Technician vs Entrepreneur

I don’t know where I originally heard/read this idea, but at some point someone distinguished between creative business people as Entrepreneurs and Technicians. My understanding is this:

Entrepreneurs are creatives who build a business as an asset. They are business owners who want to reclaim their time and autonomy from employers and who will eventually become employers. An entrepreneur might build a business because they have a vision that they want to realise. They are interested in scalability and managing a team of other creatives. An entrepreneur will often start multiple businesses and run them at the same time. Eventually, and with enough success, an Entrepreneur might sell their business.

Technicians are creatives who build a business for themselves to work in indefinitely. They are business owners because they chafe under conventional employment or because the job they wish to do doesn’t exist. A technician might build a business because they have a skillset they want to utilise. They might hire an assistant or someone to complete a task that they lack the skills to do, but they are not interested in relinquishing the creative work to anyone else in a major way. The point of their business is for them to do the kind of work that they want to do, not to manage other people doing that work. A technician’s business will grow not by scaling but by becoming more niche, more predictable, and with a focused and invested audience.

I’m a technician for sure, so consider my bias as you reflect on this framework. I think a lot of small business advice is by and for Entrepreneurs, not Technicians. Technicians don’t operate as logically under a capitalist society. However, thinking of myself as a technician has clarified my business strategy and helped me ignore advice that I know isn’t for me, such as “prioritise scalability”.