What is entrepreneurship?

One of the most discussed topics in over a decade in my life is entrepreneurship. Very often during my conversations, it seemed to me that people believed that entrepreneurship related to activities where someone young wanted to create a business that changed the world, and which made billions of dollars in cash or in market value. At least that is what an entrepreneur is commonly known to do. I do not deny that Mark Zuckerburg was an entrepreneur or any other successful entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs for that matter. My only argument has been that entrepreneurs or entrepreneurship is something more than just the idea of creating a successful business.

Technology advancements and resultant changes in this world have been exponential. The accelerated changes have also raised new opportunities at a rapid rate. A rational definition of entrepreneurship in my opinion, is the activity of locating opportunities, be willing to cope with the risk of rapid changes to harness the possibilities by creating values. This definition can also be rephrased as an act of someone who is willing to take risks to solve a real-world problem. Most of the times this definition also need not necessarily produce a great unicorns.

The primary idea of this inclusive definition of entrepreneurship is to discourage excessively focusing on entrepreneurs evolving into unicorns. Since most businesses have also started to break down into units targeting the specific needs of a tiny group of customers, it is important to note that evolving into unicorns need not necessarily be a criterion for the definition of entrepreneurship.

The reason I’ve been encouraging entrepreneurship even in rural areas through my concept of (Rural Entrepreneurship & Applied Leadership) REAL Breakthrough is that I believe rural entrepreneurs can create values in their community. Embracing more and more entrepreneurs within this reasonable definition of entrepreneurship not only encourages them but also plays a vital role in the growth of an economy.

By definition, it is evident that entrepreneurship is highly possible when someone works individually or in small teams. What if you were working in large or very large companies? Good news is that the growing uncertainty and the rapidly changing technology is forcing even the large companies to redefine their employee society. Large companies have also started looking for entrepreneurs within their organisation who can identify opportunities to create values and not just work on tasks assigned to them.

Entrepreneurship is not limited to commercial enterprises. Non-profits, educational institutions, governments and even homes should cultivate and encourage entrepreneurship throughout. Those who remain in the outdated practices and ignore entrepreneurship will suffer. While the pace of change and the growing uncertainty might be frightening to the common man, it is fascinating to entrepreneurs.

Just follow your passion, be willing to cope up with the risks to see opportunities and add value. Welcome to the entrepreneurial society!