What It Takes To Be An Entrepreneur

What is an entrepreneur ?

An entrepreneur is; a person who organizes and manages a business undertaking, assuming the risk for the sake of the profit. 

Someone who perceives an opportunity and creates an organization to pursue it or simply someone who is looking to build a company.

It is important to understand that an entrepreneur is not necessarily someone that is self-employed (works for themselves).  As more and more people become self-employed we need to understand what makes  people entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurs are simply those who understand that there is little difference between obstacle and opportunity and are able to turn both to their advantage. 

Victor Kiam

Example Of How An Entrepreneur Responds To An Opportunity

An interesting way to understand an entrepreneur is to examine how they approach things. We have taken a case of a social entrepreneur to examine how an entrepreneur thinks and acts in comparison to other career choices;

• Identifying and solving large-scale social problems requires a social entrepreneur because only the entrepreneur has the committed vision and inexhaustible determination (passion) to persist until they have transformed an entire system.

•  The scholar comes to rest when he/she expresses an idea. 

• The professional succeeds when he/she solves a client’s problem. 

• The manager calls it quits when he/she has enabled his organization to succeed.

•  Social entrepreneurs go beyond the immediate problem to fundamentally change communities, societies, the world. There is a dramatic difference between entrepreneurs and other business people.

Entrepreneurs approach problems and opportunities with greater vision and passion which creates much greater impact then most people. If most people take a situation from A to B, an entrepreneur would take it from A to Z.

The Entrepreneurial Idea - The idea is key to becoming an entrepreneur

An entrepreneurial idea; a specific, new way to satisfy a need or want, overcome a problem, or meet a challenge.

Every entrepreneur has an idea, a big idea , to do something different, better or something that other people aren't doing.

A key to a successful entrepreneur is to take the idea and make it work, bring it to market by creating some excitement.

The idea is the starting point to becoming an entrepreneur. You may dream of doing great entrepreneurial things but it is the idea that will get you started on the path to entrepreneurship.

We have developed two entrepreneurial ideas for you;

[Teachingkidsbusiness.com Entrepreneurial Story]    [Kidse-marketplace.com Entrepreneurial Story]

What Does It Take To Be An Entrepreneur

There are key personal characteristics that make people succeed as entrepreneurs. 

• Vision: The successful entrepreneur has a clear and communicable vision of the opportunity his or her business will create or exploit and is completely dedicated to making this vision a reality, even when it means taking risks.

• Determination: The successful entrepreneur must be completely determined to succeed, even in the face of doubts of  family, close friends and associates. This determination must fuel the tireless effort to make it happen.

• Motivation: An entrepreneur lets very little get in the way of making the vision into reality.

• Focus:  The entrepreneur must keep his or her eye on the ball at all times, never allowing precious time, energy and other resources to be distracted from the project.

• Devotion: Entrepreneurs must be completely devoted to the project, enjoy working on the project and deeply committed to the ideas and beliefs on which the project is founded.

• Skills: The entrepreneur must have a skill set to either develop the product or service or the skills to take an idea and figure how to make it work.

• Passion: An entrepreneur must really love what he/she is doing in such a way that it does not appear to be hard work, but rather something they enjoy and want to do.

• Adaptability: An entrepreneur must be able to adapt personally and ensure that the organization has the ability to adapt to new challenges. Allow people to provide their point of view and identify issues and opportunities.
• Display Self-awareness : An entrepreneur must be able to recognize their own strengths and weaknesses and hire their missing skills within their team.
• Creative Thinking: The entrepreneur has to be able to think through the innovative idea and deal with the many variables facing the business - global market, technological change and diverse work force etc.

There is no magical formula to be an entrepreneur and there are no quick steps to succeed. If you are considering being an entrepreneur, you should realize that being an entrepreneur means that you are responsible for making decisions, solving problems, resolving conflicts, developing opportunities and motivating others to share your vision.

As an entrepreneur,  you must think and see things differently then most people;

• when you look at a situation you must see opportunities on how to improve it or how to do it differently,

• you have to be very aware of all the many things that are involved in business,

• you have to want to make a difference. You can't be satisfied with the status quo.

• you have to be very committed to what you are doing - eat and sleep it. It is not work but rather what you love to do.

• what you do is a big part of your life it is not just a job.

You must be able to take rejection many times during your entrepreneurial journey. Many people will say "No" as they don' believe in your concept, don't like you product or they don't think you can make it work. The founder of KFC drove across the USA, while living out of his car , approaching  over a  1,000 restaurants which said "No" to his recipe before one said yes. He took the 'no" answer but tried to learn why they said no so he could  improve his approach.

Entrepreneurial Opportunities

An entrepreneurial opportunity is; a need, want, problem, or challenge that can be addressed, solved and/or satisfied in an innovative way. TeachingKidsBusiness.com is an entrepreneurial opportunity in the area of teaching kids business at an early age. Kidse-marketplace.com is an entrepreneurial opportunity in the area of launching kids into business.

First there must be the entrepreneur that discovers or conceptualizes an innovation that is marketable. The entrepreneur must then have the expertise and desire to bring this innovation to  market and have access to needed resources to make it happen.

Here are a number of steps to take to help you develop an entrepreneurial opportunity.

Please realize that you don't have to be an entrepreneur to succeed in business. You can do great things working for someone else and with the support of a number of people in an organization.

Step Two: [Start With An Idea - TeachingKidsBusiness.com Case]

or

                     [Idea - Kidse-marketplace.com Case]

Congratulations from TeachingKidsBusiness.com!  You have taken another big step in developing your business skills and career preparation.   You will find this to be a very helpful skill, as you use it daily.  Don't stop here!