In this introductory lecture, J. Anthony Allen clarifies two foundational terms for the course: "small business" and "entrepreneur." He explains that, legally, a small business is an independently owned and operated firm that is not dominant in its market, emphasizing the subjective and fluid nature of the label. Allen then discusses the term "entrepreneur," noting the lack of a strict legal definition, its historical roots in French theatre production, and its evolving connotation beyond the classic focus on profit and service to include social and growth objectives. He outlines four business objectives—service, profit, social, and growth—and explains how modern entrepreneurs balance these goals. Allen also stresses that the two concepts overlap: anyone who starts a small business can be considered an entrepreneur, especially if they run multiple ventures. Finally, he sets expectations for the course, promising that by its end students will have filed paperwork to become small business owners.
Chapters
Okay, let's talk about a few things you should know before you get started. First, I want to define a couple of terms that we're going to be using and have already been using. Small business and entrepreneur. Let's talk about small business first. Okay, so legally, the definition of a small business is an independently owned and operated business that is not dominant in its field. So what does that mean? So an independent business. An independent business meaning you're not part of a larger conglomerate, something like that. You're your own freestanding thing, and it is not dominant in its field. Meaning, you know, if my small business is a restaurant, it's not, you know, McDonald's, it's not like the biggest thing that everyone knows. So it's a quite a subjective definition, Right? Both those two terms are fairly subjective or could be subjective, and that's fine. Small business is kind of a fluffy word. It's, you know, and it's not necessarily something we're going to even strive for. We're not going to strive to be a small business. We're going to strive to be the dominant force in our field. Right. But kind of by definition, when you start a business, it is a small business. Even if you're Henry Ford, when you first started your car company, it was a small business until it became what it is now, which is definitely not a small business. Although it's maybe getting smaller. I don't know. Okay, entrepreneur. This is a more fun word. This doesn't have a strict definition and there's no real legal definition for an entrepreneur. You are one or you're not one. It's kind of like in my world, it's kind of like musician. Like, anyone can call themselves a musician. Doesn't mean you're a good musician or a bad musician. It's just a word. But typically we think of entrepreneurs as being more motivated by money than social causes. Now, that's kind of the textbook definition, and I think it's kind of dated. So in the next section, the next kind of big section of this class, we're going to talk about objectives, like business objectives, things that you should be thinking about with your business. But one of them will be, well, basically, we're going to look at four objectives. The service objective, profit objective, social objective, and growth objective. The classic definition of entrepreneur means that they put all their weight in the service and the profit, meaning they're going to think about, first and foremost, how can I make a thing that people will buy, and how can I make a lot of money selling that thing? And perhaps the goal is to sell the company, not necessarily grow the company, but get it to a point where you can sell it to a bigger company. And again, this is a fluffy word. That's not a strict definition. And I think definition of entrepreneur is changing wildly. I wouldn't think of my. I do think of myself as an entrepreneur, but I don't think of myself as that. I think of someone who thinks about. Yeah, I think about profits and service, the thing I'm making. But I also think about social objectives and growing and all these other things too. So take that one with a grain of salt. But those are two words that we need to think about now. They work together. Right? So you are an entrepreneur. If you are starting small businesses or just one small business, you can consider yourself an entrepreneur. Even if you're taking this class, you could consider yourself an entrepreneur if you like. That is all fine. It's not the case that you are either a small business owner or an entrepreneur. I think at one time that was the case for how we just used those words in our language, but it's not really the case anymore. Someone who starts a small business is an entrepreneur. Especially if you started more than one small business or currently have more than one small business, then you are definitely an entrepreneur. The word entrepreneur comes from, I believe it comes from an old French adaptation meaning to undertake. So entrepreneur is like under undertake and not undertake, as in like the undertaker, like bring something to its death. That would be poetically brilliant if that was the origin of the word. But I don't think it is. I think it's like to undertake a venture, to start something. I think is where we, we get that word. So an entrepreneur is someone who starts things. It actually goes back to a music definition. I think the oldest use of the word that we have, if I remember right, is someone. An entrepreneur was someone who like put on plays and operas and things like that. A producer. Basically what we now call a producer of an event in kind of 18th century France. I think the word entrepreneur kind of meant that. So it was someone who mounted these big scale performances of shows and now we've kind of adapted it for the last hundred years or so to mean someone who starts businesses. So strictly speaking, that's what it means. So congratulations, you are an entrepreneur and you are very soon to be a small business owner. In fact, by the end of this course, if you're not already, you will be a small business owner because we're going to file the paperwork and do the whole bloody mess. So let's move on to a couple other things that you should know before you get started.
