WHO IS THE ENTREPRENEUR?

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing else
- Helen Keller

It is the entrepreneur’s world now. Small entrepreneurs (both full-time and part-time) in large numbers have the potential to change the economic dynamics of any nation.

The dictionary defines an entrepreneur as “one who organizes, operates and assumes the risk for a business venture.” The true entrepreneur is one who embarks on a business venture knowing that he may end up poorer than when he started! Hmm, that’s risky, but therein lies the thrill and the lure for the entrepreneur.

France was where the term ‘entrepreneur’ was coined. Unfortunately, that country’s economy which has heavy social and legal penalties for failure has evolved a people who are not very eager to venture into entrepreneurship which is, in many cases, failure prone.

The entrepreneur is a risk taker. He is an adventurer. He is someone who ventures out not without fears but in spite of them. Courage is his trademark.

He is someone who dreams and dares to pursue his dream. He listens to his heart though it usually urges him to stay at the very edge. The entrepreneur is not led by that natural quest for security that dwells in every mortal, even himself. Rather, he is driven by his desire to venture out; to explore; to risk much security in the attempt to create a product or a service that will solve a problem in his world.

He is never and will never be satisfied with the status quo. He asks questions; he queries norms; he experiments.

The entrepreneur is no quitter. He hangs in there when others have quit. He hangs in there against all odds. When he falls, he rises again. When he fails he tries again. He gets knocked down many times but he never stays down. Not that he always feels like rising up again but his dreams are always real enough to jolt him back up.

The entrepreneur is a fighter. He often has to fight battles within and without. Within himself he must battle fear, doubts and anxieties. Outside of himself he must battle both foes and, ironically, friends. Foes who will out rightly oppose him, fully motivated by their desire to see his downfall; and friends who will oppose him, fully motivated by their concern for ‘his welfare.’ You can of course guess that he usually finds the opposition of his friends much tougher to overcome.

How about his family? They often don’t understand him, especially if he’s the type who quits his job to pursue his idea. “It doesn’t make sense”; “How will you feed?”; “You lack enough education”; “You don’t have the capital” are some of the comments he has to deal with when he ventures out.

The entrepreneur faces many tough days; the days when cash flow is seriously low; the days when employees have to be paid but money is not enough; the days he meets with angry creditors; the days employees steal from him or unexpectedly quit on him; the days he loses key clients; the days he just doesn’t feel like continuing.

The Nigerian entrepreneur is a special breed of entrepreneurs. His own battles seem to be tougher; his own obstacles seem greater. Apart from the usual battles every entrepreneur fights, the Nigerian entrepreneur has got poor electricity supply; corruption; poverty; poor infrastructure; bad roads; unstable economic and political policies; and generally a socio-economic environment that is averse to entrepreneurship.

The Nigerian Entrepreneur has to be fierce and possess bulldog tenacity and ruggedness to stay alive in the country’s business jungle. In that jungle the rules are clearly two: The survival of the fittest and the elimination of the unfit!

He must steel his will to keep his integrity in the marketplace because corruption lurks at every corner. He will require that ‘little’ extra commitment to stay true to great values like honesty, truth and love.

Anything short of these attitudinal set and he would be left for dead in what is perhaps one of the toughest (and ironically, one of the most potentially viable) business environments on the planet.

Frank Nneji is a typical example of one of those successful Nigerian entrepreneurs. With only his 750 naira NYSC allowance and no business experience whatsoever (he started immediately after school; he didn’t work for any corporation big or small) Frank decided to start his own business. Years down the line he has been able to build what is arguably the most innovative and successful trans city road transport company in Nigeria. In doing so he has touched the lives of thousands and thousands of people via his company’s services especially those who enjoy flying by bus!

Culled from the net