What’s a Wantrepreneur?

Hank Clark
3 min readDec 12, 2017
Gary Vaynerchuk

Entrepreneur or Wantrepreneur? A wantrepreneur is someone who wants to be an entrepreneur and is faking be an entrepreneur. Gary Vaynerchuk is someone who embodies being an entrepreneur. He’s done it ever since he was 6, ripping up flowers and selling them back to the owners. Real entrepreneurs know how to spot the wantreprenuers.

This article from Entrepreneur.com explains the difference in greater detail. Gary says that , “Entrepreneurs have become rockstarts like athletes and musicians.” The fame is what draws people to wanting entrepreneurship. However, “Being an entrepreneur is like eating glass and staring into the abyss of death.” — Elon Musk. It’s difficult to make something from nothing. If you’re the number 1 it’s all your fault when you fail. Wantrepreneurs can’t handle that failure. It’s not in their nature to be able to handle it.

Elon Musk

All of this is to say, I didn’t know (and still don’t really know) what I want to do for a living. I decided starting my own business would be perfect. Why not right? I get to choose what I want to do, how I do it, and I get all of the results. That’s when I really started consuming Gary Vaynerchuk’s content. He’s the best at conveying who he is through his audio, video, and written content. He’s convinced me that he will be one of the iconic entrepreneur’s in the end.

Gary constantly hammers empathy, humility, patience, hustle, and most importantly SELF-AWARENESS. This is what stuck out to me, he always says the number 8 at Facebook is a lot more successful than if they were the number 1 of their own business that they couldn’t handle. This struck a chord within me.

When I look back at my childhood, did I try to sell lemonade? Did I try to sell anything? No. No I didn’t. I wasn’t meant to be a salesman. So I had to take a step back. What am I good at and what do I like to do? I like to make people smile and I’m happiest when I’m giving other people joy. I’m good at solving problems when I know what the result is supposed to look like. For example, when I’m writing a program most people don’t have the patience to sit down if the program won’t work. I once worked 5 hours, without seeking assistance, to create the functioning program. So when I ask myself am I in the position to start my own business?

Gary’s advice to 20 year olds

My answer is not yet. I haven’t had enough experiences to start my own business. My life is 20% complete. I can work for 10 years and then audit what I learned. Like I said, when I know what the end result is supposed to look like I will work as long as possible. So for now, patience. I haven’t had my idea for the business. Maybe I won’t ever get that idea, but I plan on spending time with people who need someone like me to help put their idea into practice. To all the wantrepreneurs out there: “Audit yourself and make sure you know what it is you’re really good at.”

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Hank Clark
Hank Clark

Written by Hank Clark

Goofball, optimistic, and down-to-earth. I’m going to be a consistent, profitable trader by 2025. I like to talk soccer, gaming, business, fly fishing, golf.

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