What could your therapist, the person who cuts your hair, and your handyman all have in common? They may be entrepreneurs. Though the skills and settings are different, they could be business owners. Not employees. What is the difference? This post explains what is an entrepreneur.
What is an Entrepreneur?
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, an entrepreneur is a person who sets up, owns, or manages a business, bearing the financial risks of the enterprise.
So instead of working in a specific job for a fixed wage and reporting to a boss, an entrepreneur creates their own income through operating a business they started from scratch, or purchased.
Which means that your house cleaning service, your bookkeeping software, and your new vegan bag could all be courtesy of the hard work and investment of an entrepreneur. Clearly, these businesses are all very different. Not only are they in different sectors, but they operate with very different business models.
Types of Entrepreneurs
There are 4 main categories of entrepreneurs, according to the scale of their business and their goals.
Small Business Entrepreneurs
A small business entrepreneur is local. These are individuals who start up a business that offers a service to an area, city, or region. For example, moving, dog grooming, landscaping, or event planning. Also, these entrepreneurs open up stores, shops, and restaurants. And finally, there are small business entrepreneurs who offer professional services or do trades. Like bookkeeping, roofing, plumbing, dentists, and vet clinics.
Overall, these businesses are designed to be local, and may be directly connected to the skills, training, and education of the entrepreneur who starts them.
Start Up Entrepreneurs
Meanwhile, start up entrepreneurs are in it for rapid growth and big payoffs. Companies are launched with the goal of selling to a large market – national or international. Typically, this requires lots of start-up capital. There are lots of ways to raise funds for start-ups, from bank loans to private equity options like venture capitalists and angel investors. Though the risks are higher, there are also bigger rewards.
In fact, many of the big brands we know today were launched by start up entrepreneurs. Global businesses like AirBnB, Amazon, and Uber were all started by individuals who had the vision to build big.
Social Entrepreneurs
Social entrepreneurs look for ways to contribute meaningfully to the world. This could even be operating as a non-profit. Usually, it’s a business offering a product or service to help with a social, cultural, or environmental issue.
Perhaps it is not surprising then to learn that there are more social entrepreneurs among young professionals aged 18 – 34. Using the structures and processes of a business, these entrepreneurs create ways to make the world better. For example, the inventor Boyan Slat started The Ocean Cleanup which is working to remove plastic from our oceans.
Serial Entrepreneurs
These entrepreneurs start and run multiple businesses. Sometimes one after the other, and sometimes concurrently. There are many famous examples of high profile serial entrepreneurs, like Richard Branson and Oprah Winfrey.
However, serial entrepreneurs can also be small business entrepreneurs. The couple who own your favourite restaurant may also run an e-commerce business and previously had a chain of hair salons.

Read about Famous Entrepreneurs
Who can be an Entrepreneur?
Strictly speaking, anyone can be an entrepreneur. It’s a matter of having all the skills listed above, and putting in the work. Because unlike flying a plane or practicing law, there is no set of qualifications to pass before calling yourself an entrepreneur.
Of course, there are business schools with entrepreneurship modules and courses which can help prepare you for starting and running your own business.
However, studies by the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor show that university graduates are more likely to start their own business because they have more technical skills, information networks, and knowledge about how a business runs. But as a university graduate, they also have employment opportunities that provide a higher salary, with less risk, than launching a new business venture.
And yet, over 900,000 new companies were launched in the UK in 2023, according to this report.
So why do people keep turning away from the job track to the uncertainty of running their own business? This gets to the fundamental understanding of what is an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur has the drive, motivation, and vision to create. Whether it’s developing a concept or product from scratch, or innovating an existing idea to differentiate, entrepreneurship is about creativity.

Entrepreneurship Skills
To know what is an entrepreneur means to understand the very particular set of skills involved. To succeed as an entrepreneur requires the following key characteristics.
1. Being Risk Tolerant
There are no guarantees in life. Or business. But the facts show that the risk of a new business failing is high. And every decision an entrepreneur makes carries risk. Because though a marketing strategy worked well somewhere else, it may not land for their target audience. So part of being an entrepreneur means being very risk tolerant.
2. Being Disciplined
Entrepreneurs have to be self-starters. After all, there is no boss expecting you to show up to work. So having a huge amount of drive and the discipline to keep working on their business is a key characteristic of successful entrepreneurs.
3. Being Brave
Being brave doesn’t show up on many lists, but I think it’s critical. Because it’s scary to launch and grow a business. So it takes courage to make decisions knowing that things may not work out as planned.
4. Being Resourceful
The ability to problem solve and be resourceful is a must for entrepreneurs. When innovating and developing a brand new company, there are going to be problems and challenges. So being able to overcome those and figure out work-arounds is very important. Also, being resourceful means finding the money, people, technology, or tools required to achieve business objectives.
5. Being Resilient
Sh!t happens. Trusted staff steal from the company. Customers leave bad reviews. So entrepreneurs need to be resilient. And know how to stay positive, regroup, and keep on going. Besides, sometimes those setbacks lead to pivots which creates enormous success. Read Famous Pivots in Business.
The Importance of Entrepreneurs
Overall, entrepreneurs are vital to our economy and culture. It’s the visionary work of entrepreneurs which has given us much of the technology we use today. And many items in your daily life can be traced to an entrepreneur. From make up to breakfast cereal to the chair you sit on – they may all be the lasting legacy of an entrepreneur.