Entrepreneurship is business. It’s the whole enchilada. It’s finance and HR and marketing and R&D and sales and making coffee and answering phones and probably some amateur carpentry.
It’s about making something out of nothing. It is, by far, the messiest, most uncertain aspect of business. It is also, potentially, the most rewarding.
But, an entrepreneur is not necessarily a crazy risk taker. Or, to be more precise, entrepreneurs have very specific risk profiles–levels of risk that they are willing to tolerate–which, admittedly, might be higher than risk levels for people who don’t start their own companies.
It takes a particular type of personality to start a company.
9 out of 10 startups are based on refinements to products or services that already exist, rather than crazy new gadgets or revolutionary inventions. Amazon didn’t invent the concept of selling goods for money. Neither did Google invent looking for things.
Once you have an idea, you’ve got to “pitch” it. This takes practice. You’ve got to have an “elevator pitch,” which is just what it sounds like: a description of your idea short enough to express during an elevator ride. The eventual intention of this pitch can be different depending on whom you’re pitching to, but it’s generally to get somebody to buy your product, or join your company, or give you funding. Ideally, the elevator pitch leads to a longer meeting at a later date.
The easiest way to come up with a new idea is to look for white space. This is the intersection of different industries or products or markets where a need exists that hasn’t been addressed well, or at all.