The benefits of being an entrepreneur

Why do you want be an entrepreneur? Is being an entrepreneur worth it? It helps to ask yourself why you want to be an entrepreneur. Most people think on being an entrepreneur as an ideal. In reality, it is a personal choice you can make. Making this personal choice is important. Here are some thoughts about this:

Benefits of being an entrepreneur, it allows you to:

1. Make money – as an enterpreneur you can make money, and more money than earning a paycheck.
2. Grow your personal skills – as an entrepreneur you need to learn a ton of stuff. So if you are eager to learn you are okay. It’s like investing, getting capital, building your organization, personal leadership, setting up websites, learning about administration, legal, learning to delegate, cooperate, etc.
3. Be independent. Take your own road. Not be dependent of other people.
4. Be independent of a paycheck.
5. Start own business without a boss (but you need to be skilled enough).
6. Create your own job if you can’t find a paying job.
7. Have your own exciting adventure.
8. Take on risks.
9. Be your own boss.
10. Manage a team of people – you can be a provider of work.
11. Have energy to create your own projects and create your own venture.
12. Be in the startup culture as a founder or owner.
13. Be an investor, when you have excess capital it allows you to reinvest at your liking. This feels like freedom. (However you are still be looking for the right return on investment).
14. You can build your business. Creating your own business is very satisfying.
15. Move into new worlds you thought didn’t exist. Think of getting capital, learning about IT, meeting lots of new people, talking to lawyers, going to entrepreneurs meetups, etc.
16. Have society status, most societies value entrepreneurs. Being an entrepreneurs can improve your social standing

But there are downsides to it as well – why is entrepreneurship often difficult

• You get unsteady income – a monthly paycheck is not secured. If you have a family, this might create financial stress.
• You need to put in more working hours. A good suggestion here is to delegate/outsource some of the work (preferable with a partner – you get more effective and have a fall back option). However you need first to get a bit of revenue to get income. This can be tricky. Try for low cost options as you start (bootstrapping).
• You are responsible for it yourself, so you need to be disciplined and have willingness to take on risks. It can be a bit lonely as you are responsible for running things properly.

Do I need formal education in becoming an entrepreneur?

We think, you do not need formal business training, but it helps having lots of business thinking under your belt. Think about managing your company’s finances (financial knowledge), knowing about your market (market knowledge), finding about legal ownership (a bit of legal), your customers (customer knowledge), how to get your products or services to market (market approach), distribution (logistics), and so on. Read a lot of books and articles, and use a business plan to summarize your knowledge and market approach in the plan. This helps you along the rocky road.

So ask your self, why do you want to be an enterpreneur? Is it for money, fame or fortune? Write this down in your business plan and face your own thoughts. After a while, say 1-2 months or so, revisit your intial thoughts in the plan and see if they still hold true. Then you know for sure why you want to be an enterpreneur.

Personal motivation

With this personal motivation, you can use for your motivation when things get rough/though, or not the way you want. With this motivation and reasons you can become more effective, stronger and more resilient as an enterpreneur. This is called ‘being grounded’.

What also might help in this phase is asking other entrepreneurs, why they became entrepreneurs. Your personal story will be different from theirs, but your motivations may be similar, which connects a lot easier.

Find some more motivational quotes here: [pinterest excellent business plan – motivational quotes deck]. Read them and feel energized.

Test yourself – how to become an entrepreneur

There are some tests which can help you assess, if you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur.

• Entrepreneur Quiz: http://www.humanmetrics.com/entrepreneur
• Personal assesment: https://www.bdc.ca/en/articles-tools/entrepreneur-toolkit/business-assessments/pages/self-assessment-test-your-entrepreneurial-potential.aspx
• Enterpreneur test: https://www.psychometrictest.org.uk/entrepreneur-test/

Good luck in your journey!