There exists a common belief that entrepreneurs commonly start businesses in garages (or basements or dorm rooms or kitchens). The garage entrepreneur is a highly popular contemporary legend, but not quite accurate. An emergent notion in academic research is that entrepreneurs are often organizational products. They typically acquire confidence, business knowledge, and social connections via prior experience at existing organizations. These psychological and social resources aid entrepreneurs in forming companies.Although the belief of the garage entrepreneur contributes to the preservation of the American ideals of opportunity and upward social mobility, it offers misleading insights to would-be entrepreneurs because it suggests an undersocialized view of the entrepreneurial process. Individuals, companies, policy makers, and business schools will benefit from recasting the garage as a contemporary legend and focusing instead on the lessons that can be derived from an understanding of entrepreneurs as organizational products.
via Ken Dyck from Paul Kedrosky.
Photo by sylvar.
OPMLRender at Jason Ruyle on February 22nd, 2006 at 5:52 am
[...] I am in the process of learning the wordpress system This is a test of the opmlrender script OPMLRender(‘http://www.business-opportunities.biz/feed/’,’3’,’page’); [...]
A garage entrepreneur on April 3rd, 2008 at 9:43 am
I know a garage entrepreneur. He remodels garages!
Anyway, I see your point, however I think the garage entrepreneur image simply means that somebody is willing to leave a secure, conventional job with little resources in order to pursue a dream. Its actually pretty inspiring and most successful entres that I know started off really small in a garage or small room in their house.
Cheers