We all know what or who an entrepreneur is. Anyway, my google search landed me on a definition from Oxford Dictionary: an entrepreneur is a person who makes money by starting or running businesses, especially when this involves taking financial risks. Seems pretty much it? Owns and runs a business? Check. Money? Oh yes! Also, financial risks? Hmm…yeah. However, it looks like that is not all. Being an entrepreneur involves dealing with a much more intricate system of gains and setbacks. So, today we will look into the former part to see why you should set your foot down, write down that crazy yet amazing idea that has been bugging you for so long and start building your entrepreneurial venture from scratch. Fair warning: entrepreneurship is not all that rosy and still involves sufficient risks, as we will get to know soon.
To passion (& ideas)
Why entrepreneurship? Why not that corporate job your parents have so long dreamed for you? First of all, the reasons in the entire universe, entrepreneurship allows you to follow your passion. Obviously, it is much easier to devote yourselves to something that you love than one that doesn’t mean much to you or, worse, one that you hate. Entrepreneurship enables you to give life to your dream and live it. Basically, earn money as you do what you love. Yet, I know you don’t trust me, for these are the same oneliners every other scammer in your mail says. Most of our interests are buried in the deepest corners of our hearts because, as every other person in the world says, it doesn’t help us earn money. It is often not streamlined into a profession that is guaranteed to bring us financial or professional, or even emotional stability. But all these comments beg the question: does it have to remain so? Indeed, most of those business people in your feed and timeline and those you arduously adore emerged from the same confusion- with passion but without any tag to describe the same passion. But how did they become successful then? Here is where entrepreneurship becomes imperative. Entrepreneurs reinvent their passion by merging it with innovative ideas so that it becomes profitable. Don’t chew me out for adding the word ‘profitable’ instead of ‘interesting’. Often, the anathema of seeing the words passion and profit in the same sentence is indicative of our inability to imagine ourselves doing something that we like by earning money at the same time. But entrepreneurs are marked by this unfortunately unique experience of doing so- which itself makes this choice all the more compelling.
Money matters
Now that we have already discussed the profitability of passion, let’s not shy away from money matters- for money is a grey area when associated with entrepreneurship. The enormity of income opportunities allowed for businesses is almost always overlooked in favour of the financial risks and vulnerabilities associated with the entrepreneurs. No one is going to deny the latter part. The idea of doing business is risky- it is your idea; your business; your money; your employees; your fate. But in the same way, the profit is also yours. Unlike the corporate or government jobs that allow for regulated incomes with limits on the raise, businesses allow for an extensive increase in income and even more avenues for it.
Flexibility (lots of it)
Just as businesses allow for flexibility in income, it provides one with a flexible lifestyle. Instead of living through a stable but monotonous and seemingly endless 9 to 5 job, you get to decide the work schedule that you should follow. As long as your entrepreneurship supports it, you get to work on your own while travelling, from remote locations, from home and from any point of comfort. The power to decide for yourself is one of the most craved advantages when it comes to starting an entrepreneurial venture.
Do what you do
Everyone, at least most of us, likes to do things that benefit ourselves. We tend to focus on our own growth, our own well-being, our prosperity and so on. Indeed, the inability to do so is one of the most raised concerns of the people working in corporate sectors. Despite the mounting responsibility and workload, the benefits of one’s actions are translated into someone else’s account at the end of the month. No offence, but why would anyone want to do that to oneself? At this point, entrepreneurs gain significance in their ability to pursue their own goals. They are empowered to act in ways that are beneficial to their own career- to be the master of their own fate.
Creativity for Life
More importantly, entrepreneurship is an avenue where you do get to be creative. Most often, work-life is closely controlled by visible superiors and invisible guidelines. Except for a select few jobs that use creativity, many of the conventional professions have barred creativity from maintaining the stability it offers. But, as it goes, it is ‘do your thing’ in entrepreneurship.
Up for a Risk?
Entrepreneurship is an uninteresting option for many, owing to the risks involved in it. However, for some others, the risk is the primary point of getting into doing a business on one’s own. The stability that comes with other professions can get one so addicted to the comfort it provides. This is almost always accompanied by stagnation, where the possibility to fail and improve is lost.
Learn & evolve
Entrepreneurship is a learning process for life. It is presented with an absolute lack of monotonicity or repetitiveness. As it develops and climbs ladders, so do the venues of learning. Unlike those jobs where one is to use their skills and knowledge accumulated so far and those that provide opportunities for degeneration into familiarity over improvisation, entrepreneurship forces one to learn more and know better.
Not just you
Your venture is, at times, not just beneficial to you but to a lot more others. Entrepreneurship is expected to be the next best job creator. Indeed, it is an avenue looked forward to for its immeasurable potential. If cultivated in the right terms, it can add considerably to the global economy.
Motivate
Most importantly, your entrepreneurship might be the next prominent thing occupying someone else’s feed and Twitter timeline. You might be the one to motivate another entire generation of aspiring entrepreneurs. It lets you carve your own mark in the world. Unlike the cases where your efforts go unnoticed as just another employer, your work and your effort are your own here. No one can share the legacy that you have created for yourself.
But as warned beforehand, entrepreneurship is not a happy-go-lucky place. You will have your usual setbacks. It will be constantly vulnerable to a financial crisis. You might lose the stability that comes with working for others. Nevertheless, entrepreneurship is the place where you get to be yourselves. Your ideas, passion, creativity, experience, knowledge and ability matter there. It lets you learn and motivate. It lets you earn for your worth. It even lets you leave a legacy. At the end of the day, however, it merely becomes a choice of interest or passion between your pros and cons of being an entrepreneur.
