“You might be a Nebraska entrepreneur if you believe in quality before quantity,” Steve Kiene (left) told the crowd during his closing keynote at last Friday’s Nebraska Summit on Entrepreneurship.
In a style reminiscent of Jeff Foxworthy’s “You might be a redneck if…” routine, Kiene, the managing principal of the Lincoln-based software investment fund Nebraska Global, delivered 33 characteristics of a Nebraska entrepreneur.
Before he share his list with the audience, however, Kiene defined “entrepreneur.”
“What does it mean to be an entrepreneur?” Kiene said. “Well, you can be an entrepreneur if you’re introverted like me … or dress like this or even if you don’t shave or cut your hair,” he said, referring to his T-shirt, jeans and Chuck Taylors coupled with his long hair.
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“To be an entrepreneur, you’ve got a burning desire in your heart to change things, to make things better, to create things, to push things forward,” Kiene said. “That’s being an entrepreneur. All those other things don’t matter.”
Kiene also gave credit to a group of entrepreneurs that he thinks tend not get noticed, the farmers of Nebraska.
“A farmer epitomizes what an entrepreneur is, what skills are needed to be a successful entrepreneur,” Kiene said. He pointed out that farmers have no control over the weather, market prices or equipment – if it breaks, they fix it – and that they face these obstacles every day, finding creative ways to overcome them.
To close his talk, he shared his list of characteristics of an entrepreneur. “Hopefully some of them are actually funny,” Kiene said, “and actually I hope some of them are inspiring and make you think a little bit.”
You might be a Nebraska entrepreneur if…
- You take on the responsibility for success
- You’re a leader as opposed to an owner … a business owner isn’t necessarily an entrepreneur
- You see the cup as over-flowing not just half-full
- You think you’ve never taken a risk … I don’t think I’ve ever taken a risk in my life, a lot of people that know me think I take all kinds of crazy risks, but it’s just a matter of perspective. I think I make calculations, do things that I think where the odds are in my favor, but yet really in reality I take a lot of risks.
- You problem solve in your sleep and in the shower
- You’ve helped a friend start a business
- You think school didn’t teach you anything about starting a business … (School) won’t teach you to be an entrepreneur, that is only learned.
- You’re always listening to ideas and thinking of something better
- You have a new idea before you drink your morning coffee
- You’d rather do than talk
- People believe in you
- Anyone in your family is an entrepreneur
- You read Silicon Prairie News every day
- You believe in quality before quantity
- You think Silicon Valley is fundamentally flawed and that we can do better here
- You have regrets for the things you’ve done as opposed to the things you haven’t done, then you’re trying things
- You believe that products matter but people matter more
- No makes you work even harder
- You crave challenges
- You care more about your customer than you do about getting home for dinner
- You think tomorrow’s opportunity is more important than today’s successes
- You think fail is not a four-letter word
- You’d rather work twice as hard for half the money, but be in charge of what you do
- Your credit cards are your first investors
- You’re willing to go all in even if the odds aren’t in your favor
- You believe that Nebraskans are innovators
- Criticism makes you even stronger
- Sleep is the first thing you’ll sacrifice in order to get more done
- You think that success does not come easily … it should hurt, it should be painful, it should be hard
- You can multi-task in your sleep … being an entrepreneur means handling a lot of things at the same time, being able to prioritize what things to deal with right now, what things that you can put off until later
- You’re passionate about the things that don’t matter
- You think the path to success is riddled with failures that you need to overcome
- Lastly, you might be a Nebraska entrepreneur if you’re in this audience today
