What Are the Basic Concepts & Characteristics of Entrepreneurship?

Entrepreneurship is the act of setting out on your own and starting a business instead of working for someone else in his business. While entrepreneurs must deal with a larger number of obstacles and fears than hourly or salaried employees, the payoff may be far greater as well.

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Entrepreneurs must deal with a larger number of obstacles and fears than hourly or salaried employees, but the payoff may be far greater. Good entrepreneurs have interest and vision, the skills to start a business and the willingness to invest.

Interest and Vision

The first factor for entrepreneurial success is interest. Since entrepreneurship pays off according to performance rather than time spent on a particular effort, an entrepreneur must work in an area that interests her. Otherwise, she will not be able to maintain a high level of work ethic, and she will most likely fail. This interest must also translate into a vision for the company's growth.

Even if the day-to-day activities of a business are interesting to an entrepreneur, this is not enough for success unless she can turn this interest into a vision of growth and expansion. This vision must be strong enough that she can communicate it to investors and employees.

Many Areas of Skill

All of the interest and vision cannot make up for a total lack of applicable skill. As the head of a company, whether he has employees or not, an entrepreneur must be able to wear many hats and do so effectively. For instance, if he wants to start a business that creates mobile games, he should have specialized knowledge in mobile technology, the gaming industry, game design, mobile app marketing or programming.

Financial and Emotional Investment

An entrepreneur must invest in her company. This investment may be something less tangible, such as the time she spends or the skills or reputation she brings with her, but it also tends to involve a significant investment of assets with a clear value, whether they be cash, real estate or intellectual property. An entrepreneur who will not or cannot invest in her company cannot expect others to do so and cannot expect it to succeed.

Organization and Delegation

While many new businesses start as a one-man show, successful entrepreneurship is characterized by quick and stable growth. This means hiring other people to do specialized jobs. For this reason, entrepreneurship requires extensive organization and delegation of tasks. It is important for entrepreneurs to pay close attention to everything that goes on in their companies, but if they want their companies to succeed, they must learn to hire the right people for the right jobs and let them do their jobs with minimal interference from management.

Risk and Rewards

Entrepreneurship requires risk. The measurement of this risk equates to the amount of time and money you invest into your business. However, this risk also tends to relate directly to the rewards involved.

An entrepreneur who invests in a franchise pays for someone else's business plan and receives a respectable income, while an entrepreneur who undertakes groundbreaking innovations risks everything on an assumption that something revolutionary will work in the market. If such a revolutionary is wrong, she can lose everything. However, if she is right, she can suddenly become extremely wealthy.