Engineer Mindset vs Entrepreneur Mindset

When I started programming a decade ago, it was a small idea that gave me the motivation to create something that lot of people will use. As more people started to use my product, I never realised a few mistakes I did that made me shutdown the small app few months down the road. The mistake was not being able to balance between the “Entrepreneur” and the “Engineer” side within myself.

A decade later after working with Entrepreneurs and Engineers from various different countries, talents and ideas and understanding their mindsets I realized that all of them had few things in common, yet so very different!

Both possess extremely well problem solving abilities. Entrepreneurs are visionaries. They find gaps in the market that can help the customers. The bigger problem they solve, the more revenue the business can generate. Engineers usually solve problems related to designing and developing solutions. For Engineers it is very important to understand what problems the business will solve so they can design solutions accordingly.

Both Engineers and Entrepreneurs have a thirst for knowledge and a curiosity about how things work. They constantly seek to expand their understanding, stay updated on emerging technologies or market trends, and are open to learning from their experiences and mistakes. This mindset of continuous learning enables them to adapt, grow, and evolve their ideas and strategies. One of the silicon valley Entrepreneur I had the honour of working with started his career fixing wires, after few years he created a popular website portal and sold it for millions. Not only was he learning new things, he was learning how to take risks till he succeeded.

Both Engineers and Entrepreneurs face numerous challenges along their journey. Whether it’s technical obstacles or market uncertainties, they share a common trait of persistence and resilience. They are willing to put in the hard work, persevere through setbacks, and keep pushing forward in pursuit of their goals. This determination is crucial for overcoming obstacles and achieving success.

Both embrace creativity and innovation. Engineers bring their technical expertise to invent and design scalable solutions, while Entrepreneurs apply creative thinking to identify new opportunities and develop unique business concepts. They are not afraid to think outside the box to bring about positive change.

I remember in the early days of my career as an engineer I often ended up frustrated because I was given strict timelines.

Entrepreneurs want to, or in some cases need to bring solutions to the market as soon as possible. There are few reasons for this.

Engineers on the other hand dislike strict timelines. The reasons for this being

Engineers often focus on technical problems obviously due to the nature of their work. You could be creating a new feature but suddenly you get notified that one of the services went down and now you end up fixing those problems. It's usually beneficial to “timebox” each problem.

Entrepreneurs often need to focus on many different problems at the same time. Such as Market problems, Customer related problems, organizational problems, financial problems, etc. Even though usually there are teams of people who are assigned for these tasks, Entrepreneurs usually are an important stakeholder in these conversations.

Engineers tend to make decisions based on historical data, analytical and logical thinking while Entrepreneurs tend to make decisions based on market trends, data and customer feedback. Entrepreneurs are comfortable with making quick decisions due to the rapidly changing business environments. Engineers who can balance out best of both worlds depending on the situation are in my opinion very mature in their approach for decision making.

Engineers often do not like taking risks, mostly because taking risks could cause significant losses in the business and loss of customer trust. They prioritize ensuring reliability and minimizing risks of their solutions.

Entrepreneurs on the other hand, are more comfortable with taking calculated risks. They embrace uncertainty, are willing to venture into uncharted territory, and accept the possibility of failure as part of the entrepreneurial journey. Entrepreneurs are more inclined to seize opportunities, even if they come with inherent risks.

A great example of this, I am reminded of many scenarios in my life where I saw huge backlog of untouched bad code that we call “tech debt”, the Engineers wanted to spend time minimizing the backlog of dirty code, however the Entrepreneurs were eager to add more features in order to get more customers and wanted the Engineers to focus on the new features.

Regardless if you are an Entrepreneur or an Engineer it is always helpful if one understands and empathises with the problems of the other and come to an ideal spot where requirements of both are balanced well. A business needs the vision and decision making of an Entrepreneur and also the technical and analytical expertise of an Engineer.

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