The majority of the successful people in business has embraced entrepreneurship. An entrepreneur is a person who can organize, develop while at the same time managing a business (Daley, 2013). He or she manages and mitigates the risks that come about with the type of business he or she is venturing into. An entrepreneur must be able to analyze the risks that come about with the business and make accurate decisions on what to do (Daley, 2013). Entrepreneurs help the economy to grow in that their profits contribute to the growth of the economy through the payment of taxes (Daley, 2013). There is often no guarantee that the business proposed will be a success. Entrepreneurs mostly do trial and error. They start up their business and hope for the best.
When starting up a new business, the entrepreneur must first write a business plan (Daley, 2013). A business plan enables the entrepreneur to list down what will be needed in starting up the business as well as the costs that will be incurred in the process of starting a new business.
Some critics believe that entrepreneurship is a waste of resources sine the entrepreneur barely makes any profits. They believe that an individual should not quit his or her job before considering some of the reasons why one should not become an entrepreneur (Kirzner, 2015). They believe that entrepreneurs work for long hours barely having enough time for themselves and their families. Another reason that they give is that entrepreneurs must out a lot of hard work in the business that they have started in the business to have a chance of succeeding (Kirzner, 2015). Being an entrepreneur is hard since the entrepreneur must find a good staff to work with (Kirzner, 2015). The majority of the people employed in personal businesses does not put their full potential into the work that they are given hence the entrepreneur can undergo a lot of losses resulting from the behavior of his or her employees. Some of the employees even steal from their employer (Kirzner, 2015). They might steal material or steal information which they can use to start up their businesses. Entrepreneurs have to deal each and every day with the possibility of their business failing (Pearce, 2015). Failure might occur if the entrepreneur has taken so many loans in starting up the business. Also, entrepreneurs have a difficult task in managing their cash flow. The average pay that an entrepreneur may get in the first few months may be very difficult b to estimate. Some of the times the pay may be very high and at other times it may be very low (Kirzner, 2015). The entrepreneur can use money thinking that the monthly pay will be uniform, but the profits may be little to none after paying the bills and the staff working for him or her. This characteristic of businesses started by entrepreneurs may make the entrepreneur get into heavy debt especially if the entrepreneur does not know how to properly manage this uneven cash flow (Kirzner, 2015). Entrepreneurs face a hard time when working with a tight budget. They have to find investors who will invest in their businesses (Kirzner, 2015). These investors are often very hard to find and convince. The entrepreneur, therefore, does not use the time that he or she would have used to manage his already scarce resources well. The image of the business is what may bring back new customers into the business (Kirzner, 2015). If the entrepreneur hears negative feedback about the business and responds harshly, there might be a bad image concerning the business, and therefore prospective customers and investors may look elsewhere.
There has been an ongoing debate as to whether or not entrepreneurs are made by training or are born with the skills required to start up a successful business (Daley, 2013). Scott Shane in his book Born Entrepreneurs makes the argument that majority of the successful entrepreneurs have a gene that enables them to have certain characteristics that all successful entrepreneurs have (Daley, 2013). He also suggests that those without the genetic composition that most entrepreneurs have to work hard and learn through experience (Daley, 2013). If entrepreneurs are not naturally blessed with the gene, then experience will be the best teacher. Entrepreneurs need to get education on how to mitigate the risks that they face in their businesses.
All the same, an entrepreneur has the advantage of being his or her boss. He or she controls the hours he or she is to spend at work, unlike formal employment which dictates to an employee that he or she must be at work at a given period (Pearce, 2015). Entrepreneurs can also make own targets (Pearce, 2015). These targets enable the entrepreneur to be stress-free since he or she knows their capability and can therefore not stretch themselves fully to achieve a goal if they are uncomfortable. An entrepreneur can enjoy the profits he or she makes at the end of each business period. He or she can, therefore, be proud of his or her accomplishments (Pearce, 2015).
Entrepreneurship has brought a lot of people from poverty to becoming filthy rich. It is an opportunity that each one of us must take to enable us to accomplish some of the desires we have in the corporate world. Entrepreneurship is competitive and it, therefore, enables a person to be more aggressive. This form of competition is healthy since it enables the entrepreneur be vigilant and be more creative. The major advantage of becoming an entrepreneur is that one can start up a business in any department. A teacher can start a day care facility, a driver can start a taxi business, a doctor can start up a private clinic and every other person can start a business in the area that he or she wants. Entrepreneurs must only work hard and believe in themselves to be successful.
References
Daley, J. (2013). Are Entrepreneurs Born or Made. Entrepreneur, September,19.
Kirzner, I. M. (2015). Competition and entrepreneurship. University of Chicago Press.
Pearce, K. (2015, January). Creating Leaders Through the Teacher Learning and Leadership Program. In The Educational Forum (Vol. 79, No. 1, pp. 46-52). Routledge.
