The word entrepreneur has its origin in the French word entreprendre which means “to embark on”. The concept of entrepreneurship has had varied interpretation including starting your personal business.

Business Entrepreneurship is however not how economists perceive the meaning of the word. Economists have a more particular view on what is entrepreneurship all about. According to them entrepreneur is a person who oversees the business and manages it. He is the one who puts himself in jeopardy for the sake of profit.

Entrepreneurship Vis-a-vis Small Business – You may often get confused between the terms “entrepreneur” and “small business” and use them interchangeably. There however exists significant variation in and entrepreneurial venture and to embark on a small business.

The following are the ways in which the former is different from the later.

Innovation - The backbone of entrepreneurship is innovation. It gives the power to procure wealth by providing requisite resources. In most entrepreneurial ventures wide-ranging innovations are required as compared to running a small business. Innovations can be applied to new organizations, new products, new markets and new production methods.

Risk – There are a lot of things at stake for the entrepreneur. If the risk factor wasn’t high then with the lure of profit many entrepreneurs would be straggling with the idea and thus opportunity would diminish.

Amount of Wealth Creation - An entrepreneurial venture is always a big scale project. A successful business enterprise can generate tremendous amount of wealth, a turnover that can be in excess of several million dollars. It is no way analogous to a stream of income that can replace fixed employment earnings.

Speed of Wealth Creation – Usually you will see that a successful small business takes almost a lifetime to generate a substantial amount of profit. On the other hand entrepreneurship development is engendered in quite a short time period. Entrepreneurial activities are usually distinguished by the types of business they are engaged in

The key to an entrepreneur’s success is innovation. This novelty is what creates demand and produces wealth. Thus the work of the entrepreneur is basically to merge numerous factors in correct proportions and an inventive manner which is lucrative for the customer.