Cayenne Consulting

The Symbiotic Relationship of Entrepreneurs and Inventors

The Symbiotic Relationship of Entrepreneurs and Inventors

In my experience, inventors aren’t interested or aren’t very good at building a business, and entrepreneurs aren’t usually good scientists. These people need to find each other, and can jointly make a great team for a new startup.

Historically, it’s also not often that a good inventor was also a good entrepreneur. Some now argue that even our entrepreneur heroes, like Thomas Edison, really cheated on the invention side. Only a few great entrepreneurs of today, like the young Bill Gates, seem to have elements of both sides. Even he had some great help from Steve Ballmer, a real marketing guy, and others.

I’m convinced that this is because the personal characteristics required for these two jobs are quite different. For example, here are a few of the attributes that come to mind for a good inventor:

Entrepreneurs, on the other hand, have a complementary but different set of strengths and weaknesses:

For a successful business, it takes the discipline and creativity of an inventor, as well as the vision, planning, and optimism of an entrepreneur to create customer value. So if you’re an entrepreneur, find yourself a frustrated inventor and likely both of you can find more success and happiness.

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