What is an Entrepreneur?

Different Types Of Entrepreneur

The job of an entrepreneur is to make money. It is that pure and simple. However, as you may be noticing in the midst of the stretched financial times under which we are living, it is not actually simple to make money in this day and age unless you are acutely aware of where an opportunity exists, how to create an opportunity, or possessed of a quick brain. Money does not grow on trees, as the saying goes, and there is just no way that you can guarantee the success of a money-making plan. If there was a foolproof way to lay down a small amount of cash and walk away with a larger amount, we’d all be doing it.

Prior knowledge of a market definitely helps. It allows a potential entrepreneur to recognize where there is a gap in a market. Without this ability, there is often a danger of trying to make money in a saturated market, where there is a queue of people pushing and shoving to make their mark. Being the best in that particular market may deliver the results you were looking for, but then again it may not. And being in the middle of the pack will lead to, at best, disappointing results.

Some entrepreneurs style themselves as being in the “ideas market”. In other words, they have creativity that allows them to formulate solutions to existing or potential problems, or ideas for a product that will become highly-prized as a consumer item. This seems to be an innate skill. There is no apparent way of teaching creativity – it is instinctive and natural. You can be taught to recognize opportunity, but creating an opportunity is something that is the preserve of a lucky few, percentage-wise.

Both of the above are kinds of entrepreneur, albeit different types. The first type is an opportunist. In the current market, only a very skilled opportunist can be confident of riding out the storm, as a contraction in a market dictates that the level of opportunity will be reduced, competition between candidateswill be greater, and the people who are quicker to spot the opportunities will be the ones who hit the jackpot. Competing with such individuals is a thankless task for anyone. But they are good at what they do and should be congratulated.

The second kind is an innovator. The opportunities for an innovator to strike it rich are likely to depend on what area of innovation they specialize in. Although there is no recession-proof market (while supply-and-demand markets fare worse than necessities, there is some sign that people will still seek to make savings on the latter), someone who dreams up a solution to a need will be on safer ground than someone who conceptualizes and produces an item that is coveted a great deal, but judged to be beyond the spending power of too many people. So in the present day, it may well be that the best thing to be is a problem-solver.:

First Published: Apr 18, 2009 EntrepreneurJourney.com