What is entrepreneurship? What are the key assets of an entrepreneur? It depends on the goal that one has set in or, the vision that is envisaged.
The prefix of successful along with the word entrepreneur is worth millions.
So, who would qualify as an entrepreneur? This is a difficult question as entrepreneurs can be both owners of the firm as well as employees. Entrepreneurs can be consultants, scientists, social workers and more.
First of all, to qualify for the term of entrepreneur, innovation has to be an inbuilt trait and perseverance as a trait acquired through experience. In between the two, there are millions of other sub-traits.
Some of the key traits of entrepreneurs are given below and explained in detail in our earlier post on the top traits of entrepreneurs.
- Risk-taking abilities
- Visionary
- Immaculate planning
- Learning the art of delegation
- Time Management
- Visualisation
- Resourcefulness
- Learning the art of saying no
- Maintaining the focus on the real purpose
- Embracing innovation and creativity as a way of life
These all add up to arrive at the final definition of Entrepreneurship.
Definition of Entrepreneurship
There are paths available to make one a better entrepreneur with a greater sense of social responsibility.
Entrepreneurship is a process. The evolution of entrepreneurs and the envisaged process.
The definition of Entrepreneurship as on Wikipedia is:
- ‘Entrepreneurship is the creation and extraction of value’
Or
- ‘A process of running, designing and launching a new business’ can also be termed as entrepreneurship.
- Launching a new product within a firm can also be termed entrepreneurial.
{Now, to explain what is entrepreneurship here is a fictional story of entrepreneurship through a journey of an entrepreneur to heaven and hell.}
The story is dedicated to taking a holistic approach to entrepreneurship.
{The story works with the metaphor of a farmer. The story tries to explain the characteristics of entrepreneurs for explaining what exactly entrepreneurship is all about.}
Or to sum up the definition of entrepreneur in simple terms.
- A true Entrepreneur is one who is a team person but has the courage to travel alone on difficult routes and fight adversities.
- Entrepreneurship is all about bringing positive changes even at Heaven and create opportunities in Hell to bring it on par with Heaven.
- We all have an entrepreneur within us and the onus is on us to bring out the entrepreneur to the fullest.
So, back to the story for explaining entrepreneurship.
{Once upon a time, there lived a peasant in a small village.
He had farmland through which he used to earn his living. Villagers loved him and even people from other villages used to visit his farm because of his innovative methods of farming.
The farmer had a water reservoir in the centre of his farm from which he could divert small canals to his crops. He/She also used scientific methods to farming leading to bumper harvest each year. He used to supply water to other farms as well.
The farmer started renting farms which gave way to community farming and his business prospered. This marked the start of what can be said as an example or setting the scene for entrepreneurship.}
Key Takeaways
- There must be an innovation attached to entrepreneurship which has to be complemented by a well-structured methodology. Innovation can be either process innovation or product innovation.
- One of the key areas of entrepreneurship is to understand the importance of developing a personal brand.
Entrepreneurial Edge and Strategies
To understand entrepreneurship, it is crucial to understand that entrepreneurship can never be only about self.
- Entrepreneurship requires giving back to the people and the community.
- Entrepreneurship also requires you to be able to seize opportunities.
- You are also expected to be extremely flexible in your approach.
- Be ready for luck to swing both ways
Let’s get back to the story of the farmer to explain these crucial strategies.
{The farmer gradually became popular in his district. Farmers from other parts of the state also sought his advice on farming and his fame was spreading further.
The peasant started his seed factory. Material plus technology support was provided to those who needed his advice.
So, it was like vertical and horizontal diversification and proper marketing and positioning of his own brand.
These entrepreneurial traits along with a proper strategy and continuous innovation formed the pillars of successful entrepreneurship for him.
Things were moving picture perfect for the peasant till a startling incident happened one day.
The peasant was summoned by God to the Heaven as the recession had hit Heaven’s economy with Hell’s economy prospering and catching up with that of Heaven.
Peasant was in a deep fix upon hearing this as, like all of us, he believed Heaven was a place of endless prosperity and eternal happiness. He got curious and took a tour of heaven. He saw buildings floating on a cloud in rickety conditions. He saw water and milk fountains dry.
The magnificence of the divine gardens was withering due to lack of maintenance. On enquiry, his celestial guide advised that all machines and vehicles run on environment-friendly hydrogen.
Due to excessive use, stock of celestial hydrogen has almost been consumed and the Heaven is hopelessly dependent on the fuel imported from hell to meet energy needs. Taking advantage of the situation, the authorities of hell have increased their fuel tariffs manifold.
As the farmer had excelled on earth, now God wanted to avail of his consultancy services to produce hydrogen in the empty farmlands of Heaven.
What an opportunity isn’t it?}
Key Takeaways
- Word of mouth, a superior product, branding (marketing) strategy and continuous innovation are required to keep ahead of the competition.
- When in an entrepreneurial journey, be ready for luck to strike multiple times. Seize the opportunity when this happens.
- Luck is a pre-requisite of entrepreneurship. It is important however not to rush into opportunities. A background search is extremely important. Luck has to be factored in but involuntarily.
Methodology for the success of Entrepreneurs
{Peasant called a team of innovators back from earth to heaven whom he had hand-picked over the years and discussed with them the techno-economic feasibility prospects of various possible projects to augment the production of hydrogen fuel.
The advice he received was as given below:
‘Hydrogen is a significant source of energy which can be burned to produce power with no negative impact on the environment, unlike power produced by burning fossil fuels. Hydrogen gas can be easily produced by splitting water into its constituent elements – hydrogen and oxygen. Plants’ powers of photosynthesis allow them to harness the energy of the sun to split water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen at separate times and at separate physical locations in the plant’s structure. By applying direct current to water via a positive and a negatively-charged electrode in a process known as electrolysis, scientists have been able to break the bonds between hydrogen and oxygen, releasing them as gas.’ (reproduced from Phys Org).’
From the information above, the peasant along with the creative scientists of heaven devised a machine which could harness the energy directly from the plant and send to a central reservoir through a sealed canal system.
Relentless effort of the peasant along with his team and innovators and creators at Heaven reaped desired results and soon Hydrogen fuelled the revival of the economy of heaven and it was termed as the ‘Great hydrogen bang’.
So, the peasant was sent back to earth with rewards but the vibration of his fame soon started to resonate in the closed economy of Hell.}
The entrepreneur here in this story gets an opportunity he never thought of. However, without budging he/she took the opportunity in strides.
But, we are forgetting something that is bound to happen to us when we are on our entrepreneurial journey. We are subjected to fierce competition.
That takes us to the final part of our story of an entrepreneur.
Key Takeaways–
- That’s what entrepreneurship is all about. Taking success, failures, opportunities in strides.
- A structured methodology, proper knowledge management along with a great team constitute the recipe of success in entrepreneurship.
- Success never comes fast and easy.
- Innovation and creativity along with a great team are pre-requisites to success.
Understanding Competition for expansion is crucial for entrepreneurial success
{Fierces competition of Heaven was Hell and soon the fame of the farmer reached hell.
So, the farmer was summoned by the king of Hell.
When the peasant visited hell, he saw the place to be a mixed bag of slums and high-rises side by side. Few dominated and most were getting dominated.
Sun used to shine on them for only 1% of the time and fire through inflammable gases were used for lighting. Barter was the only mode of exchange and there was a huge queue of immigrants living miserably who were waiting from ages to get a seat in hell.
Well, probably not by choice. The King of hell wanted the Peasant to devise and initiate suitable measures to develop the economy of the Hell in the manner in which he had brought up the economy of Heaven.}
You see top businesses like Google, Amazon, Walmart etc. expanding both vertically and horizontally.
Expansion is crucial for businesses and that too by understanding the future market and potential profitability.
Now back to our entrepreneur- the Farmer.
{The Farmer visited the queued zone of immigration and found out that there were several entrepreneurs in that zone.
He/She persuaded the hell authorities to ensure their immigration on a top priority basis. The endless wait of those failed entrepreneurs ended and gave rise to desire and optimism.}
It is crucial to be intuitive and optimist while running a business, in a way your irrational optimism is necessary.
{The entrepreneurs teamed up with Peasant and the team overflowing with ideas, blossomed under the leadership of the peasant.
The first immediate innovation was of Giant Solar Simulator which was planted at various locations.
As per the definition, ‘A solar simulator (also artificial sun) is a device that provides illumination approximating natural sunlight. The purpose of the solar simulator is to provide a controllable indoor test facility under laboratory conditions, used for the testing of solar cells, sunscreen, plastics, and other materials and devices.’
Now the issue of darkness was sorted out and this new light of hope gave way to a series of innovations and the effect of dangerous gases were reduced which impacted the health of the inhabitants.
Suddenly there was a hope of transformation which helped in the integration of the society.
The farmer introduced community farming and several economic reforms.
The education system and infrastructure were next in line with the target for innovations and then came a day when Hell and Heaven were competing for best places and the Peasant was acting as an advisor to both.}
Key Takeaways
- The opportunity lies everywhere. so, love the competition and embrace uncertainty.
- In the era of cut-throat competition, innovation and emotional intelligence help entrepreneurs to evolve.
- Entrepreneurship doesn’t mean killing competition but creating a blue ocean for entrepreneurs which makes competition obsolete.
The Final Takeaway on entrepreneurship
We tried to explain what entrepreneurship is all about through the story of the farmer.
Entrepreneurship involves risk, presents opportunities, provides learning opportunities and gives purpose and meaning to your time.
The farmer in the story is a true Entrepreneur who has hope, does not get perturbed by risk, uncertainty and challenges (like growing Hydrogen on-farm- strange!!).
The farmer looks for opportunities even in adversities or without being overwhelmed in good times and creates a blue ocean of opportunities of his own.
Yes, the story is far from being perfect. It’s fiction. However, even entrepreneurs are not perfect. They are visionaries who make mistakes and learn from them.
So, finally, entrepreneurship is also about acceptance. Accepting the imperfection and going with the flow without inhibitions. A true entrepreneur in totality can’t be explained in words. It can only be experienced.
