What is an Entrepreneur?

An Entrepreneur is someone who sets up a business, who is willing to take risks, in the hope of reward. An Entrepreneur may either succeed or fail at their own personal objectives, or may find that through divorce of ownership, they loose control of a business they started. Essentially an entrepreneur is someone who is willing to take risks. The type of business an entrepreneur sets up may depend on the goals that they want to achieve.

Not everyone wants to make money, some people may have other goals, such as individuals who want to make people feel better. Examples would be medical apparatus, some people invest lots of money into medial apparatus, cancer research or rehabilitation centres to help people who need it.

Some businesses have insider entrepreneurs, who work within a business as though they were on their own, with the resources of the business they are able to accomplish more than they would alone, and therefore they and the business profit from that. Examples would be Eduardo Saverin, although he is an entrepreneur, he briefly worked with Facebook in order to accelerate their growth. He is an example of an Insider Entrepreneur.

Insiders allow a business to setup a corporate think tank, that allows them to come up with ideas through blue sky thinking and creative thinking.

Advantages and Disadvantages of a Corporate ‘Think Tank’

• An objectivised think tank may not actually produce any good ideas, although they may seem good, they may not be possible due to financial or time constraints. Examples would be features on software development, it may be good to have a certain feature, but it may not be possible to implement. (See SMART)
  • This may also lead to income constraints, as time is invested in producing these ideas, it can take lots of their time to do research and development.
  • It also means the entrepreneurial roles they should be doing are put aside. Examples would be excessive meetings or wasting employee time waiting for information.
• They may be all over the world, and may have never worked together before, so the ideas could vary and the results could be poor.
• A think tank relies on a good reputation or ideas may never take off from the ground. Research into pointless topics could be expensive.
• Having a think tank requires experts who may cost a lot of money. CTO’s and CFO’s could have a good reputation and cost a lot of money to get a project off the ground for start-ups.
• It also requires trust, as some employees may not be willing to bare the blame for a failed project.
• Employees may not be motivated to do blue sky thinking or may not want to help the business earn profits that they do not get a part of, salary can de-motivate employees.
• A gap in the market may be hard to find. Especially Saturated Markets.
• Think Tanks can also be Cheap.
• Loyal Customers may be able to contribute to Think Tanks, examples would be the hospitality industry. Surveys and Questionnaires could shed light on what customers really want.
• There can be high financial risk.

Be SMART

There is an acronym that can help when dealing with think tank blue sky thinking. SMART!

• Specific. Vague. Broad topics can not make much sense. Making a website ‘pop’ isn’t a good way of asking a web designer to improve a website.
• Measurable. It can be useful to collect statistics or data before taking a calculated risk.
• Achievable. Some goals may not be possible because they are not what a company is about.
• Realistic. Some goals may not be possible because they are too optimistic.
• Time-frame. Some goals may not be possible because of the manpower a business has.