“Sexy” Entrepreneurship Is Overrated — Thoughts from A Jaded Entrepreneur
By: Vince Bellitti
Name an entrepreneur.
Let me guess…your first thought was Zuck. Or maybe you went Bezos and Amazon or Whitney Wolfe Herd and Bumble.
All great choices. But why is it that we always gravitate towards the iconic, tech company founders? Tech is hot, for sure. The valuations are massive. The growth is explosive. In turn, the founders are essentially celebrities. We all aspire to be them.
But is that the ONLY way to be an entrepreneur?
I’d argue it’s not. In fact, I’d say it’s the least common way and overlooks the company growing and wealth building triumphs of many people who never came close to making a Forbes list that I’d still consider to be highly successful entrepreneurs.
That time I started a tech company
I started my career as a consultant in Deloitte’s Commercial Strategy and Operations division. Naturally, when I told my parents literally 11 months into being a consultant that I was quitting to start an EdTech company, they flipped out. My friends, too, told me I was an idiot. But I didn’t care. I was smart. I knew what I was doing. I was passionate about EdTech. It was sexy. It was cool. I was going to change the world.
Spoiler alert: I didn’t.
Two and a half years and a bunch of wasted money later, we shut down our flashy, “big data aggregating” (*insert additional buzz word here*) EdTech company. I was crushed.
Don’t get me wrong! I learned a ton, it changed my career trajectory, and I don’t regret it. But, deep down, I felt like a failure. I had always wanted to be an entrepreneur. It felt like one of my lifelong dreams was gone for good. I was never going to be one of those flashy, cool, tech entrepreneurs (though I’m sure those of you who know me well will say that I was never going to be cool, anyway).
Then my entire perspective on entrepreneurship and business changed
At that point, my father asked me to join the family business my grandfather started in 1964. We’re a retail and compounding pharmacy in NJ. Not going to lie, I laughed at him. Never in a million years did I think I’d end up in the small business world. Yet here I am.
Now, you’re probably wondering, “what does your family’s knockoff CVS have to do with entrepreneurship?” Fair question. Well, despite the weird looks I get when people at the pharmacy ask me if I’m currently an undergrad in pharmacy school and I say, “actually I’m 31 and have an engineering degree”, I’m more of an entrepreneur now than I ever was when raising money and running a startup.
I created an e-commerce shop and built a distribution center at the pharmacy; we now ship supplements, CBD, and natural products all around the country every week. I grew our combined email and social media presence to over 20,000 followers and subscribers. Not bad for a small, family pharmacy in NJ. When our main retail business went through 3 consecutive years of negative NOI and almost shut down, I took over operations and improved our NOI by over 200% within 1 year, making the once failing company sustainably profitable again. Once the business recovered, I began to pull myself out of the day-to-day operations. I used that time to start investing in real estate and now own and manage a few rental properties. I plan on using my MBA to raise a fund to buy another small business to run while continuing to build a real estate company, running the pharmacy from a distance, and eventually investing in other companies with the goal of accumulating assets.
Does any of that make me an entrepreneur? Maybe. I certainly have a long way to go and many things I can do better. But why do we care so much about that label? Why, particularly in the world of elite business schools, do we have such a narrow view of what it means to be an “entrepreneur”? Better yet why are we functionally “gatekeeping” the definition of success in the business world?
Perhaps its human nature, but many of us view “success” in business and entrepreneurship through the subjective lens of prestige and what’s “en vogue” more than objective measurements like ROI and scope of impact.
To me, business and entrepreneurship are less about “changing the world” and the accolades of “scaling a unicorn” and more about building wealth through smart, simple business and leaving a legacy. PS: Doing that is what will put you in a position to make a larger impact on the world in the long-term.
Is the flashy tech unicorn founder an entrepreneur? 100%.
But so is the small business owner. So is the rental property investor. So is your plumber. So is the farmer whose vegetables you buy at Trader Joe’s. Don’t devalue something just because it doesn’t sound cool. Better yet, don’t turn down an opportunity to do something that makes sense just because it doesn’t sound cool!
To wrap this rambling up and step down from my soapbox, here are a few observations from my roller coaster of decade.
Conclusion: Lessons, observations, and advice
Entrepreneurship isn’t sexy. Honestly, there are plenty of times it straight-up sucks. Anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar. That said, it’s also given me the most challenging, intellectually stimulating, and rewarding moments in my career.
Boring is beautiful. I’m not anti-tech. Obviously software companies are much easier to scale, have lower barriers to entry, etc. But the fact that “sexy” tech startups are literally all we talk about in school means that EVERYONE is looking at that space with blinders on. Sounds a lot to me like that Red Ocean thing I hear our Strategy professors talking about. Sure, some businesses are about as interesting as watching paint dry. But, once you dig into some of those companies, they have cash flow off the charts AND still have desirable exit opportunities. I’m not saying one thing is better than the other. I’m saying don’t discount something because it sounds boring. You know what’s not boring? Making money.
Keep It Simple Stupid. Common sense is underrated in the entrepreneurship world. You don’t need to reinvent the wheel or do something complex to be a successful entrepreneur.
“What did you do to put a dollar into your pocket today?” No idea who said that. Wish I could remember and thank that person because it’s the best advice I’ve ever heard. That’s literally all entrepreneurship is: figuring out how you can make a dollar every day. Better entrepreneurs create systems to do that more efficiently and at greater scale. The best entrepreneurs find great people to use their systems to do it for them.
If I can take that analogy further: “what did you do today to put yourself where you want to be in 5 years?” If you’re not intentionally trying to choose your career and life every day, you’ll wake up in 5 years and someone else will have chosen your life for you. Personally, that’s what drives me. I try to ask myself those questions every day to keep myself honest, focus on work that matters, and filter out time wasting crap that isn’t going to help me progress.
Interact with people smarter than you who are going to make you better. There are some incredible people here at Stern, but you need to find the specific people who inspire you. Find the people who, after an hour of chatting, make you feel like an Energizer Bunny. Get beers with them, start something with them, or talk about the future over coffee. Those are the people who will push you to be the best version of yourself. Time is a valuable commodity. Pour your energy into friendships and relationships that will push you forward and not those that will keep you stagnant. That’s what I love about ESA, PEVC, and the Search Fund squad. We’re here to help push each other to succeed, together.
FINALLY…
If you want to be an entrepreneur, go be an entrepreneur. Don’t be a follower. Don’t go be a consultant because that’s easy and that’s what everyone else is doing. Not that I’m judging consultants (too much). I was one. If you really and truly want to be a consultant or banker or a marketer at a pharma company, that’s cool! Ignore everything I’ve said. But if you really want to be an entrepreneur or venture capitalist or whatever, that generic corporate job isn’t going to get you there. We’re young. We’re in school. We’ll never have a better time than right now to take a risk. Get out there, get messy, fail fast, and make it happen.
Vince Bellitti is an MBA1 at Stern and current part-owner at HB Pharmacy, a retail and compounding pharmacy in New Jersey. He also started gasparsbest.com, an e-commerce website for health and wellness that leverages the pharmacy to provide nutrition services and natural products to patients around the country. Prior to this, Vince co-founded CareerPeer, an education technology platform for undergraduate students, and is a former Commercial Strategy and Operations Analyst at Deloitte Consulting. He can be reached at vincent.bellitti@stern.nyu.edu.
