The Oxford Learner’s Dictionary defines an entrepreneur as „a person who makes money by starting or running businesses, especially when this involves taking financial risks.” This is what it means to be an entrepreneur according to the authors of a dictionary and this definition sums up what it means to be an entrepreneur well. But, this is just a basic definition and there is much more to being an entrepreneur than that a dictionary says. In today’s article, we are going to analyze what it really means to be an entrepreneur.
An entrepreneur runs a company for a living, earning money from doing his job. His existence depends on how he runs his enterprise and it is certainly no child’s play to be successful. Therefore, being an entrepreneur is much more than just your daily job – it’s a lifestyle.
The focus of today’s article is going to be the definition of an entrepreneur. But, we’re also going to discuss the main purpose of being an entrepreneur, some basic types of entrepreneurs, and the main qualities a good and successful entrepreneur should have. If you want to know more, keep reading!
What does it mean to be an entrepreneur?
The simplest way to define what being an entrepreneur means is to state what an entrepreneur does. He runs a company for a living, earning money from doing his job. Although it might seem simple to you, being an entrepreneur is certainly not an easy job and you’ll have to work a lot to become good at your job. Your existence depends on how you run your enterprise and it is certainly no child’s play to be successful. Therefore, being an entrepreneur is much more than just your daily job – it’s a lifestyle.
You have to fully invest yourself into being an entrepreneur. You have to follow the trends, you have to live the lifestyle and be a part of the whole clique. You cannot be isolated from society and you cannot be isolated from the business society. You have to be part of the group that you actually belong to and that requires certain sacrifices on your part.
If you’re not living the lifestyle, chances are you’re not going to be that successful.
What is the purpose of an entrepreneur?
Entrepreneurship is not a self-sufficient occupation and there are several purposes which it has to fulfil to be considered successful.
The main goal is to accumulate wealth. Whether you’re sticking to one enterprise or you’re a serial entrepreneur who’s constantly opening and selling new businesses, your goal is to accumulate wealth. This basic principle of any form of labour applies also to entrepreneurship, although the modalities might be a bit different. As an entrepreneur, you don’t actually work (or you do It rarely) but you run an enterprise and earn money off it. It’s still labour, but quite different than what you usually have to do to earn money.
Connected with accumulating wealth is creating value. As an entrepreneur, your goal is to produce. Whatever it is you actually do, your goal is to produce something of value, whether it’s an actual, material object, or just value as an abstract entity. You want to create value because by selling that value on the market, you’ll be able to accumulate the necessary wealth and therefore achieve the main purpose of entrepreneurship.
Finally, entrepreneurship will enable you to be autonomous from everyone and everything. Having your own enterprise gives you a lot of different liberties, most of which you would not be able to enjoy while working on a 9-to-5 job. Creating value enables you to accumulate wealth and wealth enables you further autonomy. If you combine that with the fact that running your own enterprise is far more flexible than working for some other entrepreneur, you’ll have a perfect situation for achieving total autonomy, which is one of the many great benefits of being an entrepreneur.
Types of entrepreneurs
When talking about entrepreneurs, there are five types that practically anyone will fit into. They are:
- Innovators, who create and use new ideas and turn them into a successful and lucrative business.
- Hustlers, who achieve success by being very diligent and persistent; they don’t rely that much on ideas and innovations, as much as on hard work and endurance.
- Imitators, who use and copy certain business ideas, but improve on them and thus create a separate business for themselves.
- Researchers, who are known for thoroughly analyzing every potential idea and creating a practically full-proof business plan that generally cannot fail.
- Buyers, who don’t actually do much themselves but invest their wealth into other potentially lucrative businesses and earn their money that way.
What does it mean to be a successful entrepreneur?
Being a successful entrepreneur is so much more than just earning money. It is a set of values and responsibilities that one has and which he has to respect to consider himself truly successful.
A successful entrepreneur has to be passionate about his work; he has to work hard; he has to focus on every coming opportunity; he has to be patient; he has to be flexible, yet persistent; he also has to be instinctive, rather than do everything by the book; he has to work as a team player; he has to have the courage to execute his ideas; he has to have integrity and honesty, and he has to be humble in his success like he was before he was successful.
This is just a brief overview. In a separate article, we have analyzed this topic in more detail.
