Cinventure – For the Cincinnati Entrepreneur

In 1943 Abraham Maslow theorized in a paper titled A Theory of Human Motivation that all humans naturally seek to satisfy five levels of needs. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is visual representation of these levels and shows how each need builds from the previous one. I believe this model can also be applied to represent the progression of an individual’s career.

In my “Progression of Livelihoods”, a Venn diagram is used instead of a pyramid because several of these roles can overlap. I also believe that a strict sequential progression is not a requisite, since people often leap-frog to different roles or assume multiple roles at the same time. This is my definition of livelihoods and the logical progression between each:

• Employee
  Employees are hired by an employer and agree to work a specified amount of time performing a specified set of activites for a specified level of compensation. They are typically classified as either hourly or salaried and provided a set of benefits such as health insurance and retirement savings plans. The majority of working individuals are employees. Employees are resources being leveraged by the company for whom they work.
• Self-Employed
  Self-employed individuals do not work for a specific company, but instead work for themselves. They define their own work schedule and compensation level, and work independent of other employees, partners, or managers. Self-employed individuals are leveraging their own skills and talents.
• Small Business Owner
  Small business owners run businesses that typically have fewer than 500 employees. They establish their business as a legal entity and deal with the day to day operation of the company. The majority of businesses in the United States are small businesses. Small business owners leverage their employees’ skills and talents.
• Entrepreneur
  Entrepreneurs seek to start new ventures from value-creating ideas. They typically take more calculated risks than any other role and have a greater understanding of how to assemble quality teams of people to run their ventures. Entrepreneurs leverage people, resources and assets.
• Venture Capitalist
  Venture capitalists invest money in new, growing or struggling businesses. They do not typically work within the ventures that they fund, but they often function as board members to help guide these businesses towards success. Venture capitalists leverage capital.

Here is an assignment that you can complete in the comments section of this post: Define some possible combinations of overlapping roles. An example would be an overlap between a self-employed person and an entrepreneur: self-employed individuals are pefectly capable of leveraging their resources and creativity in an entrepreneurial manner to benefit their business. Could there be an overlap of 3 of the roles? In which role are you currently? In which role do you want to be?

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