepreneur.

Dear Editor,

Appreciate if you could kindly post my reply, since I do not have a blogger account. I trust that as the original author, I am entitled to my two cents reply?

http://sgentrepreneurs.blogspot.com/2005/08/can-entrepreneurs-be-mass-produced-by.html

I certainly appreciate the Post by BL and I certainly appreciate that views on Entrepreneurship are wide-ranging and rather diverse. Let me just focus on two points in my reply which I trust will help anyone who reads this crystalise their ideas on entrepreneurship.

1) Entrepreneur as a Concert Pianist

I like this analogy, because it is very apt. Do all of us may have it in us to be a Concert Pianist? For those without talent, can hours of slogging on the piano make the difference? And if you play the piano, you would certainly appreciate the difference between playing a piece of music and expressing it. Also, the difference between a pianist with talent and a pianist without is just huge. If you disagree, just try any Beethoven piano sonata. In this same vein, we may all develop the skillsets that a good entrepreneur has. But does that mean we can all become good entrepreneurs?

2) Entrepreneur vs Businessmen

The key to any good debate is a proper definition of the terms of the debate. I have chosen to define Entrepreneurs and Businessmen as such to allow us to clearly face the issues. A lack of fixation over the common connotations of these terms would clear the confusion over the matter. An Entrepreneur creates something new through innovation and builds this into a competitive advantage. This competitive advantage gives him sustainability. This is the clear message as to what the “ideal” Entrepreneur should be doing. The other extreme is the Businessman, who is opportunistic and short term. As with any two extremes in life, it is not about being one or the other, but rather to ascertain relative percentages. It is only when we have defined the two extremes, can we say that Mr X is 80% an Entrepreneur and 20% a Businessman.

Trust these two points clarify my views expressed in the article. Appreciate if you could keep me updated on previous posts.

Cheers,
Vincent

Co-Founder
Oaktree Research
www.oaktree-research.com