The world of entrepreneurship is vast and well-trodden by many around the world. Entrepreneurship in its primal form has been in existence since 20000 years ago, in New Guinea, around 17000 BCE. The first form of entrepreneurial trade involved exchanging obsidian for tools, animal skins and food! For millenia, hunter-gatherer tribes would engage in such trades for mutual benefit between tribes involved.
So what exactly is entrepreneurship? In the realm of CRÈME, it’s simply the act of starting out on your own, in pursuit of creating a successful business. Just like what we have here, the ship of Preneur (as lame as it sounds, it’s just to bring our point across to you!).
Now, take some time now to internalise the picture… what does it paint?
The ship symbolizes an entrepreneur and the struggles that he/she has gone through to reach the pinnacle of success. The people atop the boarding platform are common people like you and me, aspiring to be a successful entrepreneur one day. The bridge connecting the ship and the boarding platform represents the problems and struggles that an entrepreneur has to go through to make his idea come alive.
So if fibre = fiber in pronunciation, then...
ENTER PRENEUR SHIP = ENTREPRENEURSHIP (get it?)
Now let’s branch off to another interesting aspect – the evolution of entrepreneurship thought.
FYI: Richard Cantillon coined the term entrepreneur back in 1730, paving the way forward for a special class of risk-bearers, pinning idealistic hopes on unknown future outcomes.
In the 18th century, the entrepreneur was regarded as adventurous, prospective and risk-exposed. The common trait of the entrepreneur included risk-taking and capital accumulation. Arbitrage (the act of buying low and selling high) was (and still is now) a widely adopted business strategy, due to the prevalence of incomplete information in the free market.
In the 19th century, entrepreneurs were seen to be economic disruptors and innovators, because they were unorthodox, had a sharp eye on gaps to fill, and were constantly finding ways to optimise the product offerings in the market.
So what makes an entrepreneur what he/she is? Well, it boils down to their personality, behaviour and thought. Entrepreneurs are proactive, self-reliant, self-motivated and have quick, witty decision making abilities to chart their business directions on the fly. They are often people-oriented, open to try new things, and best of all, they let their cogitation be unbounded by convention, enabling them to craft unique creations that provide them the first mover advantage within the field they set their efforts on.
Let’s take a look at one of the most successful entrepreneurs of our time, Elon Musk. If you’ve kept up with the times, he’s also gotten some cool aliases, such as Dogefather and Papa Musk. As controversial a public figure he may be, Musk remains one of the most outstanding entrepreneurs in developing fields.
He started his entrepreneurship life solving issues pertaining to online transactions, quickly moving on to create pioneering companies in different sectors (automotive, space transport and neurotics). However, it was not an easy ride for him as some of his ventures suffered economic risks in the process. For example, SpaceX was going to be bankrupt and to be closed, but Musk was not afraid and carried on with the launch which turned out to be a resounding success. From then, SpaceX became one of the most successful companies out there. If anything, his journey reinforces that we should never give up as there are benefits we will eventually reap as long as we persevere!
So coming back to the general theme of entrepreneurship, the narrative in this decade remains unchanged at its core – to bridge the gaps that exist in society. With this mission in mind, entrepreneur wannabes like you and I are empowered, no matter the level of contribution, to continually improve our ever-evolving society.