So, what do you do? > I'm a programmer

Oh, who do you work for? > Myself. I started a market research company with my best friend a year ago.

Oh, like a start up? > Yeah, I guess you can call it that. We do some contract work on the side to pay for things.

Hows it going so far? > Pretty good! We've tried out some things that haven't worked out and we're trying out new things. What about you, what do you do?

- At this point, 99% of people feel as if they know everything about you. So the game, you the more intelligent entrepreneur with your max hax0r people skillz, is to find something interesting about them. If you manage to do that, then you might just have a new friend, and not just another business card.

If you want mortification, try writing for a living. In reality, you're running a small (one and a half person) business supplying IP to large multinational OEMs. But if you say "I'm an author" everyone thinks you spend your days swigging dry martinis by the pool while languidly dictating to your busty secretary -- or that you want them to think that's how you spend your days. The media have a lot to answer for, for turning "author" into a lifestyle rather than a job description.

(I think in future I'll start saying "I run a contracting company in the intellectual property sector". "What kind of intellectual property?" "Stories about space nazis ...")

What's up with saying "I'm a programmer"? Assuming you are, of course. Being a co-founder is not a profession. I think when a person asks this question, you should answer in the most simple and pragmatic way. Because, in my opinion:

1. Trying to be unconventional when answering this question is wrong. Most of the times you seem like a jerk.

2. Saying you're a co-founder in any way before saying what you actually do (skill) is wrong. It only serves the purpose of informing others how independent and successful you want to seem.

"I run a couple websites." - This usually results in questions about the website subject matter, which is much more fun to answer than questions about revenue and what my actual job is.

"I own a software company" is the best I've come up with. Any answer you give people is going to leave a lot of room for interpretation and how I answer that question depends on context and who is asking, but if it's a random person at a bar, you can't beat "I own a software company."

"I co-run a company. We break into banks."

I agree; the words "startup", "entrepreneur", and "small business" are all freighted. Just say "company".

'I run a business which does server and application monitoring for IT firms.'

Maybe it's just me, but when a person asks what you do, and you say 'i'm a programmer/entrepreneur/doctor/whatever', you're only scratching the surface.

You're doctor? what type? You're an engineer? What sort of stuff do you do.

Would you ever meet an actor and not say 'would I have seen you in anything'?

If the person didn't care what you did, then hopefully they wouldn't have asked.

Give them the full answer, it's isn't like you're tweeting it!

At the same time, don't get into what sorts of hosted applications or stuff like that, just figure out what people are going to understand.

I make web sites that make money. I'm trying to make them bigger so they make more money.

That's good enough.

Even people who understand nothing about the web understand that some people make money off it, so... It's a good enough answer.

As an IT Director managing multiple people/offices over many states, and a former senior engineer at a fortune 500 I would say:

"I'm a Computer guy"

No one actually cares about our jobs/titles. If you were interested in that, go be firefighter. There are vanishingly few people that even know there's a difference between sysadmin and development.

This summer, I've mostly been saying 'machine learning', 'biological machine learning', 'artificial intelligence', 'programming', or 'artificial brains' depending on the person, the situation and where I want to try to take the conversation. AI and brains sound cool to non-technical people and usually they are curious and it stimulates conversation. Sometimes I tell nontechnical people 'programming' if I want to cut short the conversation about professions (most people will lose interest at the mention of programming) and steer it toward something potentially more interesting. Of course, another way to avoid professions is to not mention one at all and stay that I am a student --- but then I have to go on about what I'm studying. I reserve 'machine learning' mostly for EECS/mathy people who might know what that means.

"I build apps for people with big YouTube channels."

I find this is always the best answer, because trying to avoid conversations by saying "I have a startup", only results in the re-asking the "so, what do you do" question, to which I have to provide a real answer.

I've had a lot of problem with this question, myself. In that it's hard to succinctly put what I do, and living in not-SF, people don't really understand tech-web-startup-speak.

I guess in the end I've gotten around to saying some version of "I run some websites". Which, if there are followup questions usually evolves into questions about how you make money on websites. I tried variants of "web developer" and the like but then people think I design websites for other clients. I do very little programming these days so any version with "programming" doesn't seem to work. Never liked the term "blogger" and doesn't really fit what I do.

Why does this seemingly come up so often on entrepreneur blogs? People care about perception from strangers way too much.

There's no silver bullet for this. There's no magical phrase that's going to get people unfamiliar with startups to understand or care about the nuances of your multi-faceted responsibilities in marketing, development, sales and the top-down strategic stuff.

So I just say I'm a dolphin trainer most of the time.

For this among other reasons, I tend not to use "what do you do?" as an opening query (though that doesn't help you if someone else does). I prefer something more like, "what kinds of things are you interested in?" For some people it's the same, but I've met plenty of people with boring day jobs and interesting projects, so if I don't already know the person I'd rather let them decide what they find interesting to tell me about themselves.

I build crowds. Guaranteed.

Why don't you just say "I'm running an Internet business"?

I use, "I make video games."

These guys should say, "I simplify monitoring web servers."

"I tell computers and cell phones what to do"

"Fine thanks. How do you do?"

Don't have an answer? Hack the question.