There are so many definitions of entrepreneurship that one comes across but one that stands out from the rest is a definition of entrepreneurship from Harvard University Professor, Howard Stevenson that he articulated in 1983 and one that is still used by Harvard today:
Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled.
Other definitions also talk about opportunity, risk etc. What is really insightful and interesting about this definition and makes it different from the others is the part that says “without regard to resources currently controlled“. If you think about this carefully, almost every successful entrepreneur or business person follows Stevenson’s definition – perhaps without realizing it.
In some ways, this definition captures the true esssence of entrepreneurship. This is the spirit that does not think about crossing all the t’s and dotting all the i’s before launching a business. It is the spirit that takes situations and circumstances as they are and makes the best of these regardless of the resources that they have at the time.
Successful people are not interested in being handed success on a plate neither. Neither are they waiting for the perfect time and the perfect market to arrive. They know there is simply no such thing. They strive to pursue opportunity and create their own world whatever it may be.
Isn’t this what we all want to do anyway?
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