Entrepreneur vs. Innovator

Invention: "a creation of new products, processes and technologies not previously known to exist"

Innovation: " is the transformation of creative ideas into useful applications by combining resources in new or unusual ways to provide value to society for or improved products, technology or services"

An entrepreneur and an inventor both have their own financial rewards. Being an inventor takes a lot of creativity and innovation to be able to come up with an idea that no one has thought of yet; a unique idea for a product or service that has never been introduced in the market; an idea that could be the next big thing. An entrepreneur, meanwhile, is a business-minded person that can use existing products and services and customize them according to the specific needs of target market of his business. The entrepreneur will put his own brand onto the product or service and make it uniquely his own.

Being an inventor, your ideas could be of use to consumers in the commercial market. Companies would be willing to buy that idea and make it their own for reproduction. Ideas can be licensed or be rented by many companies. When you come up with novel idea, protection for the idea can then be filed in the right government agency. You can then look for a company that will be interested in your idea and will greatly benefit from it.

If a certain company has shown interest, the inventor can then personally contact that company and set up a meeting. If the inventor feels that the relationship with the company is comfortable enough and the product idea will satisfy a need that has been identified in the market, the idea will then be under license to that company. The inventor can just a collect a royalty from that idea every quarter of the year. There are some licensed ideas that lasted for many years with the same company while others can be short-lived. Licensing product ideas just deal with the numbers. There is not a single company or person that can have all the ideas. Coming up with an idea or inventing is a limitless activity. The trend for many companies have been to look for licensed product ideas from inventors that are not employed by their company.

Being an entrepreneur can also be very lucrative. An inventor can decide to market his own idea if he has the resources to do so. Turning that idea into a reality and a business can be certainly a challenge. For the first time entrepreneur, a simple idea might be a good way to start because this would not cost that much money to create.

An entrepreneur is in control of all his ideas and the way in which he brings those ideas to life and markets them. An inventor, however, surrenders much of the control of the idea when it is under license to a company. Running your own business requires complete control. You are in charge of every aspect of the product, from production, marketing to distribution. There are financial risks involved in venturing into a business. There is little risk in the licensing of an idea. One can only gain from it. There is no big investment required in being an inventor.

It is really up to you if you will consider being an inventor or an entrepreneur. You have to weigh all the advantages and disadvantages before you decide on the path to take. What is important is that you will be able to convert your idea into something useful and at the same time reap financial rewards for it.

Entrepreneurs are not equal to inventors because inventor might only create a new product, whereas entrepreneur will gather resources, organize talent and provide leadership to make it a commercial success.

Entrepreneur Traits: Here are some of traits you might be interested in:

• Self confident and optimistic
• Able to take calculated risk
• Respond positively to changes
• Flexible and able to adapt
• knowledge of Markets
• Able to get along well with others
• Independent minded
• Energetic and Diligent
• Creative, need to Achieve targets
• Dynamic leader
• Responsive to suggestions
• Take initiatives
• Resourceful and persevering
  
• Perceptive with foresight

Entrepreneurship is a dynamic process of creating incremental wealth. This wealth is created in terms of equity, time and career commitment of providing value for some products or services. the entrepreneur must infuse value to the product or service.

Are You an Inventor or an Entrepreneur?

Being an entrepreneur has more to do with a state of mind than a state of employment. And when you think of being an entrepreneur, it doesn't just mean starting a company.

One of the most consistent things I hear entrepreneurs say is, "I have this great idea." And the advice they often get is to write a business plan. Most entrepreneurs firmly believe there is nothing better than a solid plan couples with a great idea.

But don't confuse being an entrepreneur with being an inventor. Great ideas are a dime a dozen. Action is what differentiates an entrepreneur from an inventor. If you want to focus on ideas, become an inventor — not an entrepreneur.

And as for plans, entrepreneurs probably spend more time on our business plans than just about anything else we do. But business plans are often useless, even counterproductive; the old adage that "planning is everything; plans are nothing" (credited to Eisenhower) couldn't be more true in entrepreneurship.

The important thing is the process of planning — but you also have to be willing to throw out that plan. The single biggest advantage you have as a start-up versus an established business is your ability to be nimble, to act, to change. If you're beholden to your ideas or to your business plan, you will fail.

Thomas Edison is a great example of someone who most people think of as an inventor because of the thousands of ideas he came up with. But when someone asked Edison about his ideas he replied that he didn't care about his ideas. The only ideas that were interesting to him were the ones that he could commercialize. "I am quite correctly described as more of a sponge than an inventor," he said. Yet most people in fact don't realize that the light bulb was not Edison's idea; he just commercialized it. Edison thought of himself as an entrepreneur.

Social entrepreneurship

Social entrepreneurship is the work of a social entrepreneur. A social entrepreneur is someone who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to make social change. Whereas a business entrepreneur typically measures performance in profit and return, a social entrepreneur assesses success in terms of the impact s/he has on society as well as in profit and return. While social entrepreneurs often work through nonprofits and citizen groups, many now are working in the private and governmental sectors and making important impacts on society.

The main aim of social entrepreneurship as well as a social enterprise is to further social and environmental goals for a good cause. Although social entrepreneurs often are associated with nonprofits, this need not be incompatible with making a profit. Social enterprises are for ‘more-than-profit,’ using blended value business models that combine a revenue-generating business with a social-value-generating structure or component. A social entrepreneur in the twenty-first century will redefine entrepreneurship as we know it, due to their progressive business models.

One well-known contemporary social entrepreneur is Muhammad Yunus, founder and manager of Grameen Bank and its growing family of social venture businesses, who was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 2006

Another example is of the very Nobel personality of Pakistan Mr. Abdur Satar Edhi being a very successful social entrepreneur.

"Nonprofits have to recognize that they're businesses, not just causes. There's a way to combine the very best of the not-for-profit, philanthropic world with the very best of the for-profit, enterprising world. This hybrid is the wave of the future for both profit and nonprofit companies."
-- From "Genius At Work" - an interview with Bill Strickland, CEO of the Manchester Craftsmen's Guild and the Bidwell Training Center Inc.

The nonprofit environment has changed.

• Community needs are growing in size and diversity.
• More nonprofits are competing for government and philanthropic funds.
• Traditional forms of funding are becoming smaller and less reliable.
• New for-profit businesses are competing with nonprofits to serve community needs.
• Funders and donors are demanding more accountability.

"In the face of this new reality, an increasing number of forward-looking nonprofits are beginning to appreciate the increased revenue, focus and effectiveness that can come from adopting "for profit" business approaches. Increasingly, they are reinventing themselves as social entrepreneurs, combining "the passion of a social mission with an image of business-like discipline, innovation, and determination."
-- From "The Meaning of Social Entrepreneurship" by J. Gregory Dees.

Entrepreneurship

Before discussing entrepreneurship lets see how academicians define "entrepreneur" (ahn’tra pra nur) a French origin word . The basic dictionary definition of an entrepreneur is a person who organizes and manages any enterprise, esp. a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk" “Entrepreneurs are risk takers, willing to roll the dice with their money or reputation on the line in support of an idea.They willingly assume responsibility for the success or failure of a venture.”

While studying the phenomenon of Entrepreneurship different researchers and scholars has described it differently according to there knowledge and understandings.
1. Transformation of demand into supply for profits. ( Smith 1776)
2. Bringing together factors of production (Say, 1803)
3. Founding a private enterprise (Mill 1848)
4. Creation of organizations (Gartner,1888)
5. Ownership (Hawley,1892)
6. Responsible decision making (Knight,1921)
7. Carrying out new combinations: later on termed innovation through the process of
‘creative destruction’ i.e. old being washed away by the new. (Schumpeter, 1934)
8. Bearing Uncertainty (Knight,1921 Cantillon 1755)
9. Exploration of opportunities- being an arbitrageur and an equilibrating agent. (Kirzner, 1973)
Exploiting the opportunities that changes in technology, consumer preferences, social norms, etc. and Undertaking innovation and bearing risk.