The Oxford dictionary defines the word “entrepreneur” as “a person who sets up a business or businesses, taking on financial risks in the hope of profit”
So, just who is a startup entrepreneur?
In a broad overall sense, an entrepreneur is a person who,
- Organises a business venture and assumes the complete risk for the venture at times giving his personal guarantee and taking personal liabilities.
- Has looked at a problem and seen it as an opportunity. He would then develop on this opportunity to start something new with the intention of generating surpluses for himself or his investors.
- Has a fire in his belly to do something and feels that his ambition is being held in check by corporate red tape. Though it takes more than just cleverness and frustration with the status quo to get an entrepreneurial venture off the ground.
- Is someone who assumes the financial risk of the initiation, operation and management of the business
Essential Qualities In An Entrepreneur
Most entrepreneurs are driven not by the need to make money, but by the need to make their dreams a reality. They are driven by their passion to implement their ideas and see these ideas succeed. Higher energy of the entrepreneur, driven by passion, is what is needed to provide the leadership to a team of people and to make the opportunity work in a challenging environment.
More often than not, money is a byproduct of an entrepreneur’s motivation rather than the motivation itself.
Entrepreneurs are participants, not observers; players, not fans. And to be an entrepreneur is to be an optimist, to believe that with the right amount of time and money, you can achieve anything. When an entrepreneur reaches an obstacle they turn it into an opportunity.
Every entrepreneur does not have to be the initiator of an idea – he or she is the person who helps in implementation of the idea and build it into a successful commercial enterprise.
Embrace Failure, Take Calculated Risks
Failure is essential for any new entrepreneur to succeed. We cannot let any adversity pull us back. We have to learn from our mistakes and our adversities, accept the knock our profit and loss account will take and keep moving ahead. Every entrepreneur has to plan for the best but prepare for the worst.
I have seldom come across a “eureka” moment in the life of an entrepreneur. What these people build is based on grit, determination, hard work and a lot of personal and professional sacrifice. An entrepreneur’s “gut feeling” is often the subject of a lot of discussion and my own learning here has been that “gut feel” is the really the extract of one’s own experience and one’s ability for risk taking rather than some vision that an entrepreneur purportedly has had.
Contrary to popular belief, entrepreneurs aren’t generally high-risk takers when they can’t affect the outcome of the situation. They tend to set realistic and achievable goals, and when they do take risks, they’re usually calculated ones based on facts and experience, rather than instincts.
If one is convinced about an idea, there is no better time than now to start one’s journey as an entrepreneur. The choice is yours and yours alone. Refuse to throw in the towel. Go that extra mile that failures refuse to travel. It is far better to be exhausted from success than to be rested from failure.
In Conclusion
Building a new company is very hard work. The hardest part of building a new company is not coming up with a new idea but to stay committed to your dream when you are dead tired or when you have to tell your spouse that you cannot go for a party because your work needs you more.
If a person is not willing to give up on things really important to you or if you are likely to be put down because of a rejection, it will be very difficult to stick to and implement your idea.
The proverbial “Buck Stops” at the desk of the entrepreneur.
He is the person who has to find the money at the end of each month to pay for salaries and other operating costs, most often sacrificing his own comforts and drawing no salary, till the company starts to make an operating surplus or a profit.
As someone said: “A child today can expect to change jobs at least seven times over the course of their lives; and five of those jobs don’t exist yet.” You never know if your dream enterprise will be one of the many new job creators in the world.
There has never been a better time to build your own enterprise. Every country and every government is encouraging startups and entrepreneurship. Take the plunge and start your planning process now. There is no day as good as today to make a beginning if you genuinely believe in your dream.
[Ashutosh Garg is the founder Chairman of Guardian Pharmacies and the author of the best-selling books, Reboot. Reinvent. Rewire: Managing Retirement in the 21st Century; The Corner Office; An Eye for an Eye and The Buck Stops Here – Learnings of a #Startup Entrepreneur.]
