It seems like almost all, who are involved in business, these days consider themselves an entrepreneur. Same thing applies for me. I am recipient of the Best Entrepreneur award in Information Technology for three years in sequence from 2004 to 2006. Business community tagged as an entrepreneur, but I was not sure if I was an entrepreneur. Am I really an entrepreneur? To qualify myself as an entrepreneur, I looked at the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2007. Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM) defines entrepreneurship as any attempt by individuals to start a new firm, including any attempt for self-employment.

GEM categorizes three types of Entrepreneurs:

Traditional Entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurship is always a major contributing factor to the socio-economic development of a country, which helps economic growth and also creates job for its citizens. Traditionally, entrepreneurs are attributed by the following qualities:

• Initiative - the entrepreneur takes the initiations to bring together the economic resources of land, labor and capital to produce a commodity (whether a good or a service) with the hope that such production will create a profitable business venture.
• Decision-making - the entrepreneur makes the basic business policy decisions for the business, thereby setting the course of the enterprise.
• Innovation - the entrepreneur is an innovator, attempting to introduce new products and new ways of doing things.
• Risk-taker - the entrepreneur risks his or her time, effort, business reputation and invested funds in the entrepreneurial venture.

Entrepreneurs Today

Until recently, the above attributes, especially innovation and risk-taking, were the dominant factors that defined the characteristics of those who chose to become entrepreneurs.
Now, however, with corporate downsizing being a fact of life, many entrepreneurs find themselves thrust into the role by default.

The question for anyone either finding themselves as entrepreneurs involuntarily or thinking about leaving corporate life for the heady world of entrepreneurship is whether you have what it takes to be successful … the right “attributes” in other words. Some people do but others simply don’t. Believe it or not, entrepreneurs are not just born. Well, some, of course, seem to be natural-born entrepreneurs, but for the rest of us, the qualities of entrepreneurship can definitely be acquired by hard work and application and cultivate in yourself the qualities that successful entrepreneurs share.
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