The six objectives of an entrepreneur

1. To be their own boss: they want control over what the business does and how it does it, with no manager overruling them.
   1. This appeals most to people who have had decisions imposed on them at work that they disagreed with.
2. To have flexible working hours: running your own business can mean choosing when you work, which suits people fitting work around children, study or caring.
3. To pursue an interest: they turn something they already care about into a way of earning, such as a keen baker opening a cake business.
   1. Caring about the product also helps them keep going through the long unpaid hours at the start.
4. To earn more money: an employee receives a wage, but an owner keeps the profit, so there is no ceiling on what a successful business can pay them.
5. To identify a gap in the market: they have spotted a customer need nobody is meeting and want to be the one who meets it.
   1. This objective is the closest to a purely commercial one, because it starts from what customers want rather than from what the owner wants.
6. Dissatisfaction with their current job: boredom, a poor manager, low pay or redundancy pushes somebody out of employment and into starting up.
   1. This is a push factor, because the person is moving away from something rather than towards something.

Financial and non-financial objectives

1. Only one of the six, earning more money, is a financial objective, and the other five are non-financial.
2. The two groups often pull against each other, because being your own boss usually means earning less at first, since the owner takes what is left after costs rather than a guaranteed wage.
3. Flexible hours are often the first objective to slip, since a new owner tends to work longer and less predictable hours than they did as an employee.