Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship is the practice of starting new organizations or revitalizing mature organizations, particularly new businesses generally in response to identified opportunities. Entrepreneurship is often a difficult undertaking, as a vast majority of new businesses fail. Entrepreneurial activities are substantially different depending on the type of organization that is being started.


Entrepreneurship ranges in scale from solo projects (even involving the entrepreneur only part-time) to major undertakings creating many job opportunities. Many "high-profile" entrepreneurial ventures seek venture capital or angel funding in order to raise capital to build the business. Angel investors generally seek returns of 20-30% and more extensive involvement in the business. Many kinds of organizations now exist to support would-be entrepreneurs, including specialized government agencies, business incubators, science parks, and some NGOs.


The acts of entrepreneurship is often associated with true uncertainty, particularly when it involves bringing something really novel to the world, whose market never exists. Before the Internet, nobody knew the market for Internet related businesses such as Amazon, Google, YouTube, Yahoo etc. Only after the Internet emerged did people begin to see opportunities and market in that technology. However, even if a market already exists, such as the market for cola drinks (which has been created by Coca Cola), there is no guarantee that a market exists for a particular new player in the cola category. The question is: whether a market exists and if it exists for you.


Entrepreneurs have many of the same character traits as leaders, similar to the early great man theories of leadership; however trait-based theories of entrepreneurship are increasingly being called into question. Entrepreneurs are often contrasted with managers and administrators who are said to be more methodical and less prone to risk-taking. Such person-centric models of entrepreneurship have shown to be of questionable validity, not least as many real-life entrepreneurs operate in teams rather than as single individuals.


The entrepreneur has an enthusiastic vision, the driving force of an enterprise. The entrepreneur's vision is usually supported by an interlocked collection of specific ideas not available to the marketplace. The overall blueprint to realize the vision is clear, however details may be incomplete, flexible, and evolving.The entrepreneur promotes the vision with enthusiastic passion. With persistence and determination, the entrepreneur develops strategies to change the vision into reality.


The entrepreneur takes the initial responsibility to cause a vision to become a success. Entrepreneurs take prudent risks. They assess costs, market/customer needs and persuade others to join and help. An entrepreneur is usually a positive thinker and a decision maker. An entrepreneur has inspiration, motivation and sensibility.