Think Big or Choose Security? Alejandro Betancourt López’s View

Alejandro Betancourt López has a firm view on who should start a company, and an equally firm view that there is nothing wrong with deciding not to. Both came out in the same 2023 interview, alongside a line he treats as a job requirement. “Every entrepreneur has to dream big,” he said.

“If you’re not thinking big, you shouldn’t be an entrepreneur, you know? It’s part of it,” he said. Later in that conversation he added the other half of the thought: some people “would hate it and say, I don’t want the risks,” and that is “totally understandable.”

The Odds Behind the Choice

Only 34.7% of the U.S. private-sector business establishments that opened in March 2013 were still operating 10 years later, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in January 2024. The steepest drop came in the first year, when the survival rate fell by 20.4 percentage points. Nearly two-thirds of those businesses had closed within a decade.

Those numbers include every kind of new establishment, from corner shops to professional service firms. Alejandro Betancourt was describing that trade-off when he tied entrepreneurship to thinking big.

Alejandro Betancourt López on Choices, Not Rankings

“Everything is choices,” he said. “And one is not better than the other.” People who want security in life, he argued, are making a decision about what they want, and entrepreneurship might simply not suit them. Founders who do take the risk need belief. “You gotta bet on it. You gotta believe in it,” he said.

“Everything is possible for everyone. But you know, you gotta understand what you want,” he said. “If you want to be an entrepreneur, you gotta think big. If you don’t want to think big, it’s fair, it’s fine.” In the end, he said, “it’s just a matter of taste and what you want from life.”

“Don’t be afraid of success. Don’t be afraid of failure. You’re going to fail for sure, but you’re going to be successful at some point,” Alejandro Betancourt López advised in another interview. He added that “an entrepreneur only needs motivation.”

“Don’t be afraid of feeling uncomfortable,” he said of the comfort that can follow an early win.

Alejandro Betancourt López’s résumé lists founding and board roles in companies across several industries, each started or backed at a stage when its outcome was far from settled.

wrong with deciding not to. Both came out in the same 2023 interview, alongside a line he treats as a job requirement. Every entrepreneur has to dream big