Business

A tech entrepreneur friend recently told me that the concept of an “evangelist” in tech companies is all but dead.  Honestly I don’t know if it was ever as alive as people thought, but I liked where he was going with this.  I’ve talked to a number of aspiring entrepreneurs who view their role in their development stage company as that of an evangelist.  Practically what this often means is that the person has a entrepreneurial idea but no ability to either develop it, sell it or run the financing or operations of it.  He is an “idea guy.”

Truth be told the evangelist is not dead, but the qualifications to be an evangelist are much higher than most people realize.  It is not a self-certification – you must meet certain criteria. 

Here are my qualifications to earn the title "evangelist":

• You must have a blog on topic which is read and regularly linked to by large numbers of people.
• You have published a book on topic that a large number of people have actually bought, read and talk about.
• You have built a successful company in your specific tech area with lots of employees.
• Other people refer to you as an evangelist.

It is not a science.  I guess if you meet a couple of the points above you can use the title.  Entrepreneurs, especially those raising capital from private equity investors, should be careful using the term.  It does not always imply personal intelligence or thought leadership - it often implies business ineptness.