What it Takes for Success

Entrepreneur -- Personal Meaning

The concept of an entrepreneur carries many different meanings to different individuals. Technically it can be thought of as someone that starts their own business or expands an existing one. However, that is only part of the story and there are many personality traits or perceptions that can be associated with entrepreneurism or being entrepreneurial. There can also be another level of meaning given to some of the things that it requires an entrepreneur to do to be successful. For example, it is one thing to simply start a business, but it is another to make that business successful and endure in the face of whatever challenges that business may face after its inception.

To me, one of the first aspects of being an entrepreneur relates to the constant scanning of the environment and to be conscious of potential opportunities. The entrepreneur must create value in the market somehow. I think this probably occurs most commonly when someone spots some kind of problem or sees a way that a product or service could be improved upon. This creates an opportunity for the entrepreneur by spotting something that could be better and then creating a way to improve upon what they identified. I think this separates an entrepreneurial spirit from just an investor.

For example, an investor could purchase an existing business and pay a manager to run it. However, an entrepreneur would be constantly looking for ways to grow and expand the business by focusing a continuous process of improvement. Therefore, I don't think all business owners are necessarily really entrepreneurs. I think the entrepreneurial drive includes some form of trying to create more value and grow your competitive advantage. Therefore, in my mind, I believe there is a distinction to be made in the definition of entrepreneur.

Another aspect of being an entrepreneur must include acting on the opportunity that was identified. For example, lots of different people may be able to the potential for improvement for some good or service. A person might think that it would be nice to have a business closer that sells some kind of good or provides some service that they are interested in, but might not go any further with their idea. An entrepreneur, by contrast, would view this as an opportunity and pursue it further.

Even if the entrepreneur decides not to open that business in the end for any particular reason, this would still represent the entrepreneurial approach. Therefore, I think a person can be an entrepreneur without out actually owning a business if they are in the process of trying to identify the best opportunity they can to act on. Thus, by my definition, someone that actually owns a business may not really be an entrepreneur while someone that has yet to start their business might fully embody the entrepreneurial spirit. I don't believe the qualification of being a business owner or not is sufficient to define an entrepreneur.