The Entrepreneur's Checklist

One in ten adults in the United States today is an entrepreneur. This phenomenon is by no means restricted to North America. The leading country for entrepreneurship is Brazil, where one in eight adults is an entrepreneur. Australia isn't far behind the U.S., with one in twelve.

These countries - Brazil, the United States and Australia - lead the way. Contrast, for example, Germany (one in 25), the United Kingdom (one in 33), Finland and Sweden (one in 50) and Ireland and Japan (less than one in 100).

Source: Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2000

Entrepreneurship Defined

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 1999 defined entrepreneurship as:

Entrepreneurial Activity - An Historical Perspective

Entrepreneurship is a major contributing factor to the economic well-being of a country, both in terms of economic growth and job creation. Traditionally, entrepreneurial ability tended to be defined by the following four attributes:

• Initiative - the entrepreneur takes the initiative 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 who attempts 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.

The Modern Entrepreneur

Until recently, these attributes, especially innovation and risk-taking, were the dominant factors that defined 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 who either finds themselves in this position involuntarily or thinks about leaving corporate life for the heady world of entrepreneurship is whether you have what it takes to be successful... the "right stuff", in other words. Some people do, in spades. Others simply don't. If you're one of the ones who just doesn't, either resign yourself to working for someone else, or cultivate in yourself the qualities that successful entrepreneurs share.

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.

Common Issues

The "common denominator" issues that all entrepreneurs face are planning, finance and implementation.

Planning

All entrepreneurs face the challenge of starting a new business, be it through innovation (inventing something new or doing something a different way), finding the right opportunity to take, or buying a franchise. Whichever road you choose, it will involve serious planning.

Financing

Unless you have ready funds at your disposal, obtaining finance is the next major challenge, and it can't be attempted until your business plan is in place. You will need to prepare funding proposals and applications for loans, venture capital, and funds from angel investors.

Implementation

This is make or break time. Many people think getting started is the hard part -- and it is hard. But where many businesses stumble is not in the planning and financing stages, but in the implementation of their business plan.

Why this is so is not certain. There are various hypotheses including the suggestion that ideas people and implementation people are two very different breeds, and it's highly unusual to find one person who can do both. More likely, though, is the simple fact that implementation requires a broad range of skills - so many, in fact, that no single person can possibly be adept at all of them.

The real challenge and skill of the entrepreneur, then, is to recognize what you do well and then appoint employees or subcontractors to do the rest. Of course, if you run a business on a shoestring, this simply may not be possible!

So be brutally honest and objective when you assess your particular strengths and weaknesses. And make sure you do this before you cash in your day job.

The areas that are important to effective implementation are also encompassed by a broad definition of management: promotion (marketing and advertising), public relations, sales, employees, communications, legal issues, plant and equipment, risk management, disaster planning, crisis management, insurance, technology, computer systems, taxes, bookkeeping, finance, and the Internet.