A better route to entrepreneurship? Biology

We all dream of becoming entrepreneurs and making lots of money in our lifetime.

This dream, unfortunately, eludes the majority, who spend most of their lives admiring the few entrepreneurs or working for them.

Scholars like Richard Cantilon (1680-1734), who thought even robbers and beggars were entrepreneurs, to Nobel Prize winners have studied entrepreneurship looking for the Holy Grail. Yet, entrepreneurship remains a black box.

They look for common traits in entrepreneurs like intelligence, personality and education to find out what predisposes one to entrepreneurship. They also look at the environment, from politics to culture, and even family backgrounds.

What has emerged is that the person and the environment conspire to produce entrepreneurs.

Why are Kikuyus said to be enterprising? Genes do not explain it; Kikuyus are just like any other community. The difference is environment. Early encounters with wazungus reduced infant mortality, leading to a rapid rise in population and competition for resources. The success of Indian and Kisii entrepreneurs can be explained the same way. This is also why big cities are hotbeds of entrepreneurship.

Great entrepreneurs seem to come from families with many children, including polygamous families. This creates competition, which is a great ally of entrepreneurship. Talk to the entrepreneurs you know.

Modern parents are perplexed that their children are not enterprising, but they are fewer and scarcity is a not a problem. While parents lived without bread, their children are not sure which is better, jam or margarine. We can’t rule out over-protection.

Entrepreneurship remains a black box because there are too many combinations and permutations (what grade did you get in maths?) of traits and environment. This makes entrepreneurship a moving target and hard to generalise.

Human needs

So how about focusing on how to become an entrepreneur — the best route to entrepreneurship?

We have relied on economic theories to explain entrepreneurship, even labelling it the fourth factor of production. But maybe economics is the wrong route to entrepreneurship. Biology could be a better one.

Economics is about satisfying human needs and wants. But until recently, economists took these needs and wants as a given.

Economists, and by extension entrepreneurs, would do a better job if they understood biology, the base of our needs and wants.

Just look at a human being from hair to toe, and fully understand what each part of the human body needs and you are in business. You are an entrepreneur. If you can borrow from behavioural science, a cousin of biology, you will do even better in entrepreneurship.

One of the best drivers of demand in economics is our dreams and aspirations. Look at adverts closely. They use young people because we all want to remain young. They show us model homes, cars, holiday destinations, body sizes, and so on. Advertisers use wazungu mannequins because they know we aspire to be like them (do not be annoyed). Yet, few economists take a basic course in psychology.

Back to biology. It is very easy to become an entrepreneur. Start from the head. What does the hair need, from combs, lotions and dyes, to bands, shavers, barbers and salons?

Can you name companies and entrepreneurs that have made money from the head? Think of earrings, spectacles and contact lenses. Think of lipstick and lip balms. Think of what the brain needs. We have movies, schools, mobile phones.

Go further down to the neck. We have ties, scarves and necklaces. Further down you need bras and the adverts around them.

Occasional escape

The stomach drives the food industry, from five-star hotels to roadside kiosks. From fast food and mineral water to alcoholic beverages, the stomach never gets enough. Alcohol and smoking of cigarettes, weed or shisha are also brain related — we love fantasy, an occasional escape from reality.

Further down are sexual organs and all the industries associated with them, good and bad. Sex ensures there will always be another generation to demand goods and services. That is why Russians and Japanese are worried about falling populations. The world’s biggest economies have high populations.

Mobile toilets take care of another biological process. Many firms are offering this service, with toilet designs borrowing heavily from planes.

Most games, from football to golf, involve our legs. We need trousers, shoes, sports gear and foot massages. All these products and services can be priced to fit into our budgets and aspirations. No wonder price discrimination works so well.

Medicine is a multi-billion-dollar industry to keep the biology of the body balanced and prolong lives. Police and the military are about protecting the human body despite its fragility. Religion gives us hope beyond this fragility.

Entrepreneurship thrives beyond when we die. There are funeral homes, embalming and interment.

It seems that biological processes, from cradle to grave, give better insights into entrepreneurship than economics. What do you think? Any another excuse why you are not an entrepreneur? What was your grade in Biology?