What Is an Entrepreneur? An entrepreneur is someone who takes on the risk of starting a new business or creating a new product.

They recognize an opportunity to start a business that other people may not have noticed and jumps on it. An entrepreneur, typically, is inspired to start a business because the entrepreneur perceives a consumer need that is not being adequately filled. Entrepreneurs emerge from the population on demand, and become leaders because they perceive opportunities available and are well-positioned to take advantage of them. Entrepreneurs often work in small niche markets to create a new product or service. Entrepreneurs have a passion for doing things differently from everyone else. They tend to think creatively. They like challenges and the risk of a new business venture is the perfect challenge. Entrepreneurs start businesses based on the passion for a dream and vision. They often find new business ideas by trying to solve old problems in new ways. An entrepreneur may perceive that they are among the few to recognize or be able to solve a problem. An entrepreneur is not necessarily motivated by profit but regard it as a standard for measuring achievement or success.

The concept of an entrepreneur is further refined when principles and terms from a business, managerial, and personal perspective are considered. Third exploration is reflected in the following three definitions of an entrepreneur: To an economist, an entrepreneur is one who brings resources, labor, materials, and other assets into combinations that make their value greater than before, and also one who introduces changes, innovations, and a new order. To a psychologist, such a person is typically driven by certain forces the needs to obtain or attain something, to experiment, to accomplish, or perhaps to escape the authority of others. To one businessman, an entrepreneur appears as a threat, an aggressive competitor, whereas to another businessman the same entrepreneur may be an ally, a source of supply, a customer, or someone who creates wealth for others, as well as finds better ways to utilize resources, reduce waste, and produce jobs others are glad to get. Although each of these definitions views entrepreneurs from a slightly different perspective, they all contain similar notions, such as newness, organizing, creating, wealth, and risk taking. Why people want to become an entrepreneur?
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Not everyone prefers to work under an employer as these people prefer to be employer themselves. This provides an opportunity for them to start their own business based on their belief, such as their capability on making a new product or provide better product for others. Besides that, being the boss themselves allow them to roam freely at anytime. It also means that they will not be under somebodys supervising for 24-7 and also receiving no order from anyone. There are though some misconceptions regarding being an entrepreneur such as working anytime they want, taking break or holidays at anytime and can be more relax during working hours, these reasons shall not be the one that determine the mindset of people to go for it as it might brings more harm than good in the future. One of major advantages regarding entrepreneurship is that anyone can be involve, as long you have what it takes to be on top. And they can start one at any age too, preferable at younger age as it provides better chances in the business world. On the other hand, the older people have better knowledge and experience so they too can do well as entrepreneur. Furthermore, people tend to believe despite having a lot more risk, it allows them to earn a lot of money in return too. With all the hard work and efforts put into the business, together with the correct strategies, marketing and targets, in the near future it will return the profits that neither double nor triple the salary they get working for others. This factor alone attracts youngsters to give it a try in entrepreneurship. On the other hand, some people see this as a challenge and adventure. Nobody knows where each and every chance might lead us but they feel it might be more meaningful rather than what they are doing before this. Most of them rather live a poor life for trying to pursue the dreams than live a rich life without even trying. Youngsters chase their dreams while they can, and thats why and how most of them ended up as an entrepreneur.

The life of an entrepreneur is more dynamic and more exciting in everyones opinion. When they are young, they have a dream and a passion. They gather some friends and go through tons of struggles, mistakes, disappointments and some victories together to create
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that world-changing business. And this makes the entrepreneurship such an exciting and yet challenging for the youngster.

What are characteristics of successful entrepreneurs? Even though entrepreneurial skills can be identified, analyzed and taught, we believe that the position of the entrepreneur in society is more aligned to a calling than that of a skillset. The characteristics of an entrepreneur are identified in high energy creative people, who are self-confident, have high levels of self-esteem and are futuristic in their outlook as they seek to incessantly solve problems, take risks and learn from failures (theirs and others). Whatever viewpoint, successful entrepreneurs share the following characteristics: 1) Self Confidence Entrepreneurs are self-confident. They have to be in order to think they can make it in the business world. But when that self-confidence steps over the boundary into arrogance, there could be some negative consequences. Arrogant people dont consider anyone else's ideas to have value they know best. They are difficult to work with and inflexible because it is their way or the highway. Entrepreneurs have to be their own biggest fan because they are often working alone or with only a small group of people. Self confidence can actually be a triple-edged sword. 2) Beachhead strategies Entrepreneurs have a natural understanding and appreciation of Beachhead Strategies. Beachhead strategies are the strategies that an entrepreneur uses to gain market penetration and customer acceptance for their products. Entrepreneurs may launch with me-too products just to establish market acceptance and then leverage their new found position to release the high-margin innovative upgrade or add-on. They may partner with established networks, alliances and trusted brands to establish a market acceptance before striking out on their own, they may gives lots away for free, just to build momentum and demand for their product. They may spend time working in an industry or firm to gain the necessary contacts and market intelligence before the launch of their own venture.
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3) Commitment Commitment is the founding drive of the entrepreneur. Not just the commitment to do - but the commitment to do and then see it through - not just the commitment to see it through but to see it through with everything on-the-line. It is a commitment to the long term, the commitment to never giving up on the dream, the commitment to getting up and starting all over again if fate so decrees. So, commitment for the entrepreneur stems from their belief that they are doing something worthwhile, not just for themselves and their associates but for the 'greater good'. It is this commitment that sees them continue in the face of disappointment and set backs, when others declare it as 'all too hard'. 4) Effectual reasoning Business schools and corporate enterprises the world over teach the process of managerial or strategic decision making as the basis for all business development. This process starts with clearly defined goals, that translate into specifically defined objectives that inform the strategies and then determine the tactics. This basis for decision making is actually at the antithesis of the entrepreneurial one, that takes stock of the strategic resources, capabilities and unfair advantage within the entrepreneur's control and then selects an emerging opportunities that these capabilities make them uniquely placed to exploit. 5) Focus Entrepreneurs know better than most, the power generated by focus. They define the mantra for their venture and in spite of the many morphs, changes and set-backs they manage to keep everyone focused on the main game. They know how to focus their own lives as well as the lives of others onto the targeted outcome and so penetrate barriers by the concentrated attack on a single point. Their concentration at times can boarder on obsession as they stick with their passion, in spite of the many distractions, and get the job done. They narrow their living to a few core commitments protecting those at all costs but forgo the fringe and peripheral engagements that can clutter the lives of those less focused and obsessed. These successful entrepreneurs are single minded with a eye-constantly-on-the-prize. They are not easily distracted, they rarely quit and with blinkers on they stay focused on the task at hand until it is done.
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6) Strong Sense of Urgency Entrepreneurs thrive on activity and are enthusiastic to develop and implement their ideas. They are creative. But they can also be inpatient, intolerant, tense, and uneasy when others dont share the same sense of urgency or dont respond as quickly as the entrepreneur wants them to. 7) Invest in yourself. Top entrepreneurs buy and read business and marketing books, magazines, reports, journals, newsletters, websites and industry publications, knowing that these resources will improve their understanding of business and marketing functions and skills. They join business associations and clubs, and they network with other skilled business people to learn their secrets of success and help define their own goals and objectives. Top entrepreneurs attend business and marketing seminars, workshops and training courses, even if they have already mastered the subject matter of the event. They do this because they know that education is an ongoing process. There are usually ways to do things better, in less time, with less effort. In short, top entrepreneurs never stop investing in the most powerful, effective and best business and marketing tool at their immediate disposal--themselves. 8) Interpersonal skills Successful entrepreneurs are comfortable relating to other people; they easily create rapport and are at least more extroverted than they are introverted. These factors help leaders seem approachable, likeable, and comfortable in their position. Those qualities contribute to staff wanting to interact with their leader. They also help motivate employees to do a better job. When workers can relate to their boss, they believe that their boss is more concerned about them, with their performance, and with their output. Furthermore, they believe that they can go to their boss with problems they encounter on the job without fearing consequences for not knowing how to resolve issues.

The Icon of Entrepreneur In Online Business The Story of the Founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg
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Zuckerberg showed signs of intelligence from an early age, and, in particular, an interest in programming. Mark found himself spending his spare time developing different kinds of computer programs, with a particular emphasis on communication channels. Mark moved on to far more complex endeavors, and his work on a plug-in for the Winamp MP3 player that eventually caught the interest of AOL and Microsoft. Mark Zuckerberg chose to create his own path by furthering his education at Harvard University. His first venture into the online world was a primitive website entitled Facemash, which essentially allowed his fellow students to compare their looks with those of the sites visitors. Harvard was quickly shut down both the site and Mark Zuckerbergs internet connection. Mark began working on a new site that would afford the students at Harvard the opportunity to contact one another via an online website. Entitled The Facebook, the site launched from his dorm room on February 15, 2004, with the help of his roommate, Dustin Moskovitz -- to expand the site to other schools, including Yale, Columbia and Stanford. Later that same year, Mark Zuckerberg opened The Facebook up to schools across the United States and Canada, which eventually allowed the mogul-in-training to drop out of Harvard and move the sites base of operations to Palo Alto, California in June 2004. Zuckerberg change the name from The Facebook to just Facebook necessitated by the $200,000 purchase of the Facebook.com domain. In September 2005, Mark Zuckerberg launched a high school version of Facebook. Mark Zuckerberg insisted that Facebook is better off on its own. As he has said, As a company we're very focused on what we're building and not as focused on the exit. We just believe that we're adding a certain amount of value to people's lives if we build a very good product.Mark has already achieved what many would be more than satisfied with in a lifetime in little over a quarter of a century. An impressive feat, to say the least, and the exciting thing is that he is expanding his portfolio constantly - hence the regular improvements and changes he makes to the website that has succeeded where others failed: by connecting the world almost seamlessly. It looks as years from now, the Mark Zuckerberg biography will be looked upon as a defining moment in social networking and entrepreneurship history.
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References 1) Hisrich, PhD, Robert D., Michael P. Peters, PhD and Dean A. Shepherd, PhD. Entrepreneurship. 6 edition. New York: McGraw-Hill Irwin, 2005.
2) http://www.themoneyalert.com/whatisanentrepreneur. 3) http://searchcio.techtarget.com/definition/entrepreneur 4) http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/entrepreneur.html 5) http://www.techjournalsouth.com/2011/04/success-magazine-names-markzuckerberg-achiever-of-the-year/ 6) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704183204575288153333749426.html 7) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Zuckerberg 7