You Need to Be Born an Entrepreneur - Article Example

 You Need to Be Born an Entrepreneur Entrepreneur is a person who owns or manages an enterprise usually businesses. It has been a very old and debatable topic whether a person is born to be an entrepreneur or can it be taught. Generally, people always cherish and idealize a young entrepreneur, who it seems like, has everything at such a young age, without any difficulties in his life. It is also misinterpreted that a particular entrepreneur had it very easy, and it is just a fairy tale story from rags to riches, whereas, the truth is far from it. If we look in to the matter from both the angles, whether an entrepreneur is born or made, we will be able to achieve a complete and detailed understanding of this debate. It has always kept the mankind thinking, ‘what is the key to success?’, ‘is there a devised formula for it or you should have in your gene to excel’. Success is the most tempting and sought after object of all time, it has been an obsession for every human being and our driving force. This makes it a valid and crucial subject to analyze. In some circles, it is strongly believed that you have to be born an entrepreneur to become an entrepreneur. They have very strong theory and of course some decent examples to follow their belief. It is thought that you have to have it in your gene to be successful. A good example of that is Luke Johnson, who is the proud owner of not one but three enterprises; Pizza Express, Strada and Patisserie Valerie. He confesses that his entrepreneurial skills are a gift from his parents, mainly father since he has always been self employed and a great source of inspiration (Treanor, 2013). It is learned through studies that it is very likely for a person to become an entrepreneur if he has close affiliation with a person who is self employed, most commonly a family member or a friend. Economics Professors, David Blanchflower, of Dartmouth College US, and Andrew Oswald, from the UK's University of Warwick, agrees to this hypothesis that if a parent is self employed it is more likely for their children to become self employed, i.e. entrepreneurs (Treanor, 2013). It is also a common belief that if you acquire certain characteristics, then you are more likely to end up as an entrepreneur. It is stated by some members of the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) that you need to poses some qualities by default (or birth). These qualities comprises of curiosity, holistic thinking, disobedience (challenging nature), riskiness, adaptability, enthusiasm, confidence, irrational thinking, competitiveness, tenacity and impatience (YEC, 2013). Charles Sirois, Chairman of Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, Chairman and CEO of Enablis Entrepreneurial Network and Founder and controlling shareholder of Telesystem is the living example of one such case. He sturdily promotes the concept that entrepreneur can only be born. Being the founder of 20 companies, he is very well settled in his belief that ‘you need to be born an entrepreneur’, he believes it is an attitude of understanding and taking the risk. He trusts that you need to have a dream and a vision to change it in to reality one day (Pitts, 2009). On the other hand, if we believe the concept that entrepreneur aren’t born they are made or taught, then we need to analyze this statement further with some facts and figures. Vivek Wadhwa, Director of Research at the Centre for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization at Duke University, who is an entrepreneur himself wrote in his paper that entrepreneur can be made only. His team studied 249 successful entrepreneurs and came to the conclusion that most of them do not have entrepreneurial background or even aspiration to become one when they were young. They just realized it one day that they have to earn for themselves on their own terms. He analyzed that 52% of the lot were the first one in their entire family to start a business, as in the case of Bill Gates, Larry Page, Jeff Bezos, Russell Simmons and Sergei Brin . 46% of them had an entrepreneurial parent. He further went to explain that education plays a vital role in an entrepreneur’s life. In an another study, they studied 652 CEO’s and learned that there was a marginal difference between the companies which were founded by high school graduates and college graduates, education played a key role in their advancements (Wadhwa, 2010). Kauffman Foundation is a foundation which is researching extensively in the department of educating entrepreneurs, they of course believe in the theory that entrepreneur can be made. In only the last six years they have invested 50 million$ on academic research just to understand the workings of successful entrepreneurs and device ways and formulas to become an entrepreneur or to teach the future generation. VP of research at Kauffman Foundation, Bob Litan, says that we have learned through studies that entrepreneurs can be made. He believes that all you need to do is to provide precise education at the right time, which is of course the time when a person starts to think out of the box, the key is proper knowledge at the right time. Recently, Kauffman Foundation has started a new wing called Kauffman Labs, whose focus is to identify new and small enterprises and educate and facilitate them to become big (Kauffman Foundation, 2014). There are also some ways to identifies who is capable of becoming an entrepreneur, according to studies. It is said that if you have few characteristic qualities you can end up being a successful entrepreneur, for example it is said that entrepreneurs like to take risks, when they cook up an idea they just went in to it with full force. Also an entrepreneur has to be an optimist. Optimism is required to foresee the possible outcome of certain business; entrepreneur believes that they will find a way to win and to get things done. It is also believed that entrepreneurs need to be very inspiring and extremely extremely energetic. High energy levels are a must for an entrepreneurship because it takes lots of your time and patience; sometimes you even need to work on a project for years before it becomes fruitful. Entrepreneurs take their workspace as their place to refuel their energy, they become highly charged and alive when they are working, a classy example of which is of course Steve Jobs, CEO and Cofounder of Apple. Inc. (Maddock, 2013). From the above discussion I come to the conclusion that entrepreneur cannot be taught or made; you need to be born an entrepreneur, period. It is very clear that entrepreneurship is not a characteristic which one can gain in their genes, in fact if you have few good qualities naturally, only than you can learn, educate and teach yourself to become an entrepreneur. You need to have a knack for these things naturally before you polish your skills to become successful. A Coal is a Coal at heart, you cannot teach it to be a diamond, whereas a Diamond which is a gem at its core can be polished to give clarity and cut, and then it will shine and become priceless. Entrepreneurs have a gem of a personality by birth, which can be polished through education (via family or academics) to become successful. References Kauffman Foundation ‘ Enterprenuership’, Web 14th May, 2014 Muddock,M , Forbes, ‘Were you were to be an entrepreneur?’ 19th Nov,2009, Web 14th May 2014 Pitts.G, Globe and Mail ‘Charles Sirois: you need to be born an enterprenur’, 27 April,2009, Web 14th May,2014 Teanor.S, BBC ‘An entrepreneur can be taught or can they be made’, 3rd July, 2013, Web 14th May, 2014 Wadhwa.V , Techcrunch, ‘Can entrepreneurs be made?’ 27 Feb,2010, Web 14th May 2014 YEC, EnterRev, ’13 signs you were born to be an enterpreneur’ 30th April,2013, Web 14th May, 2014 Read More