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If you ask most people about their impression of entrepreneurship, they might use words like “small business” or “innovation” or describe it as “working for yourself.” Some may go beyond that and paint a picture of an audacious Silicon Valley founder who boldly takes risks and tirelessly overcomes challenges.
For others, an entrepreneur is a free-spirited rebel who makes his or her own way in the business world. All these things help give color to the canvas of entrepreneurship, but they don't paint a complete picture of the thing itself.
So, what is entrepreneurship?
Entrepreneurs are often viewed as innovators or even pioneers of new industries.
Simply put, entrepreneurship is the endeavor of creating, owning, and commercializing an idea, technology, product, or service, as well as assuming the risks and rewards associated with that enterprise.
It’s an undertaking fraught with uncertainty, offering no guarantees. So, if launching a business is so challenging and uncertain, why is entrepreneurship so alluring? To answer that, let’s look at the aspects of entrepreneurship and traits of founders that paint a more vivid picture of entrepreneurship.
The Relationship between Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Entrepreneurs are often viewed as innovators or even pioneers of new industries. Sometimes innovation is not a new technology, like an autonomous vehicle, but a new application or process. Amazon is now one of the largest companies in the world, but it started by simply selling books online instead of in brick and mortar stores.
Uber disrupted the taxi industry not by launching a fleet of cabs but by developing a ride-hailing app. In addition to bold, disruptive innovations, successful entrepreneurs innovate by striving to continually improve processes, reduce costs, or make products better. Entrepreneurs are associated with innovation because innovating gives the founder’s company a competitive advantage and offers entrepreneurs an outlet for their creativity.
How Entrepreneurship Is Different from Employment
Responsibility. Founders are often the first chief executive officers of their startup. The founder will be responsible for seemingly endless decisions ranging from hiring and firing to product design and purchasing commercial insurance. The founder may, at times, be the visionary who lays out the mission of the company. But at other times, he or she will be mired in the unglamorous tasks of regulatory compliance,...