I hope my new CEO knows that being an entrepreneur is about the boring bits, as well as the fun bits.

I have appointed a new CEO on a business that I am trialling. Let’s call him Jesse. Because that’s his name, and I am less likely to get confused. Jesse is very keen to be an entrepreneur. And that’s lovely. Really, genuinely, brilliantly lovely. But I really hope Jesse knows that it is not like in the adverts.

It is not like in The Apprentice, where you get to drive round in a London cab talking into a BlackBerry on conference call mode being ‘aggressive’ just like SrAlan (‘Sralan will see you now’) seems to like. It is not about testosterone. Or oestrogen. Or any other bodily enzyme or fluid. It’s about constantly matching the big print with the small print and the long term with the short term. When people see entrepreneurs, they see them in every situation apart from at work. They see them at parties. Speaking at conferences. Maybe on Dragon’s Den. And they think this is what they do. The reality of course: the fun bits are earned by doing the boring bits. The exuberance is earned by the temperance. And the spunking of cash earned by the hard, fearful preservation of cash.

Here are two characters. Ernie the Entrepreneur and Edna the Entrepreneur.

Ernie always stays positive. It’s all about belief. The smell of the one deal or business that will make everything possible. He gets knocked down, and he gets up again. Ernie listens to Anthony Robbins’ motivational tapes in his car. He knows he has entrepreneurial spirit. When a deal comes along, he knows that fortune favours the brave. Ernie doesn’t like to micro-manage people. He makes sure people are enthused by the vision, and then lets people get on with it. When it comes to reading the contract, he knows that he doesn’t need to read the small-print, because, hell, everyone gets on so well anyway, the contract will just go in a drawer and never be looked at again. Ernie is a big picture man. He’s an optimist. Who acts on intuition.

Edna... well, Edna is a bit of a pessimist. Edna assumes that revenues will not come through as planned, and that costs will run away with themselves a little. Edna assumes that all communication has gone completely wrong. That people have completely misunderstood what is expected of them, and that unless chased they will not deliver on time. She checks and double-checks the small-print. She assumes that someone has deliberately put something in the contract to screw her and that she must find what it is. Edna does not trust her intuition. Decisions must be thought through rationally and logically.

Who is the better entrepreneur? You tell me. You’re not able to wait for them to meet and have a love-child, as you don’t have the luxury of time.  Perhaps they would make a good team. Perhaps all teams need a Blair and a Brown. Not just a Brown.

If I had to pick just one? Well, I’d pick Edna. But if I had a choice, I’d take the double act. Morecombe and Wise. Chas and Dave. Starsky and Hutch. Cagney and Lacey. If that is OK with you.

Jesse, you are a wonderful man. You are by nature a wonderful Ernie character. We don’t have the money for an Edna right now. So in the mean time, you are going to have to find some Edna deep inside you.