The New Entrepreneur
Innovation and entrepreneurship are the greatest competitive advantage one can have and practice in our digital society. It is indeed the next revolution for humanity. It has become a universal phenomenon. Virtually everyone has the fundamental ability to
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The New Entrepreneur
Entrepreneurship Goes Mainstream The term “entrepreneur” means many things. The dictionary definition of entrepreneur means someone who organizes and operates a business by taking risks. This definition is too broad for us, so we will narrow it down somewhat. For our purposes, “an entrepreneur is someone who takes their innovative ideas and inventions and begins a venture”. We will sometimes use founder and entrepreneur interchangeably, but they have slightly different meanings. Not all entrepreneurs “found” companies. Some take an existing company and re-imagine it into something new. In all cases, we consider the entrepreneur and founder together as key to industrializing innovation. Entrepreneurs are essential to the creation of innovative commercial enterprises. Today’s entrepreneur is age, race and gender independent. They can be found in virtually any geographical location or business function. Traditional barriers to entrepreneurship are falling. Entrepreneurs lend the fundamental DNA and physical shape to all startup activity and create new ventures that drive much new economic growth. They are the engine of the innovation for any society. An increasing number of people of all ages, backgrounds, color, education, gender, experience, and skills are now launching their own startups or a small business. Unlike the past, where there were few entrepreneurs and startups, today founding startups has virtually gone mainstream. Increasingly, women are joining the innovation work force in various business fields. In fact, one of the most studied area in this regard is the comparison and characteristics of male and female entrepreneurs.1
1 Abdulwahab Bin Shmailan, Compare the Characteristics of Male and Female Entrepreneurs as Explorative Study, Journal of Entrepreneurship & Organization Management, https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/compare-the-characteristics-of-male-and-female-entrepreneurs-asexplorative-study-2169-026X-1000203.php?aid=84862
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 S. K. Sharma, K. E. Meyer, Industrializing Innovation-the Next Revolution, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12430-4_7
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7 The New Entrepreneur
Share of new entrepreneurs
70% 60%
60.51%
56.3%
50%
43.7%
39.49%
40% 30% 20% 10% 0%
Male
Female
Fig. 7.1 Share of entrepreneurs in 1996 and 2016 in the United States
A quick look at some of the data presented in following figures shows key trends2,3 (Figs. 7.1, 7.2 and 7.3).
The Age, Race and Gender Bar There is a traditional view of entrepreneurs. The stereotype of a technology entrepreneur is of a young, white or Asian male. Indeed, many investment funds are built exclusively on the premise of finding people that do not fit this stereotype with the aim of investing into their startups. That the stereotypical view of entrepreneurs is false is one of the most interesting aspects of the new entrepreneur. The demographics of the new entrepreneur directly reflect the communities in which they live. For most communities, this is extremely good news.
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