True entrepreneurs are similar to Artists

Artists don't make paintings. Authors don't write books. Designers don't design logos. They extract meaning from something  that is banal. They bring a new view and make us see something meaningful in our ordinary acts. They make meaningful experiences happen. @

Entrepreneurs do not manufacture products. Entrepreneurs do not run their companies to make money. Entrepreneurs do not solve problems of human mankind. Entrepreneurs add value where there is none. Entrepreneurs find a new meaning in an obscure product or business and lend their own meaning converting ordinary products and businesses into extra-ordinary, like Richard Branson, Steve Jobs or Narayan Murthy.  

If entrepreneurs were only doing business to make money, they would be working in jobs. Why would they risk anything more? They run their own companies because they are like artists, lending their own meaning to life. We may not agree with their meaning, or may not even like the commercialisation of some value they bring, but their unique contribution to our lives is their ability to show a ' meaningful view' that we cannot see on our own. 

We see business as a commercially driven activity where money, customers and market rule. But even amidst this commercial activity, these entrepreneurs bring in something  that we cherish and value in life. Observe these entrepreneurs bringing in completely different set of meaning to their business ventures. Steve Jobs brought in design, Narayan Murthy brought in values in business while Ricardo Semler brought in a new way of 'democratizing business without managers' in the most difficult economy of Brazil.

After they do it , we wonder how we missed it. When Richard Sears made his chain of retail stores, no one knew that it could spawn a new way of shopping. Or when Ray Kroc, at the age of 52, started Mcdonalds, we thought it is so simple to do it.  Or when Larry Page & Sergie Brin started Google with no revenue model for their technically excellent 'search engine', we thought that business cannot be done with technical excellence alone.

For every famous entrepreneur we hear, we also know many others who are doing the same at a smaller scale and size. We do not hear about them in newspapers, but i meet plenty of them in the towns and small cities. Whatever their scale or size, every entrepreneur, if he is true to his being, brings this meaning to an otherwise mundane activity of business. Like Mumbai based dabbawallas helping normal man eat their home food at a rate that was not affordable. Like an entrepreneur who teaches a graduate class to pass the toughest civil services exam with a success rate of 80%. Or a tyre puncture repairer, who repairs a tyre and gives a guarantee after his repair. Or an entrepreneur who manages websites of schools on build and operate basis. Or a corporate trainer who synthesises spirituality with business activities and lends them different meaning. 

Salute to this rare breed of human beings, who like artists, are rare. Like artists, they flow against the current. And follow their convictions even when the society around them tells that they are mistaken. Salute to true entrepreneurs.

Both entrepreneurs and artists learn from each other

If one sees the similarity between entrepreneurs and artists, Jeffrey Davis suggests that both entrepreneurs and artists can learn a lot from each other. 

Business people can learn from artists and authors how to think differently about what they make and how to experience the meaning of life. While artists can learn from entrepreneurs how to 'sell' their work and make money from their work without deriding everything 'commercial'. 

@ Jeffry Davis in his article: Pivot your creative process and business.