“If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business—you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen”.(Wikipedia: “President Obama Campaign Rally in Roanoke – Road to the White House. C-SPAN. July 13, 2012.)

“I hear all this, you know, ‘Well, this is class warfare, this is whatever.’ No. There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own — nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police-forces and fire-forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn’t have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory — and hire someone to protect against this — because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea. God bless — keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is, you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.” (Wikipedia: (September 21, 2011). “Elizabeth Warren on class warfare: ‘There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own'”. TheBlaze.)

Yes, concepts are a dime a dozen. People with ideas often believe that they’re very valuable, but they’re worthless unless someone is willing to take the risk of converting the idea into a company.

Every single piece of the execution portion of the business consists of replaceable parts. If both Joe and Sally are good at finance, then either might the your CFO and share in the ultimate rewards. I know such people, those who just happened to be friends with or friend of a friend of an entrepreneur and became very wealthy as a result. They did not have the idea and were not the driving force, but they did take some risk by spending some years of their lives on lower salary without guarantee of success. Their risk-reward ratio came out way better than most.

Ultimately, it’s the entrepreneur who takes the largest risk, has to provide the leadership, and creates the vision for the rest of the team. The entrepreneur has to do much, much more — even to the point of understanding the job of every person on the team, even if not to the point of taking it over. The entrepreneur deals with setbacks, employee harmony, delays in paying vendors and employees, and a host of other issues.

Let’s raise a glass to the entrepreneur!

I would say that for me, it was finding the right CFO (Chris Lowe) who was willing to risk alongside me that created the shift in the movement and future of the company. All of the other pieces existed and were functioning, but because of the hybrid nature of the concept and industry resistance factors, his buy in changed the landscape for us. Yes, I’ve had many CFOs come and go, but with their hand out. I would say it takes not just a business mind that is talented, but one willing to go the mile alongside the entrepreneur.

Thanks so much for your great contribution to us all, Dave!