An entrepreneur is a creative ‘destroyer’ empowered by innovation within the market place when he carries out and also experiments with new combinations. He organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise. He develops a new or improved product, service or way of doing things that can exist independent of the creator, and bears the financial responsibility for risks in bringing their development to market.
He is an action oriented and highly motivated individual who has the ability to see and evaluate business opportunities, and gather the necessary resources, to take advantage of them to initiate appropriate action , to ensure success and to take risks to achieve goals.
Aliko Dangote
Source: Google
He creates jobs, solves problems, adds value and seeks excellence. He or she is known as one who assumes the responsibility and risk for a business with the expectation of making a profit. The entrepreneur generally, decides on the product, acquires the facilities and brings together the labour force, capital and production materials. If the business succeeds, the entrepreneur reaps the reward of profits, if it fails, he or she takes the loss.
An entrepreneur is also seen as an individual who creates some sort of innovative economic activity that did not previously exist. He or she provides and services through new business or be attempting to revitalize existing businesses , and thereby, make good out of any necessary situation.
He is driven by will – power and independence, the aim to triumph and the happiness of creating He is a specialist in taking on risk , identifies business opportunities and organizes the required resources to initiate successful business activity.
An entrepreneur is different from a manager who only plans, organizes and controls a business idea after it has been successful initiated by the entrepreneur .He consistently thinks and acts in ways designed to uncover new opportunities that are then applied to provide value. He breaks barrier by thinking out of the box.
He ventures out, prefers change as a means of growth and in the process is prepared to take a calculated risk hile taking risks he is aware of the possibilities, success as well as the consequence of failure.
Mike Adenuga
Source: Google
Entrepreneur types include the social entrepreneur who is motivated by a desire to help improve and transform social, environmental, educational and economic conditions. He is driven by an emotional desire to address some of the big social and economic conditions in the world. Business entrepreneur is one who continuously comes up with new ideas and starts new business.
He is symbolized by possessing a higher propensity for risk, innovation and achievement. Serial entrepreneurs are more likely to experience repeated entrepreneurial success. They are more likely to take risks and recover from business failure while the lifestyle entrepreneur places passion before profit when launching a business in order to combine personal interests and talent with the ability to earn a living.
Folorunsho Alakija
Source: Google
The categories of innovations carried out by the entrepreneur that tend to be the specific by – products of entrepreneurial activities include the Introduction of a new product or service that is an improvement in the quality of an existing product or service, introduction of a new process or method that increases productivity, the opening of a new market, particularly an export market in a new territory, the conquest of a new source of supply of raw materials, half-manufactured products or alternative materials and the creation of a new organization.
The functions of the entrepreneur in an economy include the selection of business opportunities. Human beings have a variety of needs. Some of the needs are satisfied by making available relevant goods and services. Other needs may remain unsatisfied due to the absence of the required goods and services. This category of unsatisfied needs constitutes the business opportunities that can be exploited at any given time and place.
They combine factors of production such as land, labour and capital that are needed for production. They establish business enterprises that are required to combine the factors of production which is coupled with the management of these enterprises which involves an effective day to day running of the business that entail is alsos planning organizing and coordinating.
Entrepreneurs also take decision that involves the choice and the adoption of an alternative course of action on issues affecting the business. In view of the uncertainty in the success or failure of an alternative course of action taken, there is a high degree of risk in decision making.
It is expected that every aspiring entrepreneur should have a vision which is an idea or a description of what one wants to achieve or to become in the long term future, setting of goals on short and medium term bases is equally germane., self motivation which is an internal drive that spurs an individual into action so as to achieve the set goals or objectives should be taken seriously.
There must be sacrifice on the part of the entrepreneur which involves given up something in anticipation of getting another thing in future.
The establishment and the successful management of business enterprises involve sacrifice of time and resources in anticipation of getting profits. Therefore, for one to become an entrepreneur, one must imbibe the habit of making sacrifices. He should be able to imbibe the culture of time management which involves the ability to accomplish many tasks within the shortest possible time.
Hard work is a necessary attribute which entails continuity and consistency in putting the required efforts for the achievement of set goals. Perseverance, on the other hand, means remaining resolute and determined, in spite of perceived or real hurdles on the way to the achievement of the set targets. Also, an entrepreneur should be decisive which is an ability to react quicklyand rightly on matters of concern.
A business involves making and taking decisions on many issues such as where to locate the business, amount of capital required, type of people to employ etc. Fear of failure should not prevent one from taking decisions. It is always better to take decisions and fail than failing to take decisions at all. Therefore an individual aspiring to become an entrepreneur needs to be decisive on all matters of concern.
Firmness and stead fastness must be watch word of every aspiring entrepreneurs which involves sticking to decisions taken in spite of perceived or real difficulties on ground. . An entrepreneur, needs to imbibe the habit of steadfastness and firmness on decisions taken.
Potential entrepreneurs must be grounded in human relations which involves the need to know how to relate with all categories of stakeholders in the business which could be achieved by studying people and understanding them so as to accommodate their weaknesses and appreciate their strengths.
There must be freedom and independence which involves not relying totally on others on key issues affecting the business. Freedom and independence are essential attributes of potential entrepreneurs. Freedom helps entrepreneurs to think widely and wisely so as to come up with new ideas or products.
Independence on the other hand, improves the entrepreneur’s ability to control the situation he finds himself and solves his problem without recourse to somebody else. It must also be stated that every aspiring entrepreneur needs emotional stability which has to do with the highly unstable and full of ups and downs nature of business start – ups. For an individual to fit into the business world, he needs to be emotionally stable.
Emotional stability means control of sentiments for the attainment of pre-determined goals or objectives. With emotional stability, the unhappiness of incurring losses will not deter the entrepreneur from continuing with the business. Profits making should also not make entrepreneurs to relax and lose sight of future problems.
Raheem Shefiu is an Acadpreneur, Business consultant, start- ups’ mentor. He specializes in Business, Economics, Entrepreneurship and Management..He is a Senior Lecturer and a Researcher with the Centre For Entrepreneurship Development, CED, Yaba College Of Technology, Yabatech, Lagos, Nigeria
