Are you an Entrepreneur?
I am not an entrepreneur. I recall saying somewhere that I wanted to be an entrepreneur in the future. Lately, after starting this blog and reading similar ones, I started to wonder - am I already an entrepreneur? Because it sometimes sure sees so. Many people, some ahead of me, some behind me, call themselves entrepreneurs. So I decided to look up what the word entrepreneur really meant, in a dictionary.
1. a person who organizes and manages any enterprise, esp. a business, usually with considerable initiative and risk.
Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
n. A person who organizes, operates, and assumes the risk for a business venture.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
a person who starts or organizes a business company, especially one involving risk
Kernerman English Multilingual Dictionary (Beta Version)
Above we have three definitions. One of the first things I noticed is that all three of them included the word risk. I feel that any risks that I assume when making money online are negligible. I haven’t paid for much; hosting, vBulletin licenses and domains, most of the times knowing that I would quickly earn the money back. Sure, they can be thought of as risks, just like each time you cross a road, you take the risk of being overrun by a car - but how big a risk is that? Keep in mind that most risks taken online are very small in comparison to what the risks real life entrepreneurs take. Some might smash their entire life savings into a good idea.
Additionally, the last dictionary definition makes the notion entrepreneur even more vague. By stating it as “especially one involving risk” and not as “necessarily one involving risk”, one can interpret that someone who is called an entrepreneur does not necessarily have to take risks.
When dictionary definitions aren’t enough, it all boils down to the personal interpretation. For me, an entrepreneur on the web would be someone who allocates the easy, or time consuming tasks to others and instead focuses his or her time on the most profitable tasks. It is someone who loses a lot of money, but earns even more. I think it’s too early to call myself one, as I’m not yet ready to assume any significant risks on the internet. I don’t let others do my design, coding, SEO or anything. I do it all myself, even when I know that others would be able to do the job better. As they say, “Everyone can be good at something, but no one can be good at everything.” 
Now that you know mine, what’s your personal definition of the word entrepreneur?
