WHAT IS ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND WHO IS AN ENTREPRENEUR ?

We often hear that so and so is an entrepreneur who has started his or her own business. It is also the case that when we hear the term entrepreneur, we tend to associate it with a person who has or is starting their own ventures or in other words, striking it on their own. 

This is indeed the case as the formal definition of Entrepreneurship is that it is the process of starting a business or an organization for profit or for social needs. 

We have used the phrase for profit or for social needs to delineate and separate the commercial entrepreneurship from social and charitable entrepreneurship. After defining entrepreneurship, it is now time to define who an entrepreneur is and what he or she does.

An entrepreneur is someone who develops a business model, acquires the necessary physical and human capital to start a new venture, and operationalizes it and is responsible for its success or failure. 

Note the emphasis of the phrase responsible for success or failure as the entrepreneur is distinct from the professional manager in the sense that the former either invests his or her own resources or raises capital from external sources and thus takes the blame for the failure as well as reaps the rewards in case of success whereas the latter or the professional manager does the job and the work assigned to him or her for a monetary consideration. 

In other words, the entrepreneur is the risk taker and an innovator in addition to being a creator of new enterprises whereas the professional manager is simply the executor.

Attributes of Entrepreneurs

Moving to the skills and capabilities that an entrepreneur needs to have, first and foremost, he or she has to be an innovator who has a game changing idea or a potentially new concept that can succeed in the crowded marketplace. 

Note that investors usually tend to invest in ideas and concepts which they feel would generate adequate returns for their capital and investments and hence, the entrepreneur needs to have a truly innovative idea for a new venture.

Leadership Qualities

Apart from this, the entrepreneur needs to have excellent organizational and people management skills as he or she has to build the organization or the venture from scratch and has to bond with his or her employees as well as vibe well with the other stakeholders to ensure success of the venture.

Further, the entrepreneur needs to be a leader who can inspire his or her employees as well as be a visionary and a person with a sense of mission as it is important that the entrepreneur motivates and drives the venture. 

This means that leadership, values, team building skills, and managerial abilities are the key skills and attributes that an entrepreneur needs to have.

Creative Destruction and Entrepreneurship

We often hear the term creative destruction being spoken about when talking about how some companies fade away whereas others succeed as well as maintain their leadership position in the marketplace. 

Creative destruction refers to the replacement of inferior products and companies by more efficient, innovative, and creative ones wherein the capitalist market based ecosystem ensures that only the best and brightest survive whereas others are blown away by the gales of creative destruction. 

In other words, entrepreneurs with game changing ideas and the skills and attributes that are needed to succeed ensure that their products, brands, and ventures take market share away from existing companies that are either not creating values or are simply inefficient and stuck in a time warp wherein they are unable to see the writing on the wall. 

Therefore, this process of destroying the old and the inefficient through newer and creative ideas is referred to as creative destruction which is often what the entrepreneur does when he or she launches a new venture.

An Entrepreneur is a Risk Taker

We have discussed what entrepreneurship is and the skills and attributes needed by entrepreneurs along with how they engage and indulge in creative destruction. 

This does not mean that all entrepreneurs are successful as the fact that they can become victims of creative destruction as well as due to lack of the other traits means that a majority of new ventures do not survive past the one year mark of their existence. 

Now, when ventures fail, the obvious question is who takes the blame for the failure and whose money is being lost. The answer is that the entrepreneur puts his or her own money or raises capital from angel investors and venture capitalists which means in case the venture goes belly up, the entrepreneur and the investors lose money. 

Note that as mentioned earlier, the employees and the professional managers lose their jobs and unless they are partners in the venture, their money is not at stake. Therefore, this means that the entrepreneur is the risk taker in the venture which means that the success or failure of the firm reflects on the entrepreneur.

Some Famous Entrepreneurs

Given this basic introduction to entrepreneurship, we can now turn to some famous examples of entrepreneurs who have succeeded despite heavy odds because they had game changing ideas and more importantly, they also had the necessary traits and skills that would make them legendary. 

For instance, both the founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, and the late Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, were college dropouts though their eventual success meant that they had not only truly innovative ideas, but they were also ready to strike it out for the longer term and hang on when the going got tough. 

Even the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, as well as Google’s Larry Paige and Sergey Brian can be considered as truly revolutionary entrepreneurs. 

What all these legends have in common is that they had the vision and the sense of mission that they were going to change the world and with hard work, perseverance, and a nurturing ecosystem, they were able to self actualizes themselves.

Entrepreneurship Needs a Nurturing Ecosystem

Finally, note the use of the term nurturing ecosystem. This means that just as entrepreneurs cannot succeed if they lack the necessary attributes, they cannot succeed even having them but living in an environment or a country that does not encourage risk or tolerate failure and more importantly, is unable to provide them with the monetary and human capital needed for success. 

This means that the United States remains the preeminent country for entrepreneurship as it has the ecosystem needed for these entrepreneurs to succeed whereas in many countries, it is often impossible or difficult to find funding, work through red tape, and ensure that the environmental factors do not inhibit entrepreneurship.

Leia mais

INTERNET ENTREPRENEURSHIP

INTERNET ENTREPRENEURSHIP: WHAT IS NECESSARY AND HOW TO DO

How to undertake on the internetThe Brazilian people are known for their inventiveness and when the subject is entrepreneurship could not be different, how much it is to solve problems or to use opportunities to develop new businesses this people draws letter.

Especially in the current crisis scenario in which we find ourselves, entrepreneurship may be the best way to overcome unemployment.

SEE TIPS ON ENTREPRENEURSHIP

In addition to this scenario, the internet presents a range of opportunities to undertake, whether in selling products through an e-commerce, producing content for blogs and vlogs, affiliate sales, in short, the opportunities to make money on the internet are almost endless and depends very much on the curiosity of the internaut and also on his creativity.

This is what we will address in this text, how to explore the internet and find opportunities to undertake or even earn extra money with little investment. Keep reading and see what it takes to be an entrepreneur and how to make that happen.

WHAT IS NECESSARY TO JOIN THE INTERNET?

Let's start with the most basic, you will need an internet connection and a good computer, you may not give due importance to a good machine at first, but if you want to fall headfirst into this business, this is an extremely important item .

Once you already have the necessary stuff, let's go to the qualities you must have or develop to undertake on the internet.

1. Take initiative: you should not sit in front of your computer and expect the jobs to simply fall on your lap, you should strive and look for your first customers and make your portfolio;

2. Planning and discipline: setting goals for your venture is imperative, no matter whether physical or online, however, in the latter it is very easy to lose the reins and not take proper care of it, especially because the individual usually works at home, it is simple to confuse things;

3. Perseverance: It is not because your first attempt went awry that you should assume that this type of business has no future. You need to be pushy and learn from your own mistakes.

These are just some of the characteristics that are part of a good entrepreneur and are key to success, yet they are not limited to that. Work your qualities and invest in yourself.

WHERE AND HOW TO JOIN THE INTERNET

Well, as we have already said, finding "service" on the internet is not a very difficult task, what will limit this is the amount of skills you have, that is, if you know how to use tools like photoshop, if you know how to work with textual techniques like SEO and if you are good at dealing with people, you can even be a virtual attendant to some company.

Well, but without further ado, we'll talk about where and how to find your first job on the internet.

· Freelance

Being a freelancer, you can "sell" several of your skills, there are companies and people who are always looking for someone to develop some work. You can be a writer, designer, consultant, attendant, etc. Just know where to look for these jobs and have some nerve to convince your potential contractor.

You can subscribe to several online platforms such as Workana, Freescales, Freelancer.com, Fiverr, Upwork, among many others. Some, like Getninjas, for example, are platforms only available for use on the smartphone. And the best part is that the initial investment is very low.

Now just look through these platforms and see which one fits best in your profile.

· Virtual Assistant

If you like dealing with people, this is the right job for you, make money by responding to social networking comments and taking away any doubts is the dream of those who wish to have a home office. It is not uncommon for this type of work to appear on the platforms presented above, but stay tuned, have some experience with customer service and speak languages ​​such as English and Spanish are a great differential that can result in a successful hiring.

· Creating a Blog / Vlog

Have you ever imagined earning money by sharing your experiences and opinions with people? Well, this is more than possible when creating a blog or a YouTube channel, for example. When you create relevant content for a niche of people, they often access your page and there are advertisements that, with each click, your bank account increases.

These are just a few of the examples of how you can start to win customers and slowly build an online business with employees. So be aware of our tips and other opportunities that may arise on the internet and work to conquer your space and then set up your business online.

Do you think there's something very important that we forget? Just leave it in the comments.

Leia mais