WHAT IS ENTREPRENEURSHIP?

Entrepreneurship is the development of a business from the ground up — coming up with an idea and turning it into a profitable business. Entrepreneurial spirit is characterized by innovation and risk-taking, and is an essential part of a nation’s ability to succeed in an ever changing and increasingly competitive global marketplace. Entrepreneurship is risk management to create value for profit and/or social good.

The major characteristics of entrepreneurs include the following:

• Self-confident and multi-skilled. The person who can make the product, market it and count the money, but above all they have the confidence that lets them move comfortably through unchartered waters.
• Confident in the face of difficulties and discouraging circumstances.
• Innovative skills. Not an ‘inventor’ in the traditional sense but one who is able to carve out a new niche in the market place, often invisible to others.
• Results-orientated. To make be successful requires the drive that only comes from setting goals and targets and getting pleasure from achieving them.
• A risk-taker. To succeed means taking measured risks. Often the successful entrepreneur exhibits an incremental approach to risk taking, at each stage exposing him/herself to only a limited, measured amount of personal risk and moving from one stage to another as each decision is proved.
• Total commitment. Hard work, energy and single-mindedness are essential elements in the entrepreneurial profile.

To set up a new business, an entrepreneur needs to follow several steps:

• Develop new products, services, new forms of organization, new markets, and new production methods.
• Check that ideas are new. Entrepreneurs need to carry out a search of registered intellectual property to check that their idea does not already exist.
• Investigate if there are any barriers to setting up the business. Will the business need to comply with any legal requirements?
• Raise finance for the business.