Muntinlupa National High School – Main

Senior High School – Accountancy, Business and Management

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Lesson 2: The Entrepreneur

Learning Objectives
At the end of this module, you should be able to:
• Discuss the main reason people decide to become entrepreneur;
• Understand the reasons why individual wants to be an entrepreneur;
• Identify the main characteristics of an entrepreneur.

• Activity
Below are the following famous persons in the business. Identify which company
they owned based from the pictures presented.
a. Tony Tan Caktiong d. Atty. Felipe L. Gozon
b. Lucio Tan e. Henry Sy
c. Socorro C. Ramos f. Jaime Zobel de Ayala

Ayala

National Philippine
Airlines
BOOK STORE

What kind of attitude or characteristics the owners have for them to achieve their goal
and become successful?

The Entrepreneur

An entrepreneur is defined depends on various professions. An economist may see

him as one who combines resources, labor material and other needs to create value greater
than before. He is also the one who introduces changes and innovation on a certain product
or service. A psychologist described an entrepreneur based on certain forces that drives him
to venture on a business. A businessman describes entrepreneur in different ways: a threat,
an aggressive competitor, an ally, and source of supply, customer or an investor.
The person who undertakes entrepreneurial activities is called Entrepreneur. The word
entrepreneur came from a French word ‘entreprende’, which means to undertake.

Meriam-Webster dictionary defines Entrepreneur as the person organizes, manages,

and assumes risks of a business or enterprise. He is someone who enters a business to form or
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Senior High School – Accountancy, Business and Management

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

change it significantly and also, he identifies an economic need, considers offering a solution,
proceeds to assemble the resources required, and assumes the risk of the business.

There is no accurate way of distinguishing the traits of entrepreneurs from those non-
entrepreneurs, but there are studies that say they have internal focus of control. This means
the belief that personal effort is the priority determinant of outcomes. This belief is
associated with self –confidence, having the desire for action and possess resiliency.

The following list of reasons why an individual wanted to become an entrepreneur:

Be the Boss
Some individual does not want to work for other, thus they have decided to start their
own business.
The following lists enumerate the reason why they decided to become their own boss:
a. They can make all the decisions by themselves without other people telling them what
to do;
b. They can make a difference on their venture. They are responsible in making their
business successful;
c. They can work at their own pace that is most efficient for them;
d. They like the challenge they experience from the business;
e. They will never get fired since they own the business. They can always change their
mind or shift the focus of their business if they want.
Act on Their Own Idea
Through hobbies, leisure activities, or even just their everyday life, some people
recognize the need for a particular product or service that is not available in the market.
Some individuals can easily come up with ideas and desire to develop it. However, if these
individuals are employed in a firm which resists the innovation and suggestions from them,
they would leave and start their own business to pursue their own idea. They would devote
their time and energy to convert their ideas into a firm if they think their idea is viable enough
to support the business.

The success story of Richard Chua, owner of Sci-Fi Café located at Robinsons
Galleria in Quezon City. They were looking to start a restaurant locally and this one of a
kind idea to start their brand surfaced. The concept started when they realized they had vast
action figures collections that now displayed and enjoyed by their customers. He wanted to
combine his hobbies of eating and collecting action figures.

Enjoy Financial Rewards

Typically, pursuing financial rewards is secondary to what motivates individuals to
venture into business. Study states that the average entrepreneur does not make more money
than someone is similar amount of responsibility in a traditional job. However, the thrill of

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Senior High School – Accountancy, Business and Management

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

earning a profit from building the business and experiencing the success of the venture can
already persuade an individual to go into business.

Improve One’s Quality of Life

Sometimes an employee could not fulfill important family responsibilities because
they have no control over their work schedules. For instance, a nursing mother will have to
consider other less desirable options in providing for the needs of her baby. The same
predicament confronts those who care for elderly relatives. Person who travels to daily work
also sacrifice valuable time that could be spent with families.

To some people, engagement in entrepreneurship provides them with some control

over their work schedules. An entrepreneur can choose a type of business that will be
compatible with the quality of life he desires. Specifically, the business location and the type
of products sold can be chosen to jibe with the personal and family needs of the entrepreneur.

Characteristics of an Entrepreneur

1. Drive
“Success in entrepreneurship becomes possible when the entrepreneur is self-
motivated enough to pursue his chosen course without relenting even within the face of
adversity.” Reaching a goal, however, is often achieved through a series of movies. It is
rare for entrepreneurs to succeed with just a single stroke. If he fails in his first attempt,
he makes another attempt. He repeats the attempts, maybe with some improvements, until
he succeeds. This will happen if the person has driven. The tension that occurs when a
need is not met is called drive.
2. Thinking Ability
Another job of an entrepreneur is their ability in solving problems and decision
making. He should be able to find correct solutions to the problems then makes decisions
and executes based on the achieved goals.

If, for instance, the entrepreneur is asked to make the final decision in the promotion
for manager to one of the four qualified employees, he needs to use his thinking ability to
guide him to make the best choice. A man with superior thinking ability can see through
the maze of information (or disinformation) brought before him.
3. Human Relations Ability
The entrepreneur may determine the survival and growth of the business firm through
human relations ability. The three types of persons: Customer, Employee and the third
party with interest in the firm.

The customer decision will depend on what he thinks of the firm whether to patronize
or not. The perception on customer relation will definitely be a factor.

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Senior High School – Accountancy, Business and Management

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

The employee can be loyal to the firm he can be productive and avoid shortages or he
may be wasteful consumption of the company’s resources. He can be an asset depending
to what his superiors do to him.

The third parties with various interests in firms will depend on how the company
relates with them. They may be more cooperative and accommodating. For instance,
various government agencies can be less accommodating to the firm or they can make
business operations difficult.
4. Ability to Communicate
Another important characteristic of an entrepreneur is their ability to communicate.
They have the ability to understand and to be understood which will make it easier to an
entrepreneur to transact business. Having good communication skills can prevent wastage
in time and materials are minimized, tend to prevent demoralization and isolation of his
staff and what usually happens next is low productivity and high turnover of employee.
5. Technical Knowledge
An entrepreneur must be knowledgeable to major and minor tasks in running a
business. He must have technical knowledge and at least familiar on how various tasks
are performed. For instance, a restaurant may include the following tasks: recruitment and
hiring, purchasing of materials, bookkeeping, cooking, and others. It will be easier for
him to strategize on how he will manage his firm effectively and compete with others.
6. Reasonable Risk Taker
Once a person starts a new venture, he has already begun to assume risk in the
business. Entrepreneurs are expected to be reasonable risk takers, not conservative but
also not gamblers. They assume risks but only after they are convinced that they have the
skills and resources to overcome the difficulties built in a new venture.

Ventures with zero risks yield zero benefits unlike those who aspire for benefits like
profits must consider possible losses. There are instances, however, when the possibility
of benefits far outweighs the risk involved. It is the role of the entrepreneur to determine
when this happens and must calculate a reasonable balance between risks and benefits.
7. Self-confident
A person with self-confidence does his job without inhibition. Unless he has
sufficient confidence in himself, he has the ability to lead and believe that he could
actually perform entrepreneurial activities and eventually be successful.

8. Goal Setter
Goals are very useful motivational tools, especially those related to accomplish the
objective of entrepreneurs. A goal performs the following functions:
• It directs one’s attention to a specific target;
• It encourages one to exert effort toward achieving something specific;
• It encourages persistence; and
• It fosters the creation of strategies and action plans.

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Senior High School – Accountancy, Business and Management

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

9. Accountable
The success of an enterprise will depend much on the willingness of subordinates to
suits the needs of the entrepreneur. Compliance can be expected if the entrepreneur is
accountable enough to take responsibility for whatever happens to the firm.
10. Innovative
A free market economy like ours allows business enterprises to flourish. This will
depend, however, on how well the general public is convinced to patronize them. Buyers
will have to be persuaded to buy from the entrepreneur’s firm rather than from
competitor.

Characteristics of Successful Entrepreneur

1. Passion
Mark Cuban, businessman and owner of NBA Basketball Team in Dallas Mavericks,
once said, “You can be passionate about a lot of things, but just because you have passion
doesn’t mean that is a good place to put your effort. Typically, you find out that the more
you put into something, the better you get it. And the better you get at something, the
more fun it is. And the more fun it is, the less you realize you’re working and the better
things will go.”

Successful entrepreneurs shared that the number one characteristic to become fruitful
in this endeavor is to have passion for what you do. Finding passion is easier said than
done. It is a quality that you should be fueled with love, dedication and willingness to
share to others.
• It drives an individual to learn, get feedback and make necessary changes to make
their customers happy;
• Unlike working in traditional job, the entrepreneur is willing to extend time at work
and stay for longer hours;
• It makes a person to have perseverance and persistence during tough times.

2. Focus
Another characteristic of a successful entrepreneur is to have focus on the product and
services. Entrepreneurs should be diligent to spot opportunities but it is important for
them to focus on the right things

3. Tenacity
Mike Colwell, who runs Plains Angels, believed that “Tenancy is No. 1 failure in
entrepreneurship does not happen once. As the entrepreneur tries to create something
new for the business failure may happen many times. He is expected to start all over
again when this happens.”

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Senior High School – Accountancy, Business and Management

ENTREPRENEURSHIP

4. Ability to Execute Ideas

The challenging part of entrepreneurship is how to execute it. Getting a lot of ideas is
easy; it is the implementation part that is difficult. To be able to execute solid idea into a
viable business is another characteristic of a successful entrepreneur. This refers to
execution of intelligence, which is the ability effectively execute business idea and
develop a business model to manage, lead, and motivate employees. This also demand
thoughts and imaginations should be translated into actions and give measurable result.

Self-Evaluation

1. How do you classify an entrepreneur? What makes them different from other people?
2. What personality do you have from six types according to Holland?
3. Why is passion so important for an entrepreneur? Explain your answer.
4. Do you believe that entrepreneurs are born, not made? Why or why not?

Test Yourself
Multiple choice. Choose the correct letter that corresponds to your answer. Write
your answer on the blank.
_____ 1. The person who undertakes entrepreneurial activities is called ___.
a. Boss b. Entrepreneur c. Leader d. Manager
_____ 2. Entrepreneur comes from ___ which means to undertake.
a. English b. French c. Italian d. Latin
_____ 3. Some people pursue business because they wanted to become ___.
a. Boss b. Model Employee c. Popular d. Richest man
_____ 4. A characteristic of an entrepreneur, he would still create something new despite of
failing many times.
a. Focus b. Hard-working c. Passion d. Tenacity
_____ 5. The challenging part of entrepreneurship is ___.
a. Finding capital for the business
b. How to execute the business
c. Looking for customers
d. Running the business
_____ 8. The entrepreneur is self-motivated to pursue his chosen course even in time of
adversity.
a. Drive b. Goal setter c. Innovative d. Risk taker
_____ 9. The ability to understand and to be understood.
a. Ability to communicate c. Human relation ability
b. Accountability d. Thinking Ability
_____ 10. The ability to solve problems and making decisions.
a. Ability to communicate c. Human relation ability
b. Accountability d. Thinking Ability

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