{"id":54,"date":"2019-10-03T17:00:47","date_gmt":"2019-10-03T16:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kleosafrica.com\/blog\/?p=54"},"modified":"2023-11-10T05:04:47","modified_gmt":"2023-11-10T04:04:47","slug":"the-entrepreneurial-vocation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kleosafrica.com\/blog\/2019\/10\/03\/the-entrepreneurial-vocation\/","title":{"rendered":"The Entrepreneurial Vocation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Like\nthe blind men who described an elephant from different perspectives, several\npundits have attempted to define entrepreneurship in disparate ways. Not least among\nthem is a renowned Harvard business school professor, Howard Stevenson, who\nfamously described entrepreneurship as \u2018\u2019the pursuit of opportunity without\nregard to resources currently controlled.\u2019\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\nlike to think of the vocation to be an entrepreneur as the call to be a\nsteward, allocating resources from a region of lower value to a place of higher\nvalue. \u2018\u2019From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from\nthe one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.\u2019\u2019 An entrepreneur\nreceives great resources and is called to do great things with those resources\n\u2013 feed the world, cure disease, educate the next generation, and create\nprosperity in countless ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Regardless\nof how one might choose to define entrepreneurship, there are several\ncharacteristics, which stand out when one considers the entrepreneurial\nvocation. They include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li><strong>Innovation:<\/strong>\nWhile anyone can open a \u2018\u2019me-too\u2019\u2019 business and claim to be an entrepreneur,\nthe label is most often applied to an individual who combines ideas and\nresources in unique ways to bring about a novel product or service that makes a\ntangible difference in the world.<\/li><li><strong>Problem\nsolving:<\/strong> While entrepreneurs can often bring about destructive results in\nsociety through negative externalities that affect the community, the\nenvironment and external stakeholders, the most sustainable entrepreneurs are\nusually those who solve real and pressing problems profitably.<\/li><li><strong>Resourcefulness:<\/strong>\nEntrepreneurship is often characterized by limited resources; hence the best\nentrepreneurs are adept at finding, managing and maximizing scarce resources. <\/li><li><strong>Optimism:<\/strong>\nOften maligned as overconfident, a true entrepreneur believes in his idea and\nis patient enough to see it to a logical conclusion, despite the obstacles in\nhis path.<\/li><li><strong>Risk\ntaking:<\/strong> Intelligent entrepreneurs are not reckless \u2013 they take risks, but\ncalculated ones. They balance the risk with the rewards and seek to mitigate\nrisks through techniques such as the lean startup movement.<\/li><li><strong>A burning\ndesire to be in charge of whatever they find themselves doing:<\/strong> They desire\nto be in charge and in control of resources available to them and to achieve\nself determined goals. They create and make maximum use of resources and\nopportunities available to them.<\/li><li><strong>Belief in\npersonal success<\/strong>: Entrepreneurs believe in themselves and their ability to\ntake informed decisions. They have staying power and keep on with their\ndecisions even in the face of criticism and discouragement until they succeed. <\/li><li><strong>Entrepreneurs\nare not discouraged by failure:<\/strong> They pick up the pieces when they fail.\nThey get up and move on. They know that as an entrepreneur, you can go up\nunbelievably fast but you can also go down equally fast. This is because they\nhave high levels of energy relative to the average person. <\/li><li><strong>Entrepreneurs\nare adventurous in nature: <\/strong>They are always on the look out for business\nopportunities that will materialize with minimum delay or in the nearest\nfuture. They are more concerned with what might happen tomorrow than what\nhappened yesterday. <\/li><li><strong>Entrepreneurs\nhave organizational skills:<\/strong> They have the capacity to identify the right\npeople for the right job. They know that the effective deployment of people to\nthe job they are best suited will lead to the accomplishment of set objectives.\nIn this connection, entrepreneurs know their own individual strengths and\nweaknesses and thus hire people that possess qualities they themselves lack, be\nit skills or knowledge.<\/li><li><strong>Entrepreneurs\nare driven by the desire to make and multiply money:<\/strong> Accumulating money is\nimportant because it is a symbol of power and achievement. However, the way to\nmake money is to create value. When you create value that meets the needs of\ncustomers, money will be earned.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p> In conclusion, an entrepreneur is a person that discovers opportunities for value creation and assembles the resources required in order to exploit these opportunities. He is both a thinker and a doer, who creates value through different types of enterprises.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An entrepreneur is a person that discovers opportunities for value creation and assembles the resources required in order to exploit these opportunities. He is both a thinker and a doer, who creates value through different types of enterprises.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[13,14],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kleosafrica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kleosafrica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kleosafrica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kleosafrica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kleosafrica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kleosafrica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58,"href":"https:\/\/kleosafrica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54\/revisions\/58"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kleosafrica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kleosafrica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kleosafrica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kleosafrica.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}