Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship means setting up one's own business, as distinct from working for someone else. The person who does it is the entrepreneur, and the business he or she creates is the enterprise. In grammar terms: the entrepreneur is the subject, entrepreneurship is the verb, and the enterprise is the object.

Entrepreneurship does not only give the entrepreneur a living. It also creates jobs and professional opportunities for others, brings new products, and increases competition: when a new firm offers the same thing for ₹80,000 that another sells for ₹1 lakh, buyers gain. Developing countries need entrepreneurs to start development; developed countries need them to keep it going.

Characteristics of entrepreneurship:

• Systematic activity: it needs knowledge and skills that can be learnt, so entrepreneurs are made, not born.
• Lawful and purposeful activity: it must be legal, and aims to create value and earn profit.
• Innovation: new products, new methods, new markets.
• Organisation of production: bringing together land, labour, capital and technology into a working business.
• Risk-taking: entrepreneurs do not gamble; they take calculated risks.

Starting begins with self-discovery: what am I good at, and what do I want to do? Then the entrepreneur looks for a real opportunity in the market.

The government's Startup India programme aims to build a culture of entrepreneurship and to make India a nation of job-creators instead of job-seekers.