Entrepreneur / ENG

An entrepreneur is a person who has the ability to discover and identify some kind of business opportunity. Based on this, he/she organizes a series of resources in order to start a business project.

Regarding the meaning of entrepreneur, it is usually understood as the one who becomes the creator or founder of a business or entrepreneurial initiative. This, individually or acting as a collaborator in union with other individuals helping to carry it out.

Commonly, the entrepreneur occupies positions in business projects in which he/she is in charge of directing and organizing their birth and subsequent operation. In this way, he/she assumes a series of risks, mostly of a financial or economic nature.

Actions of an entrepreneur.

The entrepreneur's model of action could be defined as follows:

● Locates new opportunities by studying and analyzing the market and its changes. Thus, it knows the attitudes and preferences of the public.

● Gathers resources of a financial, technological or human nature to be able to undertake the new project.

● He starts up the business with determination and facing his position of responsibility, always bearing in mind a capacity for innovation and originality.

Characteristics of an entrepreneur.

Among the characteristics that entrepreneurs should have are:

● Entrepreneurial creativity, to think "outside the box" and devise a new disruptive business.

● Leadership, so that they can guide a team in achieving the objectives set by the company.

● Adaptability, because along the way the entrepreneur may discover, for example, that his business model is not optimal. He can then make changes on the fly to improve results.

● Perseverance, because entrepreneurs do not always succeed in their first business venture.

● Passion, so that the entrepreneur is enthusiastically dedicated to his or her business, not just for profit, but for vocation. That way, even customers will be able to sense that enthusiasm.

Self-confidence. In that way, he can transmit optimism and determination to his work group in order to achieve the proposed objectives.

Types of entrepreneurs.

The main types of entrepreneurs are:

● Visionary: He is the one who anticipates market demands or trends, thinking about the future and not only about the business ideas that today are the most profitable. It may be, for example, a business that begins to implement, as a sales channel, a new technology that still has limited scope. However, the entrepreneur expects the use of such technology to increase progressively in the coming years.

● Opportunistic: As its name suggests, it identifies business opportunities, seeks to discover an unmet need of the public.

● Social: Is one that seeks to have a positive impact on society, not just generate profitability.

● By accident: Is one who by chance gets involved in a venture, for example, with a friend who proposes a business idea.
Investor: The person who does not develop the business idea, but invests capital in it, becoming a partner.

● Persuasive: Like the investor, he/she has not generated the business idea either, but is capable of influencing a group of people to carry out a project that may have been conceived by someone else.

● Specialist: He is the one who focuses on a specific sector and develops his activity there. He seeks to address a niche that, although small, can generate profitability.

Example of an entrepreneur.

Suppose a person realizes that there is a demand for an application that allows job search and networking.

Keys you need to be a successful entrepreneur

Have you ever thought about starting your own business, but are plagued by doubts and uncertainty? It is not for less because only a small percentage of the new businesses that are created manage to survive: "82% of the new companies do not reach four years of life".

Working for yourself has a special appeal because you can be your own boss. However, the road to becoming a successful entrepreneur can be tortuous because not all of us are able to take the reins of our own business, especially those who are used to working for others and who also do not have basic financial knowledge. Starting a business is not easy and even less so if what we want is for the business to last over time and generate wealth.

The global economic crisis of the last few years has pushed many people to become entrepreneurs en masse, but am I really ready to become an entrepreneur?

Through practical advice, this article addresses the main guidelines for those who are considering leaving their stable employment to take the "risk" of entrepreneurship and reinvent themselves in the labor market:

Do I have the soul of an entrepreneur?

There are people who are excellent workers at the helm of other people but are not capable of leading a team or organizing their own work. Entrepreneurship also entails a series of dangers far from the stability of being a salaried employee and having a permanent job.

We should therefore ask ourselves whether we are really fit to be entrepreneurs or whether we prefer to continue working under the command of others.

Franck Scipion is an entrepreneur of French origin who in 2010 left his comfortable and well-paid job to create Lifestyle al Cuadrado from where he shares strategies, tactics and digital tools to help people who want to work online while earning an income that allows them to make ends meet. His site receives more than 300,000 readers a month. Scipion is clear that "the crisis has forced a change in the labor market and people are becoming more and more out of love with working for others".

In general, necessity is what makes people wake up and look for ways to generate income, but there are those who are not willing to change or leave their comfort zone and also find it especially difficult to acquire the necessary skills to become entrepreneurs.

For the latter, perhaps entrepreneurship does not fit their needs because, at the end of the day, entrepreneurship also involves taking a series of risks that do not guarantee stability. If we decide to undertake it would be to improve the work option we already have, not to force something that we do not identify with and that can cause us many problems in the future.

Materialize your ideas.

When it comes to entrepreneurship, determination is fundamental. Like words, ideas are carried away by the wind. If you really have clear objectives, the next most immediate step is execution.

"Ideas are useless, you have to materialize them, but with the right mindset", David Vu, an American serial entrepreneur who has created multiple businesses both online and offline and who teaches on Udemy, is very clear about this.

No risk, no gain.

As in life and in gambling, in business if we do not bet we will never get results or know what we are losing or winning. What is clear is that staying idle is when we will not get anything. To start a business you also have to take a series of risks and be aware that they are not always going to work out well. For that reason it is necessary to be prepared also for a possible failure.

Failure management.

How will I react to a possible failure is the first thing you have to ask yourself when starting a business. To manage a failure in the best possible way requires patience, attitude and personality.

If you think that failure will weaken you, it is better not to take the plunge and play it safe, do not give up your stability.

Do not be afraid to make mistakes.

Sometimes doubts slow us down and limit us, so we miss many opportunities for fear of being wrong. Being wrong is not bad, it is a learning process. We learn from mistakes. A positive attitude and the ability to get up in the face of a possible failure are fundamental for every entrepreneur. If things do not go as expected, it is not the end. With the right attitude and knowing how to deal with certain unfavorable situations we can overcome adversity and learn from our mistakes.

Surround yourself with good professionals.

Another of the fundamental keys is to let yourself be advised by the best experts. Good entrepreneurs will always rub shoulders with people who are more brilliant than they are in order to soak up their knowledge and advice.

Knowing how to detect the talent with which to relate is another of the skills that every entrepreneur should have or at least try to dedicate the necessary time to form a team of good professionals in whom you can trust.

Get advice from the right people and better if they are people who have already succeeded doing something similar to what you want to do. This way you can take their experience into consideration. Learn to listen to different opinions and take them into account, but then be able to make your own decisions.

Which business is the right one?

Sometimes we get stuck thinking about different business options, we analyze different targets, we pay attention to multiple market studies, but we forget the most important thing: our true potential, think about what we are really good at, what we can contribute to society and what added value we have.

Another key is to detect new opportunities where others do not see them. Regardless of the business sector in question, this is a common rule.

Finally, there is no point in following a business model en masse just because it is succeeding, because we will probably already be too late.

Use financial logic.

Don't incur expenses with money you don't have. As Robert Kiyosaki points out in his best-selling book Rich Dad, Poor Dad, financial illiteracy can ruin our business if we don't know how to manage our money. It's not about being a financial guru but about using basic mathematical logic.

Enjoy what you do.

What's the point of being a successful entrepreneur with great profits if you don't enjoy the process? It would be meaningless torture. Therefore, whatever you do, whatever you bet on, whatever you decide to do has to be something you are passionate about (or at least don't dislike too much).

In addition, doing what we really feel identified with and yearn for, good results will come more easily.

For example, for Franck Scipion, the key to his success lies in the fact that he is doing what he really loves and is passionate about: "I had a good job working for others, I earned very well, I was responsible for a digital team, but I felt empty, unrecognized, I did not feel valued or fulfilled," he says. His case is the example of thousands of people around the world who do not feel comfortable with the job they have been given and have not chosen. Scipion found in his passion for sharing with others and helping others the essence of his business. Now think about what you could bring to the table.

Keep learning, don't give up.

When you think you know it all and have reached your goal, there is always more and more to keep evolving. Relative ambition is not a bad thing. The bad thing is to stagnate and stay halfway. Therefore, keep a proactive attitude to always acquire new knowledge that can improve your business and also enrich you personally.

In addition, being an entrepreneur with charisma also requires a mastery of social skills and courtesy that can always be trained.

Finally, do not forget that beginnings are not easy and that the process of entrepreneurship does not respond to any exact science, although taking into account these common requirements you can ensure greater viability beyond your own previously lived experiences.