Griffin Starr

Instructor Alvarez

3 December, 2014

Final Ethnography of Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship is now widely accepted by all school and technical colleges around the

United States. But what really is entrepreneurship? well merriam webster defines

entrepreneurship as, one who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or

enterprise. Of course many of the entrepreneurs today will give you the typical quote from the

movie Jobs or even from Warren Buffett, or even their life stories. But are these the true role

models of the entrepreneurship community? I am here to argue that the average person down the

road, risking money to open a shop as there dream, is the true entrepreneur in society. I am also

here to argue that due to the misconception of the entrepreneurship community through the

media it has created a saturation in the community, that presents people with a false presentation

of the difficulty of entrepreneurship. Through this paper I have interviewed two different

subjects who have had some form of relationship to myself and have had a inside or outside view

on the community. I am here to simply state through this paper and make aware the good and

bad sides of the entrepreneurship community and the indepth results of the entrepreneurship

community from interviews.

Entrepreneurship, and the Community Behind it

Entrepreneurship was around since the start of economics, and most the time it was

people who really just wanted to start up a local business. Now a days much of the

entrepreneurship community has changed, from those wanting to just open up a small “mom and

pop” business on the side of the road, into a huge tech start up with hundreds of well trained

employees. This dream has expanded in the past 5 years with people coming up with crazy, yet

brilliant ideas to make it big. This dream expansion has people in amazement when they watch

shows such as “Shark Tank”(Burnett, Mark) or even movies such as “The Social Network”

(Fincher, David) which all show the “rags to riches” stories of young brilliant entrepreneurs and

the struggle to get funded and become a successful company.

This community doesn’t just stem from America, actually its happening all over the

world, in different countries. Many startup businesses around the world might look similar but

they do operate on different standards. Since these startup companies open up all around the

world there isn’t just one ethnicity that follows with this particular community. Age wise these

startups have many different age groups, almost 40% of owners are in there 30’s and just

matching that at 34% in there 20’s, and well the rest are above 40 See Figure 1 . Religion, not

exactly expressed by entrepreneurs but from what it seems most are atheist or agnostic, the

reason behind this that was explained to me as “they don’t thank there luck by some god but by

their own hands” (Sullivan, Personal Interview). When these professionals are operating in

business terms they wear their overall best, most expensive clothes to either impress the buyer,

the investor, or even a fellow CEO. Most startups usually can’t afford to wear these expensive

clothes all the time, so most usually wear something very casual along with their employees,

these startup companies like to think of their employees as equals to themselves, instead of

sitting in some fancy office, they will sit and work with their fellow employees. Startup CEO’s

maintain a good relationship with the founding team because the team believes in the company

just as the CEO believed in starting the company. When you think of a CEO you would imagine

an elevator that leads into this elaborate well decorated and professional office, which usually

has an assistant to greet you as you walk in, and as you walk in past the secretary you would see

a slick haired, smooth talking, and bourbon drinking CEO. Of course at the time this was the

typical 60’s through 80’s picture of a CEO and may be found sometimes today, but these new

aged startup CEO’s are people you would never guess to be a CEO. For example Mark

Zuckerberg most famously to build 200 billion dollar company Facebook, dresses a normal

sandal, hoodie, and jeans to work and even in the past has done it in investor meetings. The

language of the startup CEO are nothing different from our everyday language, I have observed

that most times start up teams are just friends wanting to make a really cool idea, come to life

and hopefully even make some money off of it. These friend start up teams such as the team I’m

studying called “LTS (Lumity Tech Studios)” are friends that love to play video games on the off

time and even enjoy a drink at the local bar.

(Fig. 1. Meet the founders (age). Source: www.mashable.com, “Start Ups”)

Getting into the community. Seemingly easy, since most entrepreneurs love media

attention no matter how big or small. I have a friend currently that has employed a team to build

a new anonymous social media network called White Box, See Figure 2. Since this ethnography

I have been sitting on skype watching and observing the language and process to which this nine

man team has been operating in. From my study they seem to all be friendly with one another,

but when it comes down to business start to use technology acronyms such as “VPN, RTN, VM,

and famously the dreaded DDOS”. Overall it’s hard to depict the CEO when they are all talking,

they all seem very qualified and in control and make decision based upon an agreement “nay or

yay” democratic system. Of course at the center is the CEO which is a man by the name of

“Luminous Silver” or real name: Tod Sullivan. Tod gained his rank by not only starting the

company but also performing as the top programmer, he never went through college and was a

self-taught programmer who also has a passion for music on the piano. Tod stems from a very

small city in Ohio called New Carlisle, north of Dayton, Ohio. He started programming in High

School and has continued programming, and every day becomes better and keeps his rank of

CEO among the other employees that look up to him.

(Fig. 2. WhiteBox. Source: www.mashable.com, “HomePage”)

Of course White box isn’t the only entrepreneurial start up trying to make a success,

there are many others all around the globe trying to become the next Facebook, Google, or even

Amazon. Even in the short story “Crack in Spanish Harlem” you could say the small gang

resembles a startup just trying to make money to live the “American Dream”, and just like a

startup they are trying to survive and come out with some profit in the illegal underground

market (“Crack In Spanish Harlem”, Bourgious). Even things such as the “Honor our

Confederate Dead Statue” next to freedom park, those confederate where dying for the

entrepreneurship and profit of slaves, though it was a horrible thing to prosper economically in,

they believed in the economic prosperity through capturing Africans and selling Africans as

slaves. (“Confederate Monument”, Louisville, Kentucky)

I would like to consider myself an insider inside this community. I believe I have

achieved the status of inside not only because my friend owns this company but because, I too

am a programmer just the same as Tod. Sometimes I will work under their group and program

but I do work under the LTS team sometimes to help out. But I also do my own work and build

things for myself and I plan to have my own team one day that will be just as dedicated as the

team of LTS. With my personal identity markers, I match most of the same traits as current start

up entrepreneurs now. I personally come from a socioeconomic standpoint of being well off and

holding a decent starting off job. Though my age does not match up to that of the standard

requirements or that I have not failed enough times, I feel that I work hard and am taking all the

right steps to becoming a startup CEO in the near future. I have noticed through my ethnography

that most startup CEO’s are very well rounded and have multiple skills not just only in social

interaction but things such as music, sports, and entertainment.

Interview Transcripts

Interview with Tod

Griffin: In the Startup community they say that there is only a 35% chance of

succeeding in at least one of your ideas or start up companies. Do you think that

you will be apart or separated from this statistic?

Tod: I think that we will try our best to succeed in this venture but the world is

full of ideas and opportunities, so there could be more chances in the later future

if not.

Griffin: Currently our generation is going through a huge gender gap problem

specifically in the market places. Do you think tech start ups seem to employ

more men than they do women?

Tod: Looking at the news, and some companies that we aspire to be such as

Google and Microsoft. There is definitely a gender gap and more men than

women programmers, but I don’t think the solution is radical feminism that such

groups are trying to impose on people.

(Tod Sullivan, Personal Interview)

I feel through these questions I had shown that much of the startup community, really not

all that based on confidence but rather based on hope and perseverance. In my second question I

asked about the gender gap that currently exists in the tech community. I feel that Tod didn't

want to fully say that he didn't believe in this gender gap, even through the question he did state

that the “Solution is not radical feminism” I feel like during the Interview he was a bit against the

subject of the gender gap but wanted to maintain in positive light.

Interview with Chris:

Griffin: Do you think the entrepreneurship community is saturated with too many

people today?

Chris: Well.. I would have to say yes, it seems like everyone when they have a

little idea wants to make money off of it.

Griffin: Do you think things like Kickstarter might be the cause of the problem?

Chris: I have only been on Kickstarter a couple times but it seems like a bunch of

ridiculous ideas have been funded that don't help anything.

(Chris Isherwood, Personal Interview)

Through Chris’s interview I tried to ask questions that would pertain to the outside world

and what the outside world has really thought of the entrepreneurship community. From Chris’s

outside view it seems that many want to aspire to become someone in this community but also

want to play it safe and not risk everything they got for an idea.

Interviewees

One of my Interviews was suppose to be with Steven Browher, from Google as a

Engineer, but sadly Browher has asked for anything he has said to not publish at the last second.

I had found met Steven from my father who has known Steven for a couple years now, Steven is

a Engineer from Germany and now works for Google. Steven removed his Interview due to the

fact of publicity and not wanting to hold any responsibility for any diminished reputation against

Google for his words, understandable and his Interview will not become published.

Tod Sullivan, a man who I have seemed to know forever, and a friend that I had first met

on a video game about five years ago. Tod was a programmer in the same online community I

joined called D3vine, and side by side we worked on scripts and small individual programs for

this video game community. Eventually over the years Tod at the age of twenty three never

wanted to keep his eleven dollar an hour job at his local Rite-Aid in a small corn town called

Carlisle, Ohio. So Tod one day took it upon himself to find investor power from local areas of

Dayton and hire programmers, and officially start Lumity Technology Studios. Of course, as I

am his friend he had invited me to join the team, and just as a friend would do I joined the team

as a programmer. This interview took place only a couple weekends before this paper had been

written, of course I could have taken this interview online on probably skype, but this was my

friend and I was going to visit him anyway. So the next day I got into my black 2001 bmw

slightly beaten up, and filled up my tank to full and drove the 200 miles north up the 71 to the 75

interstate, to see one of my best friends. Of course through this journey you would see many

crazy drives and cops waiting to snatch you on the side of the road, but of course I dealt with

neither of them. I passed Cincinnati, passed Dayton, and finally when reaching a bunch of corn

fields I knew I am close. After a while I had made it into the small town and then followed the

address to Tod’s house. If you had not been aware, I had only ever talked to Tod online but we

always helped each other out so we became good friends none the less, so this has been the first

time I had actually ever seen Tod in person. Of course after knocking on the door I am greeted

by about 5 little dogs and for some odd reason a duck. Tod finally invited me in and I am then

greeted by a pretty offsetting smell which seemed to smell of dog and cigarettes, of course out of

politeness I didn't say anything and we went down to tods room in the basement and where I

would then begin with the interview.Before the interview, a brief description of Tod might help

you figure out what he might look like, he stands at about six foot three inch, very skinny, brown

hair, white, male. Tod comes from a family that is not very well off at all and Tod himself holds

only a high school education but did not proceed to college and taught himself programming in

high school rather than become a straight A student and been programming ever since then.

Though Tod did not receive a college education he is currently working on getting a bachelors

degree in computer science from the University of Devre. This interview was to get the

perspective of someone that has already established a start up in this community, and by

knowing Tod and working with Tod I have had much insight to the community and how it fully

works and operates. Through this interview I tried to mainly thinking of questions that would

pertain to WhiteBox as a startup but also at the same time allowing for it to relate to the

community.

My last and final interview was with my roommate Chris, who has no knowledge of a

start up business but I would still like to consider him an outsider and a businessman who makes

money by reselling items on craigslist for profit. Chris has been my roommate for three months

now and have gotten to know him quite well, he is a very creative and artistic individual who

spends most of his time with either his friend Eric or with his fraternity brothers at Delta Tau

Delta, which are new here on campus as a fraternity. Chris was a soccer player in high school

and is a pretty skinny guy with raised brown hair and a beard, of white race, and a very neat and

organized individual. Chris is tech savvy compared to the average population and knows his way

around apple computers since he mainly sells apple computers on Craigslist. Of course being my

roommate Chris was happy to help in the research of my community by offering his insight from

the outside of the entrepreneurship tech community.

Media, The American Dream, Saturation, and Billionaires.

Entrepreneurship, Success, Billionaires, Geniuses, Innovators. These are the typical tropes

presented about the entrepreneurship community. In reality, your every day “jim, old grampa

bob, or aunt mary lou” opening that local restaurant down the street are also considered

entrepreneurs, and though they are not the Steve Jobs creating, cutting edge new processing

computers, they are still the creators and owners of their own local business, that also makes

them sufficient money to keep them and the business running. Many also make the assumption

that entrepreneurs are just people making an excuse to be “unemployed” or they think they will

make millions overnight on a dream that is far fetched. Of course there has been much criticism

about the entrepreneurship community and how this particular community has changed from the

beginning of time till now. But in this community many will always try and only few will end up

making a success out of this community, and that is what they would call a “rat race” of life.

Today when you see the tech giants you only wonder what they had to do to get up to that

point of wealth. Many make the assumption that these tech giants were started by some brainiac

with 4.0 GPA in high school and was usually the nerd. Of course this trope is usually wrong and

most of your big tech companies are started by just regular people, that are usually of the

younger generation, especially when dealing with the tech industry. Of course as you may have

seen in the news many of the big new age tech CEO’s are primarily college drop outs, but there

is one factor that most entrepreneurs have that seems to be a must in this community. That is to

be a well rounded individual who has experience in multiple fields, including the field that you

are currently acting as an entrepreneur in “he or she must have knowledge, at least at a basic

level, of a large number of business areas, including their own.”(Lazear, “Entrepreneurship”)

These type of well rounded people usually become entrepreneurs but this isn't always the reason

many will try to start their own business. Many in the community attempt to open up their own

business “because of financial reasons, maybe a spark of an idea, or they just simply can't work

for someone else”(Calvin, “Coverage of Entrepreneurship in Principles of Economics”). No

matter what the reason is most people can consider themselves an entrepreneur, it doesn't always

have to be the big tech CEO most of the time it is the owner of the local restaurant who can also

consider themselves an entrepreneur.

Now of course everyone can become a entrepreneur and make a start up, but even

sometimes if everyone is trying to do the exact same thing it can become a problem. Over the

past ten years it seems that more and more people are starting to enter the entrepreneurship

community. This is happening due to things in the media such as “Shark Tank”(Burnett, Mark)

and “Social Network”(Fincher, David) it has inspired people to go out and try to think of ideas to

become billionaires and become the next Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerburg, or even Bill Gates.

People are inspired and this is a great way for people to set goals, but of course there is a

significant problem with a saturation especially in this community. People follow these iconic

individuals who have dropped out of college and pursued the passion that they have felt, and

movies are then made about them later on, but did anyone ever see the others during there time

that had failed? Of course not but, many will drop out of college to pursue their passion but few

will make it and it takes a special individual to become a successful entrepreneur, the type of

person that I had explained in paragraph two. With many dropping out of college and trying to

pursue a passion in entrepreneurship will learn that it might had been a mistake at the end of the

line. Overall being an entrepreneur can cause much physical damage to yourself as you may see

your sleep schedule change and your relationship with others seems to disintegrate and vanish, it

is not a healthy lifestyle especially if you join, not sure with what you are doing.

My last argument is that the American Dream, and how it has shifted in our new

generation after the media portrayed these tech billionaires. The American Dream has existed

since the 1930’s after the great depression and at the dawn of World War II, this national ethos

was the freedom and prosperity of immigrants wanting to come over to America to pursue a life

with a nice humble home with a humble family. Now a days it has changed and many

immigrants and even our own citizens are looking up to the wealthy one percent of the

population aspiring to be them. Of course there is nothing wrong with aspiring to be some of

these people, but it has turned people from making a modest living into people seeking to

become nothing but rich and famous, which is highly unrealistic for everyone to be a super star.

Rather than create a startup company for just money it would be efficient and well needed if

people just created start up companies that would benefit society or even benefit a person or

group of people. But with the saturation of this community, it has created a kind of comedy

about the community, to the outsiders, in my interview with Chris Isherwood he had said

Griffin: After seeing movies such as the Social Network and Jobs do you think

this has affected the spread of start up companies?

Chris: Yea I would say that there has been more of them lately especially after the

site kickstarter

(Isherwood, Personal Interview)

kickstarter over the past few years has been known to publicly fund projects, but the main

problem with the website is that it is funding a bunch of ideas that have absolutely no main

purpose to help society. And Chris is right to see the spread of start up communities especially

after Kickstarter and from his tone seems that he does not appreciate what Kickstarter is funding

to be created. Kickstarter has gained fame that even “South Park” (Parker, Trey) a TV show on

comedy central that created an episode mainly poking fun at entrepreneurs and startup

companies that come from kickstarter, showing in the episode that they are lazy and make money

off the public without actually making a product. Now I don't disagree with this statement a lot

of what has been put on Kickstarter has been very awful products that don't benefit society nor is

it produced, and it is overall making the entrepreneur community look bad.

The scholarly articles I used “Entrepreneurship” by Edward P. Lazear and “Coverage of

Entrepreneurship in Principles of Economics.” by Kent A. Calvin both had interesting coverage

on how to look at the entrepreneurship community giving not only an economic look on the

situation but also what the exact definition of an entrepreneur is. Lazear argues though that

everyone is an entrepreneur and that it is fine and that society will advance further with more

entrepreneurs in the world. But at the same time Calvin's theory argues that with too many

entrepreneurs it will ruin the economy and we will not have enough skilled workers since

everyone would be trying to pursue their own passion. Most of these facts seemed to have came

from the economic statistic side of things instead of investigating what actually caused them. I

think for more insight on the community you would have to develop a sense of being an insider

by doing such things as may be starting your own business or sharing the same pain that many

seem to face when starting up a company.

Cultural Artifacts, KickStarter, Funding, and The American Dream

Cultural Artifacts are always important especially when showing the types of objects or

information to express the community, the community I have decided bases iself around a couple

of these websites, and objects that really help become a startup or become that entrepreneur that

one has always wanted to be. These Sites, and Objects are: Kickstarter, Funding, and The

American Dream. Of course these Sites and Objects have impacted the community over the

years some newer and some older, and in the most case I will argue that though they have done a

great deal impacting in a positive way, there are many flaws to these objects that have caused the

entrepreneurial community a number of setbacks.

Kickstarter is a site that was started in 2009 and has been growing fame ever since. This

site is popular for funding such great inventions and ideas, and allowing for entrepreneurs to

finally reach out and get funding in newer ways instead of older methods presented in Figure 3

Of course Kickstarter has created a new generation of what is now called crowdfunding people,

who will pretty much throw money at any idea on Kickstarter, but the sad truth to this is that

these people have thrown money at projects on Kickstarter but most of the projects on

Kickstarter are never officially made or even are produced, instead the creators of these projects

end up saying they tried and usually pocket the money that they made off of Kickstarter, so

though this funding idea is great in theory sadly, it is proving itself not to work very efficiently.

(Fig. 3. KickStarter Works. Source: www.mashable.com, “Lending”.)

The next object that I have seen to really make startups take off and help entrepreneurs finance

their dreams is, funding. This object holds a significant value to the community in the fact that,

without funding you would not be able to achieve the success of your own business. I argue that

without funding you would not be able to by the necessary amount of materials to produce any

goods to become a successful business. Funding does play a very significant role even with my

outsiders such as Tod, without funding he would not be able to buy the servers nor would he be

able to hire the employees to create the proper products to sell to the public. The best way to

think about funding is, pretend that an airport runway is your funding and the airplane is your

business without enough runway you would not be able to takeoff. So if you have enough

funding then your business will be able to take off and achieve its potential success.

(Fig. 4. Runways to success. Source: www.imgur.com, “Runway”.)

My next theory isnt a object but like I stated more of a theory and does not have truely any

statistical backing behind it but does pose a problem. The American Dream was created right

after World War II and was a social thought of the time to come home from the war and collect a

paycheck and have a wife to come home to everyday, this life was a very humble one and the

media didn't really blast off like it did today back then. Today we see media project celebrities

lives as if it were the 1920’s of Great Gatsby by Scotts F Fitzgerald, with big extravagant parties,

drinking, and women. Of course the average life is never celebrated like this but for some reason

due to the factors of the media people want to be and act just like those big celebrities, and from

what it seems the media has taken a hold of movies, and articles about these big tech CEO’s and

turned them into celebrities. Since people want to be the richest in life and live these fast times it

seems that the average American Dream has changed, and most people want to be the rich and

famous and live these extravagant lives rather than the humble lives, but of course lets be

realistic if everyone was a celebrity than it wouldn't be uncommon. The community is over

played by the media as being easy and with just any random idea you can make money off the

idea and become rich. Of course this is simply not true and most of these big tech CEO’s now

they had to sacrifice a lot, and when I mean a lot, I mean friendships, love, and even sometimes

family. I am here to argue that it is no easy road being an entrepreneur and at the end of the

rainbow of this journey it is not always happiness and gold, but rather sadness, regret, and

poverty. The one man I would emphasize this theory on is Nikola Tesla who was known for his

mad science projects and genius, he sadly died in poverty and not seeing any of his inventions be

the successful hits they are today, but he did try to make a success out of the world, and he did

but years later, after his death.

(Fig. 5. Nikola Tesla. Source: www.wikipedia.com “Nikola Tesla”.)

Conclusion for the Final

I did not really experience many setbacks but one of my interviewers decided to revoke his

submission because he was not interested in his personal thoughts to be published on a public

blog where it could potentially harm his job. This was taken with all the respect and I had told

him his words would not be posted so at the end of this project I could only get two people for

interviews that would talk about the community, overall it was pretty hard to find people that had

relation to the community that had free time, of course like I said in the beginning paragraphs

“everyone is an entrepreneur” but it is hard to get someone that owns a local business to talk for

a bit due to how busy they usually are and most employees actually don't know who truly own

the business. Another thing I found hard was visiting my friend Tod, of course he lives all the

way up in Ohio which is about a 3 hour drive and due to revision I had to go back and visit about

3 times to make sure I had to correct information to finish out with the interview. On the fourth

assignment of this class we were told to make a presentation to which we would stand in front of

the class and present the cultural artifacts I presented in this article, but originally I was going to

do a video which I edited and never posted due to the fact I was not sure about its quality, but

since I am not afraid to show the video, I will be posting it on this blog to show a bit more

indepth about the people I interviewed in this paper.

At the end of the research of this community, I never really had a changing perspective

on it. I personally came from this community and since I have been apart of it, has always been a

love hate relationship that has, pushed me, but at the same time has rewarded me for my efforts.

Its nice that my community to some light has a positive, hard working view on it but, there are

the views that some others will have that make my community look bad. Entrepreneurship is a

way of life, and its a way of following a dream based on risk, but at the end of it all you can say

at least you tried to make it your dream.

If I had more time I would have liked to go really in depth to the problems that plague my

community, and I would have liked to focus more on the big tech billionaires and how they had

the chance to become the wealthiest and richest and truly the ways they became the billionaires

they are today. The only problem with trying to do this, is there are so many well known

entrepreneurs and each one of them have a very different story that is filled with dedication,

sadness, shame, regret, and sometimes even the loss of friendships and families. But I think that

really does show and highlight the risk of being an entrepreneur and the things you have to give

up just to get money. Though it is sad, it is exposing the horror behind the scenes instead of

saying its the wonderful life of money, riches, and friends. I do hope that one day there will be a

film or something that will indepth explain these lives of the billionaires and show more of the

realistic side instead of the “Rudy” underdog stories, that are played off by the media.

Work Cited

Bourgois, Phillipe. Crack in Spanish Harlem: Culture and Economy in the Inner City. Vol. 5.

Anthropology Today, 1989. 6-11. Print.

Burnett, Mark. Shark Tank. 2009. Television.

Calvin, Kent A. “Coverage of Entrepreneurship in Principles of Economics.” Vol. 30, No. 2

(1999): 184-187. Print.

Fincher, David, dir. “The Social Network”. Relativity Media, 2010. Film

“Gluten Free Ebola” South Park. Writ. Trey Parker and Matt Stone. Dir. Trey Parker. Comedy

Central, 2014. TV.

Louisville Ketucky. Confederate Monument in Louisville. City of Louisville, 1895. Location. 28

Sep. 2014.

Lazear, Edward P. “Entrepreneurship.” Journal of Labor Economics (2005): 649-679. Print.

Isherwood, Chris. Personal Interview. 16 Oct 2014.

"KICKSTARTER." Kickstarter Stats — Kickstarter. Web. 28 Nov. 2014.

"KICKSTARTER." Data The Kickstarter Blog — Kickstarter. Web. 28 Nov. 2014.

"Kickstarter's Top Projects: When They Shipped." CNNMoney. Cable News Network. Web. 28

Nov. 2014.

Walden, Stephanie. "Startup Success by the Numbers." Mashable. 30 Jan. 2014. Web. 29 Sept.

2014.

Zoltan, Acs J. “Entrepreneurship, Economic Development, and Institutions” Vol. 31, No. 3

(2008): 219-234