I've been studying entrepreneurship for 40 years, since 1983, and it's hard for me to explain what an entrepreneur is in one sentence. The deeper the research, the more difficult it is to define. Here, I have tried to define "entrepreneur" descriptively in ten aspects.
1. An entrepreneur is a person who finds something to do on his own.
The word "entrepreneur" comes from the French word and originally meant the initiator of a cause. Entrepreneurs start enterprises and engage in innovation, all out of their own impulse, to take the initiative to find things to do, not to do things because of the requirements of others, not to complete the errands assigned by others, not to accept other people's orders and arrangements. A person cannot be considered an entrepreneur if he is only delegated by others, such as a professional manager or a leader of a state-owned enterprise. Of course, the fact that some SOE leaders also take the initiative to find things to do on their own means that they have a certain entrepreneurial spirit. Ning Gaoning and Song Zhiping are such people.
2. Entrepreneurs are the ones who have the final say.
The entrepreneur is the boss, what is the boss? The boss just has the final say. The boss has no superiors and does not need to listen to others. If you say it yourself, you have to ask for instructions and report everything, others agree to do it, others don't agree to do it, you can't do it, you can't do it, you can't be considered an entrepreneur, you can only be regarded as an employee. The reason why entrepreneurs find things to do and start their own businesses is also because they have the final say. If a person doesn't count what he says, he is unlikely to find something to do on his own. Entrepreneurs are born to be the first-in-command, not the second-in-command. Some people with an entrepreneurial spirit choose to leave the system and start their own enterprises because they want to have the final say on their own, and they do not want to be at the mercy of others and do not want to accept other people's orders. An important difference between the leaders of state-owned enterprises and real entrepreneurs is that they have superiors, and they do not count what they say.
3. An entrepreneur is a person who promotes himself.
The pursuit of power and status is the nature of human beings. In the bureaucracy, everyone has a specific position, and a person's position is determined by their superiors, and success is manifested in being promoted by superiors. If an entrepreneur has no superiors, no one will promote him. Entrepreneurs can only promote themselves on their own. How do you promote yourself? It is to make your own business bigger. The bigger the business, the more customers it has, and the more employees it has below, the higher the social position of the entrepreneur. An entrepreneur is a person who serves people. The more people you serve, the higher your rank. If customers don't buy your products, your business won't be big, and no matter how many titles you put on yourself, it's useless. In a sense, entrepreneurs are voted for by their customers with money. The leaders of state-owned enterprises are promoted by the organizational department or the competent department, not by themselves, nor by the customer, so they are not real entrepreneurs.
4. Entrepreneurs are the ones who take responsibility for themselves.
The consequences of an entrepreneur doing something are uncertain, whether it is arbitrage or innovation, there are risks, and it may succeed or fail. Entrepreneurs must take responsibility for the consequences of what they do. When things are done, you enjoy profits, honor, and a sense of accomplishment; If you do something badly, you will suffer a financial loss, and you may even be treated as a **. This is actually the meaning of the word "profit". Profit is the residual income after deducting the contract payment that you have promised, which can be positive or negative. The person who takes the profit is the one who provides insurance to others. All those who say profit is responsibility! If a person does not have to take responsibility for the consequences of his actions, the benefits are his own, and the losses are borne by others, he is not an entrepreneur.
5. An entrepreneur is a person who does what others think is impossible.
In economics, decision-making is to solve under given constraints. This does not apply to entrepreneurs. For entrepreneurs, constraints are not given, but can be changed. In fact, entrepreneurs are different from ordinary people in that they always try to change the constraints and do things that ordinary people think are impossible. Innovation is about changing constraints! These constraints may be technical, commercial, or even institutional. To change constraints, you have to break the routine and do things that ordinary people would never dare to think of. Entrepreneurs use their imagination to change the world, and they can see things that ordinary people can't. For example, Elon Musk, he does space travel, chip-brain connection, which is unbelievable in the eyes of ordinary people. Therefore, entrepreneurs are often seen as "crazy". A person is not an entrepreneur if he is only doing what most people can do. A person who follows the rules and does things according to the rules is not an entrepreneur.
6. Entrepreneurs are people who like to compete
Entrepreneurship is competitive in nature. Entrepreneurs are competitive, like to compete, and always want to prove that "I am better than you"! Entrepreneurs are challengers, disobedient to authority, always looking for ways to outperform their opponents and surpass others. The competition among entrepreneurs goes beyond profit targets. For example, John Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie spent their lives battling over who made the most money in the United States in the first half of their lives, and who made the most money in the United States in the second half of their lives. Google founder Larry Page and Tesla founder Elon Musk would have been good friends, but their friendship hasn't stopped them from competing in the field of artificial intelligence and self-driving technology. When Google acquired Deepmind, Musk invested $100 million to establish OpenAI with Sam Altman, and poached Google's top artificial intelligence scientist Ilya Sutskovi to fight against Google, and the two broke off from then on. In the field of space travel, Musk is still battling Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson, and the three are not convinced. In China, Jack Ma and Pony Ma compete on internet platforms, and Shen Nanpeng and Zhang Lei compete in the investment field. The rivalry among entrepreneurs means that economists' fears of monopolies are unfounded.
7. An entrepreneur is someone who can inspire others to do things.
No one has the ability and time to do everything. Entrepreneurs don't do things alone, they lead others to do things. An entrepreneur is not a self-employed person, but an organizer. Without the participation of others, entrepreneurs will achieve nothing. In the market, everyone has the freedom of choice. This means that the entrepreneur can only inspire others to do things after him, and cannot rely on orders to make others do things. People who are willing to follow you must be attracted by your vision and charisma, not by your power. For others to voluntarily follow you, you have to show them the way and give them hope. If a person cannot give hope to others, he will not have followers; It is impossible to be a successful entrepreneur without followers.
8. An entrepreneur is a person who does other people's business as his own.
Entrepreneurs are often thought of as making money. In fact, in addition to making money, entrepreneurs also have goals beyond profits, and one of the goals is to get ahead and prove their social value. For true entrepreneurs, making money is by no means the only goal. An enterprise is not only a business, but also a career. To do business, you have to be ambitious. The so-called dedication is to treat the career as a life, or even as a life, to be responsible for the people who follow you, and to be responsible for the stakeholders. In Feng Lun's words, it is a trait of all people who do business to take their own affairs as their own affairs and other people's affairs as their own. Ordinary people can lie flat, but entrepreneurs can't lie flat, because you can't let down the people who follow you and trust you, and you can't disappoint shareholders, employees, and customers. If a person only thinks about his own gains and losses and does not consider others, he is not a real entrepreneur.
9. An entrepreneur is a person who is happy in doing things.
There is a kind of human race that makes them happy as long as they do something that others can't do, and bored if they repeat what others do. This is what Schumpeter meant about the enjoyment of creativity. Entrepreneurs are such people. I have always emphasized that entrepreneurs are happy not because they make money, but because they do things, and making money is just a result. Of course, making money is certainly happy, but more important is the "doing" itself. For entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, the most important motivation to support them is to do creative things. Many Chinese entrepreneurs, at least the Chinese entrepreneurs I know, get joy from doing things. When they talk about what they do, their eyes always light up, and you get excited with them.
10. An entrepreneur is someone who will not admit defeat in failure.
Most entrepreneurs have experienced failure, and some have even failed multiple times. But unlike ordinary people, entrepreneurs don't admit defeat in failure. They often fail again and again until they succeed. For example, Cyrus Field, an American entrepreneur who laid the first Atlantic submarine cable, failed in the first three layings, and was regarded as a big **, saying that he deceived a city, a country, and the whole world. If he stops there, he will die of old age in the reputation of "**." But he didn't! A few years later, he came to the UK to raise money and start laying submarine cables again. Failed again, but he did not give up, and the second time he finally succeeded, connecting the new world with the old world with a telegraph, and his name will go down in history forever. Henry Ford's first two ventures failed, and his third ventures succeeded. Yu Minhong founded the well-known New Oriental Education Company at home and abroad and is a successful entrepreneur, but a few years ago, under the influence of the "double reduction" policy, the company's stock price plummeted, and the traditional business also lost its future. If he lies flat like this, although he is still defeated, it is not his character. He started a new business - Oriental Selection and New Oriental Cultural Tourism Project.
I discussed the ten dimensions (or criteria) by which entrepreneurs are measured. Of course, not every real-life entrepreneur meets these ten criteria, different entrepreneurs will perform very differently in different dimensions, some stand out in some ways, others stand out in others, no two entrepreneurs are exactly the same, just like no two leaves are exactly the same. The differences between entrepreneurs are largely determined by their personalities and also related to the environment in which they operate. But in my opinion, the first five of the ten dimensions are the most important, and what is necessary for a person to be called an entrepreneur. If a person does not take the initiative to find something to do, if he says it does not count, does not take responsibility for the consequences of his own work, only does what most people think can be done, and just waits for others to promote himself, he must not be called an entrepreneur. This is the main reason why I disagree with calling the leaders of state-owned enterprises entrepreneurs.
It's also important to emphasize that entrepreneurship is a learning process, and no one can meet all the criteria for an entrepreneur I listed above when starting a business. Entrepreneurs are bound to make mistakes, but they are good at learning from them, constantly improving their imagination and decision-making, and becoming mature. This learning process is not a simple passive random walk, but an active absorption and error correction. Of course, success can also easily make people take experience as a law, become self-contained, and gradually lose imagination and creativity. Especially as people age, they are more likely to become conservative and their learning ability declines. As a result, few entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs forever. In the team of entrepreneurs, it is inevitable that the back wave will push the front wave!