Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Economic Growth
Entrepreneurship is a complex term that’s often defined simply as running your own business. It is basically a feeling of self-dependency which enables the individuals to set up their own enterprise. There is no path to success without taking risks. An entrepreneur does the same; he takes comparatively higher amount of risk in order to taste success. With increased level of dedication and determination, he is capable of conquering the Everest of success. It’s easier said than done. It sounds easy to take risks and get succeed but the scenario is different as it is seen. The enormous potential and sleepless hours and facing failure multiple times is what makes an entrepreneur successful. The hard work done renders strength and agility inside them. In the course of the business setup they also learn about the problems they have to go through. Entrepreneurship is all about learning from our own and other’s failure and finding different ways to achieve maximum success.
There’s a difference between a “business owner” and an “entrepreneur,” and although one can be both, what distinguishes entrepreneurship is a person’s attitude. An entrepreneur is an individual who, rather than working as an employee, founds and runs a small business, assuming all the risks and rewards of the venture. The entrepreneur is commonly seen as an innovator, a source of new ideas, goods, services and business. He is the initiator of implementation of any new idea in the market and motivates other people to follow it. In a market full of uncertainty, it is the entrepreneur who can actually help clear up uncertainty, as he makes judgments or assumes risk. To the extent that capitalism is a dynamic profit-and-loss system, entrepreneurs drive efficient discovery and consistently reveal knowledge. Established firms face increased competition and challenges from entrepreneurs, which often spurs them towards research and development efforts as well. In technical economic terms, the entrepreneur disrupts course towards steady-state equilibrium.
Many thinkers, authors, and university professors has different definitions, for entrepreneurship. “Entrepreneurship is much broader than the creation of a new business venture,” said Bruce Bachenheimer, a clinical professor of management and executive director of the Entrepreneurship Lab at Pace University. “At its core, it is a mind-set — a way of thinking and acting. It is about imagining new ways to solve problems that come to our way and create value.”
Passion is the real drive. An entrepreneur possesses an interior fuel and stamina that drives their actions, he said. This superior energy helps to overtake and surpass the different challenges, and it injects strength to continue pursuing goals when difficulties arise.
Jenny Ta, CEO and founding partner at VCNetwork.co, said successful entrepreneurs are typically confident and self-motivated. They have witnessed failure million times before tasting success. They are tenacious but understand their own limitations. Instead of following the status quo, entrepreneurs have a healthy disrespect for established rules and often set out to do things that others may not have the courage to pursue. They give fuel to the vehicle of innovation. They are also willing to fail and start over again;internalizing the lessons they’ve learned to create something new and improved.
“An entrepreneur is someone who can take any idea, whether it be a product or service, and have the skill set, will, and courage to take extreme risk to do whatever it takes to turn that concept into reality and not only bring it to market but make it a viable product or service that people want or need,” said MJ Gottlieb, co-founder of consult Hustle Branding.
The economy is composed of enterprises and businesses. Our economy has survived because the industry leaders had been able to adapt to the changing times and supplied mostly the communities’ needs. Any small business is integral to the economy. Without it, our economy would not survive. But a business must also sustain itself, be able to constantly evolve to fulfill the demands of the community and the people. In every business, it’s a must to be industrious, innovative and resourceful.Entrepreneurship produces financial gain and keeps the economy afloat, which gives rise to the importance of innovation in entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurs are innovators of the economy. It is not just the scientist who invents and come up with the solutions.
The importance of innovation in entrepreneurship is shown by coming up with new way to produce a product or a solution. A service industry can expand with another type of service to fulfill the ever changing needs of their clients. Producers can come up with another product from the raw materials and by-products.
The importance of innovation in entrepreneurship is another key value for the longevity of a business. Entrepreneurs and businesses began with a need. They saw the need within the community and among themselves that they have come up with a solution. They grab the opportunity to innovate to make the lives more comfortable. And these solutions kept evolving to make it better, easier and more useful. Entrepreneurs must keep themselves abreast with the current trends and demands. Manufacturers are constantly innovating to produce more without sacrificing the quality. Without an innovative mind, we can’t imagine our future and hence can’t witness new things. Many entrepreneurs like Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, Reid Hoffman are renown innovators too as they used their own ideas to create a revolution.
Companies and enterprises keep innovation as part of their organization. Innovations contribute to the success of the company. Entrepreneur, as innovators, see not just one solution to a need. They keep coming up with ideas and do not settle until they come up with multiple solutions. Innovation is extremely important that companies often see their employees’ creativity as a solution. Other factors that raises the importance of innovation in entrepreneurship is competition. It stimulates any entrepreneur to come up with something much better than their competition in a lower price, and still be cost-effective and qualitative.Innovation is important not just in entrepreneurship. As individuals, we are innovators by adapting well to our needs and create our own solutions. Entrepreneurs are the same. The innovation in entrepreneurship helped the country by changing with the times and producing new products and service from ones that already exists. And, being innovative has helped us become successful in all our endeavors.
Economic growth is an increase in the capacity of an economy to produce goods and services, compared from one period of time to another. It can be measured in nominal or real terms, the latter of which is adjusted for inflation. Traditionally, aggregate economic growth is measured in terms of gross national product(GNP) or gross domestic product (GDP), although alternative metrics are sometimes used.
In simplest terms, economic growth refers to an increase in aggregate productivity. Often, but not necessarily, aggregate gains in productivity correlate with increased average marginal productivity. This means that the average laborer in a given economy becomes, on average, more productive. It is also possible to achieve aggregate economic growth without an increased average marginal productivity through extra immigration or higher birth rates.
A growing or more productive economy can make more goods and provide more services than before. However, some goods and services are considered more valuable than others. For example, a smartphone is considered more valuable than a pair of socks or a glass of water. Growth has to be measured in the value of goods and services, not only the quantity.
Another problem is not all individuals place the same value on the same goods and services. A heater is more valuable to a resident of Alaska, while an air conditioner is more valuable to a resident of Florida. Some people value steak more than fish, and vice versa. Because value is subjective, measuring for all individuals is very tricky. The best approximation is to use the current market value; in the United States, this is measured in terms of U.S. dollars. Since a higher total produced market value is considered more valuable, higher economic growth is positively associated with an increased standard of living.
There are only a few ways to generate economic growth. The first is a discovery of new or better economic resources. An example of this is the discovery of gasoline fuel; prior to the discovery of the energy-generating power of gasoline, the economic value of petroleum was relatively low. Gasoline became a “better” and more productive economic resource after this discovery. Another way to generate economic growth is to grow the labour force. All else equal, more workers generate more economic goods and services. During the 19th century, a portion of the robust U.S. economic growth was due to a high influx of cheap, productive immigrant labour. A third way to generate economic growth is to create superior technology or other capital goods. The rate of technical growth and capital growth is highly dependent on the rate of savings and investment, since savings and investment are necessary to engage in research and development.
The last method is increased specialization. This means laborers become more skilled at their crafts, raising their productivity through trial and error or simply more practice. Savings, investment and specialization are the most consistent and easily controlled methods.
Entrepreneurship, innovation and economic growth are the three vertices of a triangle. These three go hand in hand. They encircle the functional factor of economics. If these three are complimented by each other, only then the graph of development can go up. The pace at which the world moves is very high. So, to meet the requirement of the world and to sustain its population, the economic growth should also increase proportionally. In order to get everything in sync, an entrepreneur with enough dedication knows how to combine the factors to yield the best result for him and for the economy. He must learn to fall seven times and stand up the eighth time because success doesn’t come overnight and shortcut is not their cup of tea. There is no time for rest just go hard! Or go home! The spirits should always be high. To achieve something, we have to put some other thing on stake and without risk, nothing happens. You can’t taste the dew if you get satisfied by a glass of water kept at your table. Some people dream of achieving success while others wake up and conquer the zenith. Everything comes naturally when we believe that we can do, as it is well said that
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts”.
