CHARMS OF BEING AN

DEFINITION

An individual who, rather than working as an employee, runs a small business and assumes

all the risk and reward of a given business venture, idea, or good or service offered for sale.

The entrepreneur is commonly seen as a business leader and innovator of new ideas and

business processes.

Entrepreneurs play a key role in any economy. These are the people who have the skills and

initiative necessary to take good new ideas to market and make the right decisions to make

the idea profitable. The reward for the risks taken is the potential economic profits the

entrepreneur could earn.

5 Skills To Be a Successful Entrepreneur

• Time Management Skills

• Self-motivation Skills

• Administration Skills

• Financial Know-how

• Sales And Marketing Skills

Independence

• One of the reasons for being an entrepreneur is that you get to work for yourself rather than

working for someone else

• Freedom to try new things

• You can schedule day’s proceedings according to your schedule

Wealth

• Not tied down to fixed income

• By working hard and smart, you can reward yourself with more money

• More money can help you in expanding your business in diverse areas

Relationship building

• Helps in meeting new people and travel to new places

• Helps to partner with other business owners

• Helps to increase knowledge about outside world

Control

• You are the owner of your company

• You have the rights to take control over decisions

• Freedom, flexibility and social responsibility drives people to work hard

Satisfaction

• Your service or product can benefit many customers

• Knowing that your work touches the lives of many other human beings gives a wonderful feeling

at the end of the day

Continuous Improvement

• To improve your product, service you need to continuously improve on what you know and how

you do things

• You will learn new things

• Past business decisions can help in improving future strategy decisions

Work from home

• Work from home eliminates hours of commuting

• Time saved can be utilized in doing something valuable for the company

• Freedom to dress in whatever way one feels comfortable in

Differences between wage employment and self employment

Basis of Difference Wage Employment Self Employment

Nature Self-Saturation Self-Actualization

Scope Limited Unlimited

Tendency Routine or Status-Quo Imaginative, Creative or

Innovative

Earning Fixed Generating/Flexible

Satisfaction Through compliance of

rules/Procedures

Through converting one’s

creativity to reality

Status Employee Employer

Major charms of being an entrepreneur

Opportunity to create one’s own destiny

• Owning a business provides entrepreneurs both the independence and opportunity to do and

achieve what is important to them

• Entrepreneurs know that they are the driving forces behind the success of their business

• They believe in Swami Vivekananda’s dictum: “You are the creator of your own destiny”

Opportunity to make a difference

• Entrepreneurs start their business because they seean opportunity before them to make a dent anddifference in the cause that is important to them

• It may be providing low-cost houses to the middle-class families or establishing a recycling programmeto preserve the earth’s limited resources

• Example: Mr. Deepak S. Parikh (pic), CEO of HousingDevelopment and Financing Corporation Limited(HDFC)

Opportunity to reach one’s full potential

• Owning a business gives entrepreneurs a sense ofempowerment to do what they can

• In his ‘Need Hierarchy Theory of Motivation,’ Abraham Maslowtermed it ‘Self-Actualization’

• Doing business becomes entrepreneurs’ play. It also becomesan instrument for entrepreneur’s self-expression and self-actualization

• Example: N. R. Narayana Murthy who left the job of a SystemProgrammer in the prestigious Indian Institute of Management,Ahmedabad to start his own business with three otherpartners, says, “Starting my own business was a sort of spiritualawakening. I found out what was important to me-being followmy own interests and harness it to its fullest extent possible”

Opportunity to reap impressive profits

• Industrial surveys show that the entrepreneurs earn muchmore income than if they work for others, say someorganization

• Michael Dell, the owner-entrepreneur of Dell ComputerCorporation is one such example of richness reaching the listof the wealthiest people in the United States. (Late) DhiruBhai Ambani and N. R. Narayana Murthy, among others, aresuch examples of rich entrepreneurs in India

Opportunity to contribute to the society

• Entrepreneurs by running their businesses in an honest and transparent manner and serving the customers faithfully earn recognition and respect in their communities

• They contribute to the well being of the society as well by providing jobs to unemployed, utilizing idle resources, reducing differences in the levels of development of different regions, and producing and providing goods and services to the people in the society

• The well-known entrepreneur N. R. Narayana Murthy started Infosys Foundation to render services in the area of education and health care. It’s Chairperson, Sudha Murty, the wife of Narayana Murthy says: “We have a responsibility to give back to the society. Wealth is only a means to an end and we are just trustees of that wealth.”

Opportunity to do what one enjoys

• Entrepreneurial history is replete with the instances that most of the entrepreneurs entered into business because they have an interest in that line of work

• For such entrepreneurs, Harvey McKay’s dictum seems worth quoting: “Find a job doing what you love, and you’ ill never has to work a day in your life. The journey rather than the destination is the entrepreneur’s greatest reward.”

Shri Dhirubhai Ambani

Dhirubhai Ambani’s life inspires us to dream and dare.He went to Mumbai with Rs 15,000/- to start his yarnbusiness and lived with his family of seven people in aone-room tenement in Mumbai. He created RelianceIndustries Limited, i.e. the India’s biggest privatesector organization.

Some famous entrepreneurs

Dr. Karsan Bhai Patel

The Nirma man was an ordinary factory chemist in Gujarat MineralDevelopment Corporation (GMDC). He started conducting experimentsin his kitchen to offer an affordable detergent to rural harriedhousewives struggling to balance to their monthly budgets.His efforts finally yielded a pale, whitish-yellow detergent powder thathe named ‘Nirma’, after his then one-year old daughter ‘Niranjana.’Today Nirma is one of the world’s biggest detergent brands. It sells over8 lakh tones of detergent product annually. It holds 40% of the Indianmarket with turnover of more than Rs 2,500/- crores.

Lakshmi Mittal

The son of a scrap dealer today is the world’slargest producer of steel having plants in 15countries including India producing 18 timesmore steel than Tata Steel Co. Also hiscompanies make two and a half times entiresteel production of India.

Opportunities available for prospective entrepreneurs

• Pottery

• Repair of mobile phones, electronic and electrical goods

• Hair Stylist

• Entertainment industry

• Taxi Driver

• Carpenter

• Mason

• Plumber

• Armed security guard

• Vehicle cleaner and washer

• Gardener

• Tractor Operator

• Paddy Farmer

• Stitcher (Leather goods and garments)

• Hand Embroiderer

• Beautician

• Rural tourism