Where do entrepreneurs come from?

How do an entrepreneur’s parents parent? How do you parent an entrepreneur? Does this guy know?

100 million businesses are launched annually, according to Global Entrepeneurship Monitor’s (GEM) Global Report.That’s more than three businesses every second, or 11,000 per hour. Check out this really cool chart with live stats. You might find different numbers, but all are notable. As are the number of failures (apparently 9 out of 10 fail), but that’s for another post.

I’m interested in the spirit of these entrepreneurs. It’s not an easy path, often. There can be big successes and also dramatic failures. It requires resilience and grit, as well as creativity. Not to mention a great idea.

How did they come to be that way? Is it nature or nurture, or a combination of both? Can parents raise kids to be entrepreneurs? I wonder if there are parents who are raising their children today with the intention of leading them down a path toward entrepreneurship. Where, instead of force-feeding traditional paths, like becoming a doctor or lawyer or following in mom or dad’s footsteps, parents start planting the seeds of being a self starter.

Richard Branson, high school dropout and founder of the Virgin brand, has written about his parents and all he learned from them. Their inventiveness and ingenuity impacted him deeply. They taught him to live fearlessly and without regret, tremendous skills for an entrepreneur.

It could be generational. Younger parents today see the explosion of new businesses, young millionaires and possibilities abounding may indeed lead their children in a similar direction.

Are entrepreneur parents more likely to have children that make similar choices? It’s likely. We find role models around us, and if our parents lead lives we admire, we may choose to be like them.

Children of factory workers or lifetime employees know a different reality. You go to work, you come home, you do it again. That’s what people do.

There are lots of questions and ideas are floating around in my brain on this. It may require further exploration.