What is an entrepreneur? Well, an entrepreneur is one who takes calculated risks and introduces a new or existing product into a new or existing market. In other words, an entrepreneur is a founder.
An entrepreneur starts a venture. He or she takes an idea and shapes it into something that the world can see as a force in the community. Many people think that getting a high-paying executive level job means being at the top of the world. However, did you ever think that even high paid executives have someone to answer to?
That's right; entrepreneurs actually become the most successful people in the world. Think about Bill Gates or Donald Trump.
So what do you need in order to become an entrepreneur? First of all, you have to have an idea. Entrepreneurship involves taking that idea and transforming it into something that people would be willing to pay for. But how do you do that?
Well, to help you, you can use the SWOT analysis. What is the SWOT analysis? It is a system of scrutiny, which helps you judge the feasibility of your idea.
The components of the SWOT analysis are:
1) Strengths -In order to succeed in your venture, you need to be able to analyze any strengths that you have. Is your idea one that can change the way people perceive things? Are you good with selling your idea? What do you have that you can consider an edge over the competition?
Analyzing your strengths can give you a much-needed confidence boost. It can also teach you which cards to play when you are trying to convince people to buy your product or your service. Remember that more often than not, it is not the product that people buy, it's the person.
2) Weaknesses - Of course, when you study your strengths, you also examine your weaknesses. No one is born to be the perfect entrepreneur. We all have our little defects and make little mistakes.
However, you should analyze your weaknesses and try to balance them out, if not turning them into strengths. Think of ways which you might make up for your shortcomings and how to turn the negatives into positives.
By doing this, you will be able to face every entrepreneur's fear: the failure of self. You will be able to actually tell yourself that you know your weaknesses and you know how to counter each one.
3) Opportunities -The first two factors had something to do with your internal characteristics. However, as we all know, entrepreneurs face not only themselves, but the world as well. You need to examine any opportunity that may help you succeed in the market. Opportunities include people's attitude towards a product, any specific need in the market for a service and any incentives found in the market for your venture.
By identifying the different opportunities, you can see if starting a venture would be a smart thing to do. Also, the opportunities can reveal to you, how to combine them with your strengths or use them to neutralize your weaknesses.
4) Threats -Of course, bad always comes with the good. If the world offers you some opportunities, be sure you understand that there are threats that could ruin your venture. You need to take into account the law, taxes, current political situation and see if you indeed have a potential target market.
By examining the different threats to your business venture, you can prepare contingency plans in case things don't work out for you. You can also best prepare yourself for anything that has the potential to ruin your enterprise by gathering all the information available about it.
There you go: those are the essentials of being a smart entrepreneur. Remember that profit rarely comes from scared money. In order to be successful, you need to take calculated risks. Risks are different from uncertainties in the sense that you can reduce risks, but you can't really minimize uncertainty. What you need to do is get rid of the uncertainty by showing yourself that you can handle the risk.
In doing so, you gain the personality of the entrepreneur: always striving to be the best in the world.
