Poole, 1992. A general election party in the depths of recession. I am 11, and I've come on tour with my father, an actor in a production of Molière's The Miser. We sit up through the night and watch the constituencies fall.

With John Major's Conservatives inching towards victory, the group becomes increasingly subdued. An actor in his early 20s asks me what I want to be when I grow up. Also an actor, I tell him, as nonchalantly as possible. He laughs. "You'll never make any money," he says. I shrug. I've heard these words many times before.

In the UK, we tell young people going into theatre that they will not – cannot – make money. It's a mantra that makes them begin to feel that they should not; poverty and authenticity become synonymous. There will be a few stars, of course, but most people should expect to graft (as Steven Berkoff puts it) and be rewarded with praise and the knowledge of work well done – but rarely with a living wage. (While union rates exist for directors, actors and everyone else in theatre, the reality is that people frequently work for less, and often for nothing.) Maybe struggling against adversity strengthens determination. But what does it do to aspiration?

Only after several years of writing, performing, directing and applying for funding did I realise how destructive this attitude can be. I'd been given plenty of encouragement, but by the time I started working in the industry the lack of economic motivation was as much a truth to me as the idea that doctors work with sickness and bankers with money. Theatre people are penniless: fact of life.

A few weeks back, I met another group of theatremakers through my father, who is currently working on the Royal Shakespeare Company's Christmas show. (It's Robin Hood, a classic tale of austerity Britain.) The director, Gísli Örn Garðarsson, is a young Icelander and one of the founders of Vesturport, a company formed in 2001 by a group of graduates who decided to spend $1,800 a month on renting an old electrical shed to use as a theatre.

This was during Iceland's boom time, however, and the graduates had most likely been cushioned by a considerable government subsidy. But the boldness of the move – and the willingness to lay down hard cash – speaks of ambition and even the expectation of a return.

Since then, Vesturport's financial model has developed along unusual lines. While they operate as a collective, each member retains creative and financial responsibility for his or her own projects. Gísli suggests this might be a reason for the success of the company, as well as for that of the individuals within it: a large initial outlay followed by financial autonomy, allowing each of the artists to become an entrepreneur.

In A Director Prepares, author and theatre director Anne Bogart writes that if you call a company Shoestring Theatre you've damned it to smallness before it's begun. Surely the same applies to our theatremakers? The expectation of poverty will not make passionate young performers and directors give up their dreams, but it will train them to aim low, try to manage on tiny budgets and be delighted with an occasional few thousand pounds from the Arts Council.

Some people will read the last sentence and think: "I'd be happy with any funding at all …" But this attitude is part of the problem, because artists accustomed to getting by on small grants will tailor their ideas and projects to the money available. There are, of course, British theatre companies and individuals with great business models. But I'd love to see a new breed of young theatremakers who thought of themselves as entrepreneurs as well as artists.

Aspiring bankers expect high salaries not only because everyone "knows" that bankers get paid a lot, but also because the best way to achieve success is to believe in it. There might not be as much money in theatre as in finance, but no one should choose a career without presuming they can excel, both creatively and financially.