Self made successful businessman / entrepreneurs are cooks?

[spooderman]

As title - self made (rags to riches) businessman AKA entrepreneurs, are crooks, partial to being so, or have been so at some point.

Considering that legitimate new business ventures are favoured to fail, successful new businesses rely on serious innovation involving new inventions or ideas which require luck or ingenuity, or having a large amount of initial capital to undercut competition.

How does one legitimately generate wealth without underhand dealings? My brain can comprehend little scope for this in the current period of time when civilisation is well established. Talk to me.

[Ilovetwiglets]

Cooks or crooks?

[spooderman]

Ilovetwiglets said:

Cooks or crooks?

Cocks.

[Eric Mc]

Some are both.

[Monkeylegend]

Not all of them.

[Eric Mc]

Hence the use of the word "some".

[ModernAndy]

spooderman said:

How does one legitimately generate wealth without underhand dealings? My brain can comprehend little scope for this in the current period of time when civilisation is well established. Talk to me.

there are still plenty of opportunities in many different areas and pretty much the same lack of shortcuts as before as I see it. Very few people who are rich (lets just say worth a couple of million plus at the moment as rich is a very subjective term) get rich overnight (or even with a decade probably), most 'entrepreneurs' spend a good long time delving into businesses and figuring out what works and doesn't work. I do know the odd person who has struck gold early but they are very much the minority.

If it's any help; we're apparently now in the connection economy so a lot of the businesses attracting investment and making big bucks are involved in connecting people and making things easier to find/organise through technology, e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Google, thetrainline.com, Linkedin, etc.

[Monkeylegend]

Eric Mc said:

Hence the use of the word "some".

I should have clarified my post, it was referring to the misspelt thread title not a comment on yours I know some entrepreneurs who are not chefs.

[sone]

When I see some new business's particularly in retail (as it's more transparent) I appreciate how basically naive some people are. I mean a shop opened near to me recently possibly 1000sq ft, selling crystals. There is no parking within 5 or 600yards, I'd imagine the target audience is fairly thinly spread, how on earth did they expect this to work out? They could have done this from a garden shed and had more chance on mail order. It was open for maybe 5-6 months.

So sorry I went off the thread there but in answer to the Op I'd say absolutely not. I run my own fairly successful business we trade by the rules, we pay our taxes both corporation and personal on time and in full. It is or would be very difficult to defraud the powers that be in our industry and get away with it for very long. I know plenty of people who are just like us and don't dread a knock on the door from the authorities.

Maybe its a case of those that have tried and failed would rather shout foul play than admit their own inadequacies or plain bad luck.

[Simpo Two]

spooderman said:

As title - self made (rags to riches) businessman AKA entrepreneurs, are crooks, partial to being so, or have been so at some point

They simply have different abilities from PAYE-jockeys.

[BJG1]

spooderman said:

As title - self made (rags to riches) businessman AKA entrepreneurs, are crooks, partial to being so, or have been so at some point.

Considering that legitimate new business ventures are favoured to fail, successful new businesses rely on serious innovation involving new inventions or ideas which require luck or ingenuity, or having a large amount of initial capital to undercut competition.

How does one legitimately generate wealth without underhand dealings? My brain can comprehend little scope for this in the current period of time when civilisation is well established. Talk to me.

Some people are just cleverer than you.

[Simpo Two]

[Jasandjules]

BJG1 said:

Some people are just cleverer than you.

Actually, I've known a couple and they are not hugely intelligent. One or two I know were lucky as hell, right place, right time. Not bright as such.

[sone]

Jasandjules said:

BJG1 said:

Some people are just cleverer than you.

Actually, I've known a couple and they are not hugely intelligent. One or two I know were lucky as hell, right place, right time. Not bright as such.

I'd agree with this but that said some while not particularly achedemic are often very focused on what they do or perhaps have natural flair. With regard luck I think every business needs a bit of that.
Many fail as they see all the money coming through the front door as their own!!

[singlecoil]

Jasandjules said:

BJG1 said:

Some people are just cleverer than you.

Actually, I've known a couple and they are not hugely intelligent. One or two I know were lucky as hell, right place, right time. Not bright as such.

Luck is the single most important factor in success in the way in which the OP means it.

After they have had the luck, they will tell you about the hard work that was the real reason, but it wasn't.

Hard work and no luck = failure. Hard work and luck = success.

[Countdown]

Doing something you enjoy doing for money and having the self-imposed drive to do it to the best of your ability is the first step. Being able to do it better than everybody else is the second step.

[Simpo Two]

singlecoil said:

Luck is the single most important factor in success in the way in which the OP means it.

After they have had the luck, they will tell you about the hard work that was the real reason, but it wasn't.

Hard work and no luck = failure. Hard work and luck = success.

Note the famous golfer who, when congratulated on his good luck, remarked that the more he practiced the luckier he got. Yes, some luck - for example the sales lead that turns into £10K - is helpful but you can't beat knowing your market, having the right product at the right price, and being able to market it and sell it. Get all that right and some luck is more likely to follow!

[singlecoil]

Simpo Two said:

singlecoil said:

Luck is the single most important factor in success in the way in which the OP means it.

After they have had the luck, they will tell you about the hard work that was the real reason, but it wasn't.

Hard work and no luck = failure. Hard work and luck = success.

Note the famous golfer who, when congratulated on his good luck, remarked that the more he practiced the luckier he got. Yes, some luck - for example the sales lead that turns into £10K - is helpful but you can't beat knowing your market, having the right product at the right price, and being able to market it and sell it. Get all that right and some luck is more likely to follow!

Most successful businesses are based on predicting the future in one way or another. For instance, it's useless having the right product at the right price if the next day someone suddenly turns up with a better product at the same price, or the same product at a lower price.

You can only know what you are going to do, you can't know what your competition are going to do. Whether your competition are at any critical point stronger or weaker than you is a matter of luck, because you have no control over what they are doing.

To take the golfing example above, no matter how much he practices, he won't win the tournament if someone turns up who is better than he is, either all the time, or just on the day.

I won't claim that someone can be successful with just luck and only medium work (although I have personally known that to happen), but I will claim that nobody can be successful without good luck.

[Birkin1932]

singlecoil said:

Luck is the single most important factor in success in the way in which the OP means it.

After they have had the luck, they will tell you about the hard work that was the real reason, but it wasn't.

Hard work and no luck = failure. Hard work and luck = success.

I totally disagree with, LUCK.

Success comes from hard work. When I started 25 years ago I can remember working 20 hour days to make up for staff I could not afford because I was paying for machinery etc. Once machinery was paid for I staffed up and the business moved on.

I always kept ahead of my competition, always. That wasn't luck it was talent.

LUCK??


Nahhhhh.

[singlecoil]

Denial isn't just a river in Africa.