The Extreme Entrepreneurs
Despite all the business hoopla about enabling an entrepreneurial spirit, the fact
remains -- even more so with that other great business process euphemistically called "resizing" -- that very few employees
trust that their involvement in a failed corporate venture will be anything but their ticket out the door.
This creates a corporate need for a risk-taking pros... specialists who can maximize
the chance for success, nurture the fledgling operation, and take the "hit," if there is anything less than a "Bingo!"
These are times for Extreme Entrepreneurs
The Extreme Entrepreneurs, "Extremes," possess qualities not found in career management...
even a career managers who has undertaken intrapreneurial endeavors. The difference is "Skin." And that's all
the difference in the world!
Career intrapreneurs always walk the risk/reward tight-rope with a safety net. If
a venture fails, the firm takes the financial hit. Any loss to the intrapreneurs is in the future... future promotions,
earnings, or whatever. No career intrapreneur ever directly lost hard-earned accumulated wealth because of a failed
venture. To an intrapreneurs, the "manana" of true potential wealth is as diaphianous as their "skin" investment is
epithelial.
Extreme Entrepreneurs, however, never have the luxury of a safety-net. They cut their
teeth chomping on their own cash... and have learned to respect it so many ways, all of which benefits their next gig.
Even with investors, Extremes have skin -- layers of skin -- in the "game," for a loss does not translate solely into
a future loss, but a present one as well: An opportunity cost for sure... and most likely a personal wealth loss as
well.
The Extremes are pathmakers, not path followers... pioneers, not settlers. For them
breathing life into any nacent concept is everything. Using muliple skill sets, they have usually been involved in numerous
ventures, often in many industries from high tech business-to-business through no-tech, business to comsumer. Extremes
view the challenging tests of each new venture as the lessons for the next. And they make it their lives building
resources libraries and obtaining obscure insights that some day may spark their next creative concept or solution.
Therefore, Extremes should only be deployed in ventures that have never been attempted,
unsuccessfully completed, or are too "risky" for career intrapreneurs... not for "copy-cat" launches.
Extreme Entrepreneurs are to business, what basic researchers are to science. They
are specialist seasoned in conceiving, gestating and birthing a self-sufficient business or business unit under any financial
condition.
For this reason, it makes extreme sense to deploy the savvy and temperament of Extreme Entrepreneurs
to lead your next, uncharted, business expedition.
John Sottile
