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The term Fabian entrepreneurs is an oxymoron because it conflicts with the idea of entrepreneurship which is all about taking risks. Fabian entrepreneurs are business leaders who are sceptical of change and innovation. Mostly we find this type of entrepreneurs in organic businesses that have grown without an external fund investment and are driven by a high-risk environment. This type of entrepreneur wants to assess the risks thoroughly before investing in disruption.

You’d rarely see them in businesses which are driven by changes in the environment and are often considered the laggards that follow business trends. In other words, they’d wait for someone else to take the risks and prove the market condition before they get involved. By doing so, Fabian entrepreneurs often lose the first mover advantage and have a steep competition of fighting entrenched businesses. However, you may question – is there an advantage to being a first mover or is it a misnomer? I believe they will tell you that it might just be a disadvantage because you lose time and money in coaching customers.

Characteristics of Fabian Entrepreneurs

We can speak to three predominant characteristics of Fabian Entrepreneurship:

1. Risk Averse Nature
2. Agility and low speed of adaptation
3. Dependence on steady and stable growth

We can easily extrapolate these to other characteristics as well. But these three should give you a flavour of how these types of entrepreneurs are different.

Fabian Entrepreneurs are Risk Averse

By nature, these types of entrepreneurs are risk-averse. They will wait for something to have proved market value before adapting to it or making a change. Fabian Entrepreneurs are well versed with existing market conditions and are best placed to exploit them as long as they don’t change. However, they’re not ideally placed to respond to disruption. They will act when their bottom-line and is forced to change.

Adaptability and speed of change

Fabian entrepreneurs are also change-averse. Due to the nature of their business, they are neither designed for scale nor large changes to exploit market conditions by adapting. Since they are risk averse, they will wait to see how others are performing before implementing changes. If you are working with such entrepreneurs and want to establish a change, your best opportunity is to show case studies of other successes and address the risk-averse nature of these business leaders.

Dependence on Steady and stable growth

These entrepreneurs focus on incremental growth and invest accordingly. They closely attune their budget and growth plans to the organic growth projections and ensure that resources are allocated accordingly. These plans are based on existing product and service lines. The best way to articulate growth for these entrepreneurs is by refining a pitch for incremental development. A radical approach is bound to scare the Fabian Entrepreneurs away from entertaining a new idea.