What Does the Buzzword Entrepreneur Really Mean?

I can be an entrepreneur, you can be an entrepreneur, everybody can be an entrepreneur... While that is true, not everybody is, nor should every person be, an entrepreneur. This term has become a buzz phrase over recent years and rightfully so: The economy depends on such calculated risk takers who are identifying needs and creating marketable solutions. However, the broader the word is used, the more diluted it becomes.

Webster's Dictionary defines an entrepreneur as one who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise.

Dictionary defines an entrepreneur as a person who organizes and operates a business or businesses, taking on greater than normal financial risks in order to do so.

Investopedia defines an entrepreneur as an individual who, rather than working as an employee, founds and runs a small business, assuming all the risks and rewards of the venture. The entrepreneur is commonly seen as an innovator, a source of new ideas, goods, services and business models/or procedures.

Nowhere does it say that an entrepreneur is an employee, subcontracted salesperson, or solo-practitioner. People, in any role, can demonstrate entrepreneurial characteristics and some may even be coined an intrapreneur for acting like an entrepreneur of a project or brand while under the umbrella of another enterprise. Possessing entrepreneurial traits and creating solutions for discovered problems is valuable for people in any role.

Consider this: if anyone could call themselves a doctor regardless of a degree or call themselves a mother without ever caring for a child as their own, anyone should be able to call themselves an entrepreneur without starting a business from scratch. One may wonder where the integrity is in that thought process. Rightfully so, as we depend on the predictability of words and titles being used as their definitions are intended.

The world needs solutions and seemingly craves entrepreneurs, so the door is open and red carpet laid for anyone identifying as an entrepreneur to take that leap of faith in their abilities and to invest in the startup of a business. As entrepreneurs create businesses, such action leads to the creation of jobs and delivery of solutions.

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