Evolution of the Concept ‘Entrepreneur

The word „entrepreneur‟ is derived from the French word “entreprendre‟ which means „to undertake‟. The
term entrepreneur was first coined by Richard Cantillon, a French baker in 18th Century to mean, “A person
who is uncertainty bearer”. Richard Cantillon, an Irishman living in France was the first person who used the
term entrepreneur for economic activities. J.B.Say another Frenchman, expanded Cantillon‟s ideas and said
that entrepreneur is “an organizer who combines various factors of production to produce a socially
viable product”.

4. Characteristics of Successful Entrepreneur: The following are the important characteristics of an

1) Innovator: Entrepreneurs are generally regarded as innovators. They introduce new methods, new
products, new markets, new sources of raw material and new forms of industrial units. According to
Schumpeter entrepreneur is basically an innovator who carries out new combinations of factors of production
to initiate and accelerate the process of economic development. Even the economic development of a country
depends upon the innovativeness of its entrepreneurs. They find new solutions to old problems, new uses of
existing resources, new techniques etc. The innovative entrepreneur is playing a key role in the economic
development of a country.

2) Risk Taker: Entrepreneur assumes the risk of the business. Risk means uncertainty. It is the condition of
not knowing the outcome of a decision or activity. He takes calculated risk and faces uncertainty confidently
and assumes risk. Higher the risk, higher would be the profit is general saying about risk but it all depends
upon the ability of a person taking the decisions and thereby gains higher returns.

3) Good Organizer: Entrepreneurs have remarkable skills in organizing work and people. They
make objective selection of individuals in conformity with their skill in solving specific problem. They
bring together various factors of production, minimize losses and reduce the cost of production.
An entrepreneur formulates business plans and ensures their execution. An entrepreneur is one who combines
various factors of production and then produces a product for market.

4) Optimistic: The successful entrepreneurs have a positive approach toward things. They do not get
disturbed by the present problems faced by them. They become optimistic for future that the situations will
become favorable to business in future.

5) Foresight: The entrepreneurs have a good foresight (the ability to see what will probably happen in the future and to
use this knowledge to make careful plans.भविष्यात काय घडू केल हे जाणून त्यानुसार काळजीपूर्वक योजना करण्याची क्षमता,
दूरदृष्टी.) to know about future business environment. In other words, they well visualize the likely changes to
take place in market, consumer attitude and taste, technological developments etc. and take necessary and
timely actions accordingly.

6) Visionary: Vision is the ability to see the end result of goals while striving to achieve them. Every
entrepreneur has a vision for growth and development. An entrepreneur is one who incubates new ideas, starts
his enterprise with these ideas and provides added value to society based on their independent initiative. With
persistence and determination, the entrepreneur develops strategies to change the vision into reality.

7) Self-Confident: An entrepreneur should be self confident. He must have faith in himself and in his
abilities. He should have ability to tackle the problems independently with confidence. Only a self
confident entrepreneur can trust others and can delegate authority to others. He should have the confidence to
implement the change with his relevant knowledge, skills and experience.

8) Perseverance: One of the qualities of successful entrepreneurs is that they possess and exhibit
tremendous perseverance in their pursuits. They do not give up their effort even if they fail. They are not
deterred by difficulties and problems that beset any project, rather they work hard until the whole project is
successfully accomplished. They have the willingness to keep goals in sight and work toward them despite
obstacles. They make hard efforts to get rid of obstacles coming in the way of reaching the ultimate goal.

9) Emotional Balance: There are many ups and downs in the business but entrepreneur has to be
emotionally stable. They do not get carried away by the huge profits and disappointed by the huge losses. They
remain quiet and calm at every situation.

10) Hard Work: Entrepreneurs works very hard to succeed. Most of entrepreneurs work hard in the
beginning and thus same becomes their habit for the lifetime because they believe that hard work is the key to
success.

11) Decision Maker: An entrepreneur has to take various decisions in performing activities of his
enterprise. Therefore he must be innovative in decision making process. The true entrepreneurship requires
creative decision making, rational approach, problem solving ability and ability to take quick and correct
decision. The profitability and productivity of an enterprise directly depends upon the decision
making capacity of an entrepreneur.

12) Patient: Entrepreneurs are highly patient and do not get affected by the temporary failure and continue
to work hard. Entrepreneurs try again and again to achieve the success.

13) Communication Skills: Entrepreneurs are good communicator and with their good communication
skills they are able to convince others with their ideas. Good communication also means that both sender and
the receiver understand each other and are being understood. An entrepreneur who can effectively
communicate with customers, employees, suppliers and creditors will be more likely to succeed.
 14) Leadership and Team Spirit: An entrepreneur must have the ability to build successful teams and
thus working in teams. He should be good at building and managing successful teams. Leadership quality is
the most important characteristic of entrepreneur. It is the process of influencing and supporting others to work
enthusiastically towards achieving objectives.

15) Interpersonal Skills: An entrepreneur is a person who comes across with different persons. He has to
deal with many types of persons. He is the person who gets the things done through with the help of others. So
a successful entrepreneur possesses the interpersonal skills of dealing with people.

16) Creative: An entrepreneur must have the qualities of creative thinker. He must be reasonably
intelligent and should have creative thinking so that he must be able to solve various problems and handle the
critical situations in order to deal with them.