However, not every business founder or small business owner is an entrepreneur. In this regard, an entrepreneur also meets the definition of both a business founder and a small business owner. In the classic sense of the term, an entrepreneur starts a new business venture, building the organization by fulfilling what he or she sees as an unmet market need. It is occasionally used as a synonym for a go-getter, who could also be described as having an entrepreneurial spirit. Other terms used in the corporate setting are corporate entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship.Īdditionally, the terms entrepreneur, entrepreneurial and entrepreneurship are sometimes applied to individuals who identify and pursue new ways of working or new processes and procedures regardless of their positions or settings. Innovative individuals working in existing companies are sometimes called intrapreneurs. They are sometimes used to describe individuals who are able to identify unmet needs in a variety of settings, including in existing companies, and seek to find ways to meet those needs.Īs such, those terms are also applied to a way of thinking and a way of organizing or managing, rather than simply a way to develop a new business.įor example, people describe innovative individuals in nonbusiness settings such as nonprofits and social movements as social entrepreneurs. However, entrepreneur, entrepreneurial and entrepreneurship have expanded meanings today. Harvard Business School professor Howard Stevenson, whose research and teaching focused on the field of entrepreneurship, said, "Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity beyond resources controlled." Types of entrepreneurship Consider, for example, Merriam-Webster's definition that explains entrepreneur as "one who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise." The textbook definition of entrepreneur speaks to that classic perception. The term, historically, has been applied to an individual who starts a business, seeing the ability to fulfill that identified need as an economic opportunity. An entrepreneur is an individual who identifies a need in the marketplace and works to fulfill it.