Some times being an entrepreneur can be a daunting pursuit. Hardwork, lonely and an uphill struggle it can take a lot of work to get an idea off the ground.

I’ve found myself spending little amounts of time on a vast amount of skillsets including video editing, php, graphic design, photography, selling, economics, journalistic writing, development plans, strategy, driving, drawing, seo, sem, printing, training - and that’s just off the top of my head.

This irritates me for two reasons: 1. I could be doing what I am good at, but perhaps doing the above is leadership? and 2. Someone who is more professional could be doing it and getting it a lot more precisely mastered. This however is a toss up. I would always lean towards the professional approach, because someone who has mastered an art is much better at it than an amateur, if even just because of practice.

But with start up companies this is not always possible. To start a small web based firm on a shoe string is possible - but not if you started with a professional marketing manager, accountant, web developer, strategist etc. So on a start up financial basis alone the entrepreneur is almost force to be a jack of all trades. But as the maxim goes - Jack of all trades, Master of none - so attention should be paid to how much of your time you devote to skilled work. After you start getting a little sales in or get some sort of funding - be able and prepared to give up certain control of the business. Be ready to employ a marketing professional - professional designer or what have you.

Half of the art of being an entrepreneur is people, learning when to employ who and for what job, term and intention. So perhaps entrepreneurship, if anything is mastering several skills, just on a different level. We just need to have exit strategy’s, plans for handing down control and progressing onwards. Because we have more important things than mastering video editing!!!