February 15, 2016 4 min read

U.S. presidents sure like talking about the importance of small business to the country’s overall health. For instance, Barack Obama said, "I think Ronald Reagan tapped into [the fact that people wanted] a return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship that had been missing."

But, how many U.S. presidents have actually been in the trenches, running their own enterprises? Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney made business experience the principal reason for his election in 2012, recently saying, “I’d like to have a provision in the Constitution, to say that the president has to spend at least three years working in business before he could become president of the United States.”

While the jury’s still out on whether business know-how makes for a better president, here’s a look at eight U.S. leaders who were hard-working entrepreneurs.