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. The entrepreneur is commonly seen as an innovator, a source of new ideas, goods, services, and business/or procedures.
Entrepreneurs play a key role in any economy, using the skills and initiative necessary to anticipate needs and bringing good new ideas to market. Entrepreneurship that proves to be successful in taking on the risks of creating a startup is rewarded with profits, fame, and continued growth opportunities. Entrepreneurship that fails results in losses and less prevalence in the markets for those involved.
The word entrepreneurship is a general term that can mean a lot of things to different people. This is why I have decided to write on this topic ‘Who is an entrepreneur?‘ to enlighten us on who an entrepreneur is, what type of entrepreneur you might be, what qualifies you to be of an entrepreneur, and the functions/roles of an entrepreneur.
An entrepreneur is generally defined as an individual who organizes or operates a business or businesses.
TYPES OF ENTREPRENEURS
The major types of entrepreneurs include; social entrepreneurs, serial entrepreneurs, and lifestyle entrepreneurs.
SOCIAL ENTREPRENEUR
This is an individual who pursues innovative solutions to social problems. A social entrepreneur adopts a style of which he/she can use to create and sustain social values. Most social entrepreneurs engage in non-profit activities and are overwhelmed by social responsibilities and conscience. They are primarily motivated to improve socio-economic well being, educational, health, fundamental, environmental and health conditions of others. Examples of great social entrepreneurs that ever lived include; Bill Drayton, Vinoba Bhave, David Brower, Maria Montessori, Florence Nightingale, and some present-day social entrepreneurs are Ibrahim Abouleish, Bill Clinton and Dr. Abraham M. George.
SERIAL ENTREPRENEUR
This is an individual who CONTINUOUSLY comes up with new ideas, start the businesses and often times sell to investors or shareholders. Serial entrepreneurs start-up several businesses with little intention to operate any of them for a long time. They are high risk-takers with lots of unique ideas and are not always interested in a career with a particular business/company. 10 top serial entrepreneurs according to Forbes include Craig McCaw, Josh Kopelman, Steve Blank, Wayne Huizenga, Michael Rubin, The Samwer brothers, Lyndon Rive, Omar Hamoui, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis the Skype pair, Andy Bechtolsheim.
LIFESTYLE ENTREPRENEUR
This is an individual who creates profit from personal passion. He/she put their lifestyle ahead of every opportunity. While most entrepreneurs are motivated to build a business to a certain stage and sell to shareholders or investors, the lifestyle entrepreneur chooses to build a business they are passionate about and grow the business into a long term, residual income that is sustainable. Most lifestyle entrepreneurs are completely self-employed; this is to allow them time to set up their projects. In a nutshell, a lifestyle entrepreneur is an addict of whatever they find themselves doing, they do it so well, commit their time, resources and energy to see their project completed. Examples of a lifestyle entrepreneur according to eCommerce rules include; Tim Ferriss, Pat Flynn, and Chris Guillebeau.
According to Forbes, here is a list of great Entrepreneurs of our time;
- Bill Gates – Microsoft
- Larry Page and Sergey Brin – Google
- Mark Zuckerberg – Facebook
- Michael Bloomberg – Bloomberg
- Masayoshi Son – SoftBank
- Elon Musk – SpaceX
- Terry Gou – Hon Hai Precision Industry
- Larry Elison – Oracle
- Robin Li – Baidu
- Aliko Dangote – Dangote Group
- Reid Hoffman – Venture Capitalist
- Mo Ibrahim – Mo Ibrahim Foundation
QUALITIES OF AN ENTREPRENEUR
To be an Entrepreneur, you must possess most of these qualities;
- Be open-minded
- Problem identifier and solver
- Passionate
- Confident and disciplined
- Risk-taker
- A constant flow of ideas
- Creative
- Competitive
- Opportunist
- Determination (Strong-willed)
What Is an Intrapreneur?
An intrapreneur is an employee who is tasked with developing an innovative idea or project within a company. The intrapreneur may not face the outsized risks or reap the outsized rewards of an entrepreneur. However, the intrapreneur has access to the resources and capabilities of an established company.
Definition of Intrapreneur:
An intrapreneur is a person who takes on the responsibility to innovate new ideas, products and processes or any new invention within the organization. However, the intrapreneur has access to the resources and capabilities of an established company.
Types of Intrapreneur:
As an entrepreneurial leader, you will need three types of people on your team to be successful in the market.
- Creators
- Doers
- Implementors
Research showed that there are subtle differences between intrapreneurs that distinguish one from another.
Creators:
Other than entrepreneurs, creators are those who came up with different and innovative plans, ideas and business strategies that help the organization in the business growth. They are also known as idea generated people. As they develop and discover ideas that fuel innovation.
Doers:
After creators, doers are the ones who focus on achieving the objectives of the business because they are task-oriented and highly dedicated to their work. They understand the strategies and get involved when it is required. They know what needs to get done. They just go for it.
Implementors:
Implementors are those who make things happen. They got the skills to get things done or figure out how to get them done. They work well in high-pressure situations because they are high on closures.