Dictionary.com has this definition for entrepreneur : a person who organizes and manages any enterprise, esp. a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk.
I think business is something which produces something and in return generates some money. Blogging fits that. Post is the product and the advertising money is the revenue.
Now, for us to separate out what we are talking about, let us restrict our discussion to bloggers who has registered a domain, and paid money for hosting. This would obviously eliminate the WordPress and blogger blogs. Because there is no money input element.
Since the blogger has put in an initial amount of money in terms of domain registration and hosting he or she should be qualified as entrepreneur. Now he will be investing his time in reading and researching the relevant material to post on the blog. He will also invest time in search engine optimization to drive traffic and wait for the advertising money to trickle in.
There is an input, process and the output.
Input: Time and money
Process: Reading, researching, re-reading, writing, re-writing, proof reading and commenting.
Output: brand recognition and money (if lucky)
With this whole process my question to you is Is blogger an entrepreneur?
There is also a lurking feeling that they might not be as entrepreneurial like a person who has started up. That feeling comes from the fact that bloggers do not take any risk (like me) to become a full-fledged blogger or take blogging as a career. The only risk they take is the money invested in.
Am I missing something here?
PS : I know there is something called blogtrepreneur but how many of you believe in that?
PPS : The heavy use of He is only understandable. If you are a she then forgive this he. And please don’t say that I am not inclusive because that’s not what inclusiveness means.
Author: Sriram Vadlamani
Sriram Vadlamni is a IT professional and an avid blogger. He blogs about India business at Indianomics.com and you can follow him on twitter @indianomics (Email: sriram.vadlamani@gmail.com)Related posts:
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I would strongly say bloggers are not entrepreneurs. The money invested for domain and hosting per month is pretty minimal… less than a day’s lunch at Subway!
Now that every Tom, dick and Harry can start a blog and many people are successful in making some money too….
Only a very minimal subset of the blogging community may be classified as entrepreneurs.
If a person is in to it full time and runs it successfully(money, fame etc etc) then he/she may be called so but all others who label themselves as entrepreneurs/evangelists just because they run blogs and make money out of it belong to ’so called entrepreneurs’ group.
Well… Some bloggers may work as hard as an entrepreneur, but a blogger is a writer, not necessarily an entrepreneur. Unless of course, you have a business or some sort of plan based on your blog. A blog that supports a business is not the same as a blog being your business. Don’t you think?
They surely are! In fact that calls for a new word – how about blogopreneur?
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Blogopreneur
Yes most of them are and there are only some of them who just do not care in being so, they are mainly driven by passion for blogging.
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I ment to say there are various function an Entrepreneur performs such as : -
Perceive opportunity of going for a profitable investment.
Project Planning.
Explores prospects of starting such a venture.
Obtain various required licenses.
Arranges for initial capital.
Promises to meet shortfall in capital if any.
Provides personal guaranty to financial institutions.
Supplies technical know how.
And now these are not all the function which a blogger performs. Though a blogger may be innovative he may not be a risk taker where high investment (capital) is concerned. !
@all : Looks like most of the people are leaning towards – a blogger is not an entreprenuer. The initial capital required to start a blog is very minimal and doesn’t qualify as a risk in its strict sense.
@Ramanujam : Money spent on hosting is not of the same amount as Subway’s lunch. There could be two things. You have found an extremely cheap host. Or your subway is charging an exorbitant price for a foot long sandwich. But, I agree with the rest of the things you said.
“every tom dick and harry”. I will chose either Tom or Harry. What’s your pick?
Hai,
Nice article
Sriram,
Good thought provoking post. Surely, all bloggers are not entrepreneurs. However, I believe, depending upon the context, bloggers can be considered as entrepreneurs (or blogopreneurs).
Best Wishes,
I think bloggers are not enterpreneurs because enterpreneurs must have to invest a huge capital to start the business. but I call the bloggers a smart persons because they do not invest much and earn handsome amount thats why it is insult for the bloggers to call them enterpreneur becaaaaaause they are more smart than enterpreneur.