An entrepreneur usually establishes a business with the explicit intention of growing it quickly,  adding employees as needed, and then selling it for a profit. The entrepreneur enjoys the challenge of launching the business and is not necessarily passionate about doing the work itself. The fun part is setting the strategy for the business and getting it off the ground. She prefers to hire employees to perform the actual work while she lands the next big deal. It’s an exhilarating, but exhausting, lifestyle requiring a huge investment of time, energy and money. It’s high-risk:  the payoff can be great if the business is successful, but the letdown is crushing if it’s not. And once the excitement is over, she needs to move on. Can she do it again?

In contrast, the solopreneur often simply wants a lifestyle that includes doing something she loves, that provides a comfortable income. However, there’s an inherent problem with being a successful solopreneur. The more successful the business becomes, the more difficult it is to stay a single-person business. However, she doesn’t want to take on the responsibilities and complexities that come with hiring employees. She just wants a nice, simple business.

But soon she discovers she’s spending less and less time doing the thing she loves and more and more time dealing with the business. She becomes overwhelmed by the sheer quantity and range of tasks that need doing. And because no one person is good at everything, her business is no longer so rewarding – and maybe not quite so successful. Her vision of a happy life staying comfortably busy with something she enjoys vaporizes, replaced by a life of anxiety and pressure she didn’t expect and doesn’t want.

So, which are you? What do YOU think the differences are? Share your thoughts in the comments below…