It seems strange to keep a diary as an entrepreneur, which is thought to be a career that is all-consuming. But I made the resolution to not get lost in my work, leaving enough space for inspiration and reflection, next to all the getting things done.

Inspiration, aka new ideas or thinking out of the box, primarily comes from taking time to have new experiences and meeting new people. It’s too easy to get stuck in a rut when spending 9 to 5 in an office. Reflection comes some time after getting things done and so my words today will be mostly about stuff that happened some time ago, during 2009 in fact.

You’ll often find pre-/post-/non-entrepreneurs arguing about whether e’ship is something you’re born with. I think it’s arrogant to argue either way. E’ship is the pursuit of opportunity weighed against the opportunity cost of pursuing something else. Entrepreneurs are not formed in pre-school, running a lemonade stand, it just makes sense at a particular time and environment. And in this case… it made sense to me.

Flashback December 31st 2008. I received a call from an inventor that had read about a previous experience of mine in a technology business and asked me to help him with the business plan for a new venture exploiting a similar technology. As it was something that appealed to me I said yes. The project turned out ok, we secured seed funding to develop the technology, and I moved to Luxembourg for a job in finance, while staying on as a silent advisor in the tech startup.

Flashforward 9 months. The startup was finally ready to demo the technology which had so far only existed in our heads. It’s an important qualifier, not only for our business partners and investor, but also for the team and myself. While we had discussed something similar before, it was at this point that I was asked and considered to run this company.

To go back to “what makes an entrepreneur,” you’ll often read about entrepreneurs being a. all-invested in a venture (as opposed to investors, who diversify their risks across multiple investments) and b. Entrepreneurs having to make (relatively) calculated risk decisions. And that is what I did, I made an, as much as possible, rational decision whether I wanted to commit fulltime to being an entrepreneur in this venture. So that was my decision process, which required serious thought, consultation with friends and family, and more.

End of part 1. In part 2, what are the responsibilities of an entrepreneur. You can read all my e’diaries from now on under the tag Vincent’s ediary. If you have questions, obviously I’m pretty mysterious about our business, post a comment or mail me via the address on the right.

Related posts:

1. E’ship diary part 3: Why I don’t like the term ‘entrepreneurship’
2. The role of Sunk Costs in Strategic Decision Making—a European’s perspective
3. An e’diary part 2: what are the responsibilities of an entrepreneur
4. E’Ship Diary Part 4: what to pay attention to when starting a business
5. In response to Guy Kawasaki's "VC Wishlist": The Entrepreneur Wishlist