Vikas Gupta
Founder & Chairman - VFN Group
The road to entrepreneurship is often a treacherous one filled with unexpected detours, roadblocks, and dead ends. There are lots of sleepless nights, plans that don't work out, funding that doesn't come through and customers that never materialize. It can be so challenging to launch a business that it may make you wonder why anyone willingly sets out on such a path.
An entrepreneur identifies a need that no existing businesses addresses and determines a solution for that need. Entrepreneurial activity includes developing and launching new businesses and marketing them, often with the end goal of selling the business to turn a profit.
An entrepreneur who regularly launches new businesses, sells them and then starts new businesses is a serial entrepreneur. Additionally, although the term "entrepreneur" is often associated with start-ups and small businesses, any founder of a successful household-name business began as an entrepreneur.
What motivates entrepreneurs: Autonomy: Entrepreneurs want to be their own bosses, set their own goals, control their own progress and run their businesses how they see fit. Purpose: Many entrepreneurs have a clear vision of what they want to accomplish and will work tirelessly to make that happen. Flexibility: Not everyone fits into the rigidity of traditional corporate culture. Entrepreneurs are often looking to free themselves from these constraints, find a better work-life balance or work at times and in ways that may be unconventional. Financial success: Most entrepreneurs realize they aren't going to be overnight billionaires, but that doesn't mean they aren't interested in the potential of making a ton of money from a hugely successful business over which they have full control. Legacy: Entrepreneurs are often guided by a desire to create something that outlasts them.
"Entrepreneurs are the dreamers and the visionaries. Without them, the world stagnates, and progress stops. Society needs entrepreneurs the same way the body needs air."