Qualities Needed To Be An Entrepreneur

What Is an Entrepreneur?

An entrepreneur is an individual who creates a new business, bearing most of the risks and enjoying most of the rewards. The process of setting up a business is known as entrepreneurship.

Entrepreneurs play a key role in any economy, using the skills and initiative necessary to anticipate needs and bring new ideas to market.

They are often innovators and can create new products, services, or ways of doing things in order to meet a demand in the marketplace.

Characteristics

What is difference between entrepreneurs and ordinary people?

Entrepreneurs and ordinary people may have different characteristics and mindset that set them apart. Some differences include:

- Risk-taking: Entrepreneurs are often willing to take on a high degree of risk in order to start and grow a business, while ordinary people may be more risk-averse.

- Innovation: Entrepreneurs may be more likely to come up with new ideas and ways of doing things, while ordinary people may be more content to follow established patterns.

- Proactivity: Entrepreneurs are often proactive in seeking out opportunities and taking action to make them happen, while ordinary people may be more reactive and wait for opportunities to come to them.

- Resilience: Entrepreneurs may be more resilient and able to handle failure and rejection, as starting a business can be a challenging process with many obstacles to overcome, while ordinary people may give up more easily.

- Vision: Entrepreneurs tend to have a clear vision of where they want to take their business, whereas ordinary people may not have such a clear vision of their future goals.

It’s worth noting that these are generalizations and not every entrepreneur or ordinary person will possess all of these characteristics and not everyone who possesses these characteristics is an entrepreneur.

“The best way to predict the future is to create it.”Peter Drucker

Entrepreneurship and Leadership

Entrepreneurs can be leaders, as starting and running a business often requires strong leadership skills. Entrepreneurs need to be able to inspire and guide their employees, as well as make difficult decisions and take responsibility for the success or failure of the business. They also need to be able to set a vision and strategy for the business, and be able to communicate it effectively to stakeholders.

However, not all entrepreneurs are effective leaders and not all leaders are entrepreneurs. Leadership is a complex and multifaceted skill set, it can be developed and enhanced through experience, training and education.

Different Types of Entrepreneurs

Not every entrepreneur is the same and not all have the same goals. Here are a few types of entrepreneurs:

Builder

Builders seek to create scalable businesses within a short time frame. Builders typically pass $5 million in revenue in the first two to four years and continue to build up until $100 million or beyond. These individuals seek to build out a strong infrastructure by hiring the best talent and seeking the best investors. Sometimes, they have temperamental personalities that are suited to the fast growth they desire but may make personal and business relationships difficult.2

Opportunist

Opportunistic entrepreneurs are optimistic individuals with the ability to pick out financial opportunities, get in at the right time, stay on board during the time of growth, and exit when a business hits its peak.

These types of entrepreneurs are concerned with profits and the wealth they will build, so they are attracted to ideas where they can create residual or renewal income. Because they are looking to find well-timed opportunities, opportunistic entrepreneurs can be impulsive.2

Innovator

Innovators are those rare individuals that come up with a great idea or product that no one has thought of before. Think of Thomas Edison, Steve Jobs, and Mark Zuckerberg. These individuals worked on what they loved and found business opportunities through their vision and ideas.

Rather than focusing on money, innovators tend to care more about the impact that their products and services have on society. These individuals are not the best at running a business as they are idea-generating individuals, so they often leave the day-to-day operations to those more capable in that respect.2

Specialist

These individuals are analytical and risk-averse. They have a strong skill set in a specific area obtained through education or apprenticeship. A specialist entrepreneur will build out their business through networking and referrals, sometimes resulting in slower growth than a builder entrepreneur.2

4 Types of Entrepreneurship

As there are different types of entrepreneurs, there are also different types of businesses they create. Below are the main different types of entrepreneurship.

Small-business

Small business entrepreneurship refers to opening a business without turning it into a large conglomerate or opening many chains. A single-location restaurant, one grocery shop, or a retail shop to sell goods or services would all be examples of small business entrepreneurship.

These people usually invest their own money and succeed if their businesses turn a profit, which serves as their income. Sometimes, they don’t have outside investors and will only take a loan if it helps continue the business.

Scalable startup

These are companies that start with a unique idea that can be built to a large scale—think Silicon Valley. The hopes are to innovate with a unique product or service and continue growing the company, continuously scaling up over time. These types of companies often require investors and large amounts of capital to grow their idea and expand into multiple markets.

Large-company

Large company entrepreneurship is a new business division created within an existing company. The existing company may be well placed to branch out into other sectors or it may be positioned well to become involved in new technology.

CEOs of these companies either foresee a new market for the company or individuals within the company generate ideas that they bring to senior management to start the process and development.

Social entrepreneurship

The goal of social entrepreneurship is to create a benefit to society and humankind. This form of business focuses on helping communities or the environment through their products and services. They are not driven by profits but rather by helping the world around them.

One thing to remember is that an entrepreneurs mindset is vital. If you don’t take care of your mental well being and grow your mindset you will not be able to make the necessary critical decisions that makes or breaks the business.