Entrepreneurship is the art of establishing a personal business in the hope of a return in profits. It may or may not require huge investments but set to attain personal gain and profits to achieve success in life. In addition to the personal gain, other types of entrepreneurship aim to improve the current system and living standards of the society. Such type of entrepreneurship refers to as Social entrepreneurship. We will discuss the types of entrepreneurship in detail in the coming section of this article.
The main objective of entrepreneurship is to own a personal business.
The idea of entrepreneurship is related to small and medium businesses.
The concept for small and medium businesses (SME) is related to the very idea of entrepreneurship.
But most of the leading businesses in the world are the result of entrepreneurship initiatives.
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The idea of entrepreneurship was generating when people started to take initiatives to establish their businesses instead of doing jobs for others.
There are many different types of entrepreneurship.
The most common types of entrepreneurship are below, but before that, let us quickly go through the real and inspiring example of entrepreneurship.
An inspiring story of entrepreneurship
A famous case study of entrepreneurship taught at leading colleges to inspire youth to initiate their businesses by giving a solution to the society.
A salesperson was doing a normal job in a local company in the USA.
He used to get up early in the morning to attend his office.
And also, he was not much happy with his job as it is more in return for a little salary.
He used to drink coffee on the way to his office every day.
One day, he took coffee in a plastic glass, and it fell on his shirt because it was too hot to hold.
He immediately thought why the coffee company did not make anything that made it easier to hold the coffee cups.
He got himself inspired by this idea and went back to his home to innovate a rubber holder to hold the coffee cups.
The idea got a huge appreciation from the coffee company.
He quit his job and started to provide the simple rubber coffee holders to the coffee shops and made millions of dollars.
Being an entrepreneur is that simple.
The ways of becoming an Entrepreneur
Entrepreneurship is all about ideas and innovation.
The concept of inventing a new thing is a step ahead of entrepreneurship.
There are many ways that a person can become an entrepreneur.
You can create an altogether different and new idea in the market.
You can identify the gaps in a society where you can fill up with your ideas through proper planning and execution.
Also, improve an existing idea that an existing business needs to improve.
If all the ways to become an entrepreneur sound a bit difficult and challenging, there is a simple way.
You can imitate an existing business and capture the market by giving competitive prices and quality services.
There are many examples of imitating existing ideas.
The companies that copied another model often took the lead from the original company by providing excellent quality at affordable rates.
These ways are somewhat related to the types of entrepreneurship that we are going to discuss in detail now.
You can follow any of these types if you are interested in launching your own business.
Most Common Types of Entrepreneurship:
Entrepreneurship is such a wide concept that it can divide into as many types as businesses in the world.
We have brought you the most common types of entrepreneurship that most businesses can be into.
The types of entrepreneurship that different types of entrepreneurs are involved in mentioned below.
You must go through these types of entrepreneurship in detail so that you can get help to get your ideas translated into a practical business.
We have also tried to provide examples against these types of entrepreneurship.
1. Intrapreneurship
This is one of the safest types of entrepreneurship.
This is the type of entrepreneurship where an employee in a company is to encourage to start his or her own business while still staying in the same company.
This idea born when companies observed that the best of their talents started to quit jobs to launch their own companies.
The companies thought ways to retain them, but almost all of the ideas failed to retain those employees because nothing is more lucrative than owning a personal business.
This was where companies start to offer a chance to the employees to own a certain share in that company for starting a new idea as a branch of that company itself.
This was a win-win situation for both.
It also promoted employees to start thinking of ways to bring improvements in the existing systems of those companies.
That is the reason this is known as intrapreneurship.
Because it is the form of entrepreneurship that keeps an employee a part of the same organization while still being an entrepreneur.
The famous companies like Sony, Facebook, and Intel run on the idea of intrapreneurship.
There are many examples where a junior employee brought up an excellent idea that flourished these companies’ businesses.
They started entrepreneurship within a company.
2. Technopreneurship
This is the idea of making use of technology.
The name of this type of entrepreneurship also suggests the same.
Technopreneurship is the art of using technology as a source to become an entrepreneur.
As the world moves more and more towards technology, many gaps need the help of technology.
The idea of using technology as a source of starting a business is not new.
The technology itself is a type of business.
As most people in the world are non-technical, there is always room to exploit such people.
A degree or expertise in technology is enough to establish your own business by taking help from technology.
The simple way to start a business with technology is to develop apps and games that most people like to operate and play.
The mobile games are making thousands of dollars per month.
Simple cards, games, and games like Ludo and car racing earn many dollars per month.
You can identify gaps in the tech field too.
Currently, as of 2020, there are many gaps in the gaming and mobile applications.
One such example is the task manager application.
With the advent of many task managing applications, there is still a need to create a simple.
But effective task manager in the form of a mobile application so that a person can easily organize his or her daily tasks.
Similarly, many gaming requirements need to complete.
To initiate a technopreneurship, you do not necessarily need to be a tech nerd.
You can also be a technopreneur even if you are completely Greek to technology.
In that case, you have to invest some money by hiring a technology expert, and by the paid services, you can capture the gaps that you have identified in the market.
There are freelancing platforms from where you can get the apps, games, websites made on cheaper rates.
You just have to act smartly so that no one copies your ideas as it is all about the timing of launching that matters in technopreneurship.
The most common examples of technopreneurship are the advent of apps like Uber and Careem.
They captured the basic need for traveling and commuting with the help of applications.
The key takeaway here is to make use of the existing technology too.
The Uber and Careem apps are with Google map that is itself another technology.
Other examples are Apple, Samsung, and Microsoft.
3. Cultural Entrepreneurship
The concept of promoting a specific culture by identifying the gaps and filling them in an amicable way is known as Cultural entrepreneurship.
The idea of Cultural entrepreneurship is often similar to Social entrepreneurship.
But both have a fine line between them.
The cultural entrepreneurship focusses solely on the cultural deficiencies of society.
The singers, movie makers, writers, and painters are examples of cultural entrepreneurs.
They make use of society’s culture to earn money from the talent they are with.
Cultural entrepreneurship is not limited to singers, writers, and actors only.
Anyone who will do anything to bring forth the good face of society will be a cultural entrepreneur.
We see many movies that are around a certain agenda of the cultural aspect of society.
Similarly, we also read books that are related to a specific highlight of the cultural aspect.
All are examples of cultural entrepreneurship.
The tradition, history, and culture of society have many sides to highlight.
These aspects also provide ample opportunities to start entrepreneurship.
If there is a special African culture in a specific African country, you can promote it to the rest of the world.
Western people keep visiting different parts of the world to make use of cultural gaps.
They make money just by filling these gaps.
If there are things that need to address, they do it in an amicable way that earns them a huge amount of money.
You can also identify such gaps from your own culture and society and become a social entrepreneur.
And also, promote the specific items that are specifically in your region.
You can earn huge profit margins just by promoting those products.
A South Korean movie named “Parasite” is the best example of cultural entrepreneurship.
It won the Oscar award and received praise from all around the world.
4. Trading Entrepreneurship
Trading entrepreneurship refers to the kind of entrepreneurship that involves trading the material from one part of the world to another part.
It does not involve any kind of manufacturing or production activities.
The idea of trading is quite famous worldwide and is often known to be a lucrative and profitable option.
This term of trading entrepreneurship is known to many people as the way to earning money in an easier way.
Trading does not necessarily have to involve international transactions. Many traders work locally.
There are certain rules for trading companies.
You can also be an authorized distributor of a company in your region.
That would mean that no one else can sell that company’s products in that area except you.
This will give you the benefit of extra margins as you will be the face of that company.
Multinational companies like Nestle, Unilever, Shell, and Total, etc. prefer to have their distributors in the different areas of every country.
You must explore such opportunities in your areas if you are interested in this type of entrepreneurship.
5. Social Entrepreneurship
Whichever business is aim at bringing a better change in society is termed as Social entrepreneurship.
This is often considered one of the most important types of entrepreneurship.
The reason is that it is responsible for having a bigger effect on society positively.
Any activity that is at alleviating poverty or bringing gender parity in society is consider social entrepreneurship.
In addition to that, organizations working for the betterment of a downtrodden lot of the society also fall under the umbrella of this kind of entrepreneurship.
This is also known as the most sacred form of entrepreneurship, as this is related to social wellbeing.
The organizations working in catastrophes, disasters, earthquakes, and other incidents of social collapse are the example of Social entrepreneurship.
One of the benefits of being a Social entrepreneur is that people respect you and help you increase your business.
There is also a possibility that you might get help from the local or federal government of your country because somehow you would be doing their part.
Therefore, it is quite common in this type of entrepreneurship that the organizations keep getting funds from national and international channels.
There are many bright sides of Social entrepreneurship. In addition to the foreign aid and funding, you may also get workers from the society who will be willing to work with you as the volunteers.
The main idea here.
Is to identify the main gap to be filled in your society.
While you can still work on the concept of imitating entrepreneurship, you will be more successful if you start working to resolve a unique issue.
Let us frankly admit that there are always gaps in society.
Any society, be it a modern or underdeveloped society, there are always gaps that need to complete.
There will always be a certain class of society that needs due attention, guidance, and support.
The unique idea that still needs to cover in almost every part of society is the betterment of transgender people and sex workers.
You can identify their problems and work in a way to bring positive changes in their lives.
Most of the societies will support and encourage this idea to bring forth a reasonable number of transgender people so that they contribute to the wellbeing of society and the whole nation.
The best examples of Social entrepreneurship are organizations like Ashoka and Grameen bank that help the poor and needy people be self-sufficient.
6. Agripreneurship
The form of entrepreneurship that involves agriculture as the prime source of profit is known as Agripreneurship.
As the world moves more and more towards the extinct of fresh and organic food, there is a dire need to provide quality fruits and vegetables to the household.
These crops are grown in a speedy manner these days that are contrary to the natural process.
The processes used to grow the crops earlier is widely worldwide, damaging the health of people.
That is why they need natural and safe food.
The same goes for dairy products too.
This entrepreneurship is the way of the future also.
Companies like Sally and Organic Foods are examples of Agripreneurship.
7. Opportunistic Entrepreneurship
The idea of making use of a sudden opportunity is called Opportunistic entrepreneurship.
The world keeps on experiencing different kinds of ups and downs.
The gaps identified from time to time and filling them in a timely manner is the art of Opportunistic entrepreneurship.
The latest example of this type of entrepreneurship is the business of sanitizing and masks in the era of Covid-19, also called novel Coronavirus.
There was no boom of hand sanitizers when there used to be no coronavirus.
As soon as the virus got spread worldwide, a need for hand sanitizers and face masks arose suddenly.
The businesses that started to provide face masks and hand sanitizers, etc.
All the examples of Opportunistic entrepreneurship.
In addition to that, people also started the new business of sanitizing homes, offices, and vehicles of the people.
These are also opportunists and hence called opportunistic entrepreneurs.
As said earlier, the world keeps on experiencing different types of situations.
The situations are also different in different parts of the world.
There were times when electricity used to be rarely available in the parts of South Asia.
The businesses that provided emergency electricity supplies, power generators, and UPS services in such situations are also the example of Opportunistic entrepreneurship.
The world will have similar or different challenges and situations in the coming times.
The opportunities for such businesses will keep arriving from time to time.
The key takeaway here is to grab the opportunity and strike when the iron is hot.
The timing of launching an opportunistic business is crucial here.
The earlier you launch the business, the earlier you will capture the market.
Additionally, these businesses are time-specific and seasonal.
These businesses will also wipe out once the basic problem that a society or a particular part of the region was facing is solved.
You will have a different opportunity to explore, as there will always be something that needs to address.
Such entrepreneurship will keep changing but will always be there.
8. Innovative Entrepreneurship
This is the most interesting type of entrepreneurship.
As most types of entrepreneurship involve creativity and passion, the innovative entrepreneurship takes the lead among all.
Innovation is the way of the future.
It is the form of creating a ready solution to an existing problem by making use of creativity at its peak.
It can be anything from a small solution to the bigger problems.
China practically experiences innovative entrepreneurship.
The country has taken the lead globally in providing simple solutions to bigger problems.
From manufacturing the simplest sewing appliances to providing technical gadgets, China has dominated the world economy by leaps and bounds.
The basic idea of an innovative strategy adopted by China was to provide cheaper solutions to the public so that the technology.
And the household items can be in the reach of many people in the world.
This kind of entrepreneurship is around the world, but China is the flag bearer of this entrepreneurship.
The manufacturing of the smallest items like a fidget spinner and bigger items like drones are the best examples of innovative entrepreneurship.
Also, inspire by innovative ideas and want to be an innovative entrepreneur, you need to follow your creative imagination.
You just need to identify problem areas around you and start thinking of their simple solutions.
The key takeaway here is that the solutions should not involve complex processes as they will then move to other forms of entrepreneurship.
9. Imitative Entrepreneurship
Imitative entrepreneurship refers to the type of entrepreneurship that involves copying the ideas of other businesses.
Also, making them your own by exactly following the steps taken by the other businesses.
The steps and way of portraying these businesses may differ slightly, but overall, the business concept remains the same.
The best example of imitative entrepreneurship would probably be Uber and Careem.
As Uber started to capture the market in the Western world, another similar service called Careem was launched in the Gulf by other entrepreneurs.
The idea was mainly copy, and they just started the service to give rides to the people in the Gulf region.
The idea got successful, and it was expanded from one country to another with a great following.
The services of Careem also competed with Uber, and it even had beat the original service of Uber in certain parts of the world.
The main idea was to give better service to the customers at cheaper rates.
The services of Careem captured the market with such a strength that Uber had to buy the shares of Careem in more than $3 billion.
Another most common example of successful imitative entrepreneurship is Google and Yahoo.
Google was founded 4 years later than Yahoo.
But it took the lead compared to Yahoo and is currently the biggest search engine in the world, earning billions of dollars in the revenue and profits.
Both companies are examples of successful entrepreneurship too.
10. Netpreneurship (E-Entrepreneurship/Cyberpreneurship)
Netpreneurship is somewhat close to technopreneurship as it involves technology as its basic ingredient.
The term often refers to as E-Entrepreneurship or Cyberpreneurship.
The eCommerce stores selling products and services to people worldwide are the best examples of netprenuership.
The idea is quite relevant to the current age as we know that the very idea of entrepreneurship is to earn money.
We all know about Amazon.
The eCommerce giant has taken over all the world with its products and services.
The CEO of Amazon is the richest man on earth to date.
The studies identify that the way his wealth is growing per year will become the world’s first trillionaire by 2030.
This shows that there is a lot of scope in the eCommerce field.
That is why it is one of the most lucrative types of entrepreneurship.
The purpose of sharing the example of Jeff Bezos is not merely to get inspired by him or to copy his ideas.
The main purpose of sharing his example here in this article was to learn from his life and techniques of grabbing the share in the market.
When he started with Amazon’s concept, many other similar services were present in the market.
Some were present before Amazon, and others after Amazon.
The steps used by Jeff Bezos to lead the market were highly commendable.
He used the power of his audience and customers to promote his business.
He went on to provide products with quality and also encouraged his customers to promote his products.
The Amazon Affiliate service is the best example of how he engaged other people to work for him.
He did not intend to earn every bit of his profit to himself.
He spread the commissions to the people who promoted Amazon products on his behalf and started sharing handsome commissions.
In addition to the products, he also brought the idea of selling podcasts, TV series, and eBooks from his platform.
The way he increased his businesses is an example and inspiration for the newcomers in the field of eCommerce.
There is a similar story about Jack Ma too.
He was rejected from the interviews for doing a job in KFC and later on became a billionaire from his platform called Alibaba.
The best examples of net entrepreneurship are Amazon, eBay, and Alibaba.
The challenges of entrepreneurship
Let’s face it. Entrepreneurship will not be easy.
It will be full of challenges that you will have to face from start to finish.
There will be times when you will have to rethink your strategies and change your planning to accomplish the required tasks.
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You will have to face failures as success is the whole of your failed attempts.
You always have to keep yourself motivated and do not lose hope.
So, there will be many people around you who will be there to discourage your ideas and passion for being an entrepreneur.
You just have to take all of that as the source of challenge and inspiration.
Entrepreneurship is seldom possible without a challenge.
There are no free lunches.
You will find it very hard to make things work out in most cases.
You just have to remind yourself that the reward will also be bigger than your problems.
All the entrepreneurs in the world had faced similar issues when they started their small companies.
They gradually progressed, and they have now made it possible to become live examples for aspiring entrepreneurs.
Types of skills required in entrepreneurship:
We have discussed the types of entrepreneurship in the previous section of this article.
The nature of skills required in each type of entrepreneurship is quite clear in those types.
The additional and must-have skills required to be entrepreneurs to accomplish the true sense of entrepreneurship below.
If any of these skills are missing, your chances of business success may become dark.
- Management
Including time management, employee management, and self-management.
Management is the founding stone of any business.
- Passion
The most important ingredient of any business success.
No matter what happens, you cannot afford to lose your passion if you want to be a successful businessman.
- Creative Thinking
A very important ingredient.
You always need to think out of the box for the solutions you will face in your business.
- Resilience
No successful business is possible without resilience.
You have to be flexible enough to let go of the worries that boggle your mind.
- Consistency
You cannot afford to work today and relax tomorrow.
You have to work harder every day until it is time for you to rejoice.
Every business requires you to go the extra mile.
- Focus
Do not let other ideas deceive you.
It happens.
When you start a business, you will think that another business idea is greater than the one you are currently working on.
This is the time where planning will play the part.
Do the foolproof planning before the execution, and when you start, do not allow the distractions to lose your focus.
While there are many other skills required to be a successful entrepreneur.
The skills mentioned above are crucial for a successful business.
Summary:
Entrepreneurship requires struggle in every step to set up a business of your own.
It is not that hard as it is.
So, be wise in choosing from the types of entrepreneurship that we have mentioned and do it with positive thinking.
You had different ideas about starting your own business in this article.
Just think it through and take the first step.
You will never bother about stopping afterward.
The types of entrepreneurship discussed in this article have many practical implications and have great potential to make you a successful businessman.
