Who is an Entrepreneur ?

The literal meaning (taken from the dictionary) of Entrepreneur is "A person who organizes, operates, and assumes the risk for a business venture." or "One who starts a business or other venture that promises economic gain but that also entails risks". The keywords here are Venture, risk and economic gains. Venture and risk are almost synonmous as venture also means risk, speculation or gamble(!!!). But I would like to take the other meaning that refers to a business initiative or undertaking.

Let us look at the other theories on Entrepreneurship. There are demand and supply theories for Entrepreneurs as stated by Economists. The demand theory suggets that Entrepreneurs are made out of the opportunities and circumstances. On the other hand, the supply-side theory suggests that the desire to control one's destiny creates Entrepreneurs. But the most generally held theory is that entrepreneurs emerge from the population on demand, from the combination of opportunities and people well-positioned to take advantage of them. The entrepreneur may perceive that they are among the few to recognize or be able to solve a problem.

Another theory suggests that an Entrepreneur is the one who can see what others who came before missed, to make connections between things that others had not, to get land, capital and labor to work together to create that which had not existed before. An

article by Tom W. Glaser published in St. Petersburg Journal gives an example of an Entrepreneur. Oliver Winchester was a successful shirt maker, but he bought the patents for the Henry lever-action repeating rifle. His faith in this invention, along with his efforts in marketing it, made it the most widely known rifle of its day and earned it the nickname of "The Gun That Won the West." The writer says that "Often the entrepreneur is not the person or persons who actually create the new good or service. Rather, he or she is the one who has the vision of how that idea can be turned into reality for the benefit of everyone".

We have impressive examples of two of the biggest Indian businesses (One in Telecom and one in IT) where these entreprenuers didnot start with an idea that ultimately made them successful. But it was the ability to identify the trends early, when it came along.

So who is an entrepreneur ? In my view ,

---An Enreprenuer is one who has the conviction to lead his destiny. He just doesnot wait for a great sounding/revolutionary idea a la Google forever but goes out and try. Of course, it doesnot mean that your idea should have no business value.

---An Entrepreneur understands that it's not necessary that one will always succeed with the venture one started with. So also lookout for opportunities and trends and who knows, you might also stumble upon a million-dollar idea. Your experience with the ongoing venture will always be handy....

Cheers