The world of an entrepreneur

The classic definition of an Entrepreneur is “a person who organizes and manages a business
undertaking, assuming the risk for the sake of the profit.” In my opinion, 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.
It has never been easier or cheaper to start a company that can grow to scale. Thanks to open-
source software, social media platforms, broadband penetration, and--not least--the efforts of
innovators; the cost of launching a tech business has plummeted by 90 percent or more since
2000.
However, there are some facts that keep individuals reserved and away from starting up their
own businesses. The idea that anyone can launch a company feeds the illusion that building a
company is easy. Launching is one thing. The real work of entrepreneurship comes with
sustaining--meeting payroll week after week, hitting growth metrics, expanding without a
cash squeeze, and growing yourself as a leader. And that is very hard, indeed. In his
book Thinking, Fast and Slow, Nobel-winning economist Daniel Kahneman has admiringly
cited a study suggesting that governments cease encouraging entrepreneurship. Since most
would-be company builders end up disappointed, that study reasoned, citizens will be happier
overall if fewer try to become entrepreneurs.
I would not go that far. However, if you are taking the plunge because you believe
entrepreneurship has suddenly become an easy and cost-free path to fame and fortune, you
are kidding yourself.
The bad news is that the data show that you will almost certainly fail. And the good news is,
if you aren't afraid of failure, and want to start a company for the right reasons, there has
never been a better time to do it.

It requires some luck to become a successful entrepreneur. But it also takes more than pure
luck to hit it big: There's a reason the top founders are as successful as they are. Even with
fame and fortune, it takes much more to successfully start and maintain a business.

Those who have formed multiple companies or helped create the highest-impact and most
profitable businesses have been successful because of the traits and habits they intentionally
cultivated. The qualities they have might seem intrinsic, but they're by no means
unlearnable. Successful entrepreneurs spend years refining and practicing their craft, meaning
anybody has the potential to develop these abilities with the right focus and effort. Doing so
not only helps you run a business, but it also improves your output in everyday life.

To begin with, an individual should be very passionate with what he or she is engaging in
since passion requires that a person should completely love what he or she is doing. Being an
entrepreneur requires well-above-average amounts of work and mental energy. Therefore,
without intense passion and energy for the work at hand, consistent effort isn't sustainable
over time.

The other entrepreneurial mindset feature is risk taking. Getting into a new business is always
a risk and involves perils. For instance an entrepreneur is not assured that the business will
ultimately generate profits and that he or she may end up losing personal equity.
Consequently, it takes grit and determination to start a business and deal with the ups and
downs that come along with it. The best founders refuse to give up. When a situation gets
tough, instead of looking for ways out, they embrace the challenge. It’s not any easier for
them. They are simply more willing to persevere through the stress and have sleepless nights
to meet their goal.

The entrepreneurial traditional mindset however differs a great deal from the modern mindset
since traditional entrepreneurs have a mind that is more fixed while modern counterparts are
more flexible growth mindset. The intelligence level in a fixed mindset is often static while
that of a growth mindset is always growing. Entrepreneurs traditionally could avoid
challenges in an effort to appear smart as opposed to modern ones who embrace challenges as
they come with the desire to learn from them. An entrepreneur with a growth mindset also
embraces criticism while traditional mindset entrepreneurs always assume negative feedback
and even avoid learning from critics.

An entrepreneur also generates new business ideas via a thorough market research and
reinvents an older idea. Market research is a continuous process that involves going around to
the potential market area and identifying businesses in existence. During the visit, an
entrepreneur will focus on the issue in a given market area. Therefore, he or she generates an
ideal problem inventory analysis, a method that is quite effective in generating new ideas as
well as solutions by focusing on issues.
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 luminaries 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 actualize themselves.

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. Sadly, 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
and stop individuals from living their dreams.