Joe Procopio’s Teaching Startup: When do you call yourself an entrepreneur

Editor’s note: Veteran author, blogger and entrepreneur Joe Procopio is back with another episode in hits “Teaching Startup” video series.

DURHAM – Why do people hesitate calling themselves entrepreneurs? I meet entrepreneurs from all over the country — these are smart, ambitious, even successful people who having trouble getting the term entrepreneur to roll off the tongue. And more often than not, it’s because they feel like they don’t know enough about startup to label themselves as an entrepreneur. This is ludicrous. And it makes me furious.

But I can understand the awkwardness of it. It’s not like being a doctor or a lawyer — there’s no credentialed association to back up the fact that you studied and worked hard to become what you are. There’s also a bit of sketchiness to it, those multi-level marketing and huckster salesmen who go with entrepreneur because it gives them a showy legitimacy.

Also, people can equate being an entrepreneur with being unemployed.

So here we talk about those people who do and don’t call themselves entrepreneurs — when, why, and why it matters.

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