Science Says Entrepreneurs are 'Made', Not Born. But There's a Catch

Entrepreneurs are made, and sometimes they go through hell and back and personal transformations. They are not superhuman like many will have you believe, but they are just like you and me.

Entrepreneurs, social psychologist and economists have often wondered whether entrepreneurs are born or made, and whether you’re biases towards one answer says a lot about you. In other words, whether your genetic makeup is the common factor, or the fact that you’re just more hard-working than the rest of the population, will speak for your entrepreneurial capabilities.

Or is it because of external circumstances?

Maybe there really is something called an entrepreneurial DNA, and people are made that way because of the way that they’ve been born and brought up. Maybe that DNA switches on late in life, as the entrepreneurial bug catches on. Research may be tending towards the fact that entrepreneurs are made and not born, and this is causing some confusion in the start-up community. Is it really all about nature vs nurture?

The research behind the question

There have been multiple studies that have attempted to answer this question and pick a side to ease the arguments. In the debate there are have certain studies conducted on twins to figure out whether both displayed a tendency towards entrepreneurship.

There was also a study that attempted to answer the question via looking at entrepreneurial tendencies as a whole. It was done by researcher S. Shane who looked at 100s of pairs of twins and found that the identical twins had a much greater penchant for shared entrepreneurial tendencies. This is a revolutionary piece of information as it has changed the way people look at risk aversion when the controlling party doesn’t have shared beliefs.

There’s another study done by taking a look at the molecular genetics of the person and tracing their genes to 4 entrepreneurial traits. These traits increase the odds of you becoming an entrepreneur. According to the research, the are -

1. Likelihood of initiating a venture. A certain gene pair can influence the probability of starting a business.

2. Identification of new opportunities. When a certain gene is activated it can showcase more tendencies towards opportunity identification.

3. Self-employment tendency. It could have a hereditary component to it.

4. Extroversion tendencies. If you are motivated enough to talk to people and you are ‘in-the-zone’ when pitching and selling.

Where the research stops its analysis

So, what’s the catch? Well it's simple. These studies and countless others, have looked at surveys considering entrepreneurs in a group. There are no studies measuring the variance in success of these entrepreneurs.

This is why the data isn’t correctly analysing entrepreneurial tendencies, its analysing how people jump into the entrepreneurial bandwagon. There needs to be a study that only looks at successful businesses.

In fact, one of the few indicators of entrepreneurial success is the fact that the entrepreneur was successful in a previous business. This has been demonstrated by a Stanford study that looked at 3 million small business to figure out the rate of success.

It was clear that there was a causation factor behind the fact that if you’ve run a successful business before, then you’re more likely to run another one towards growth.

Therefore, just because you may have a higher genetic likelihood that you are an entrepreneur, it doesn’t mean that you will/won’t start a business. It doesn’t even increase or decrease your chances.

It may just be a coincidence or a push factor among dozens of others. If you’re in an entrepreneurial environment, say at school or in a community, then you may have the confidence to start one off the ground, but leading it towards success will be another journey altogether.

The questions we must ask ourselves

Are entrepreneurs born or made? And why is it that we care? We don’t need to care, really, about the fact that entrepreneurs or born this way or made from fire. And are those that are both born entrepreneurial and face a lot of chances, more likely to succeed?

Its an impossible question to ask because we’re such poor representors of information ourselves. We think we know who we are, and what decisions we have made. But 7/10 times you won’t even remember the exact reason why you started your own venture.

It’s a tricky situation when we start to categorize all entrepreneurs into one bucket. Entrepreneurs are people, at the end of the day, and they have desires, wishes and goals just like all of us. In fact, a better determinant of entrepreneurial success could be Grit, or Work-ethic.

If we have all the support in the world and have access to the best advice, mentorship and leadership, we can still fail miserably. That’s why very few second-generation entrepreneurs come out with brilliant ideas and breath-taking innovations. It’s a process that’s long, arduous and requires sacrifice.

Entrepreneurship may be made by the test of will, but if you’re not predisposed to being comfortable in being uncomfortable, you have to change your persona fast. This is because the challenges mount up as you proceed along the ladder of success.

What does it all mean for us?

It means that we don’t need to worry whether our genes will hurt or help us. Whenever science comes out with a report or a study, we must always question its assumptions and apply them to our lives. We might find that they’re totally bogus and don’t help us in any way.

That’s why it’s important to have a community and a mentor that you admire, so that you can pickup real-world examples and learn from their lessons. We need to think long-term and not ask ourselves why our genes are the way they are.

Conclusion

Unless there’s proof about the assumptions behind scientific studies, we may need to take them with a grain of salt. We need to not undermine ourselves because our genes are weak, but pride ourselves in working hard and being strategic.