Week 2 Reading Reflection

This chapter is just an introductory chapter. This chapter hammers the real definition of entrepreneurship and constantly repeats it just in different way. Entrepreneurship is defined as “the characteristics of seeking opportunities, taking risk beyond security and having the tenacity to push an idea through a reality combine into special perspective that permeates entrepreneurs.” I picked this definition because I think it incorporates a lot of the main points this chapter is trying to hit. It’s important to acknowledge that entrepreneurship is not just staring a business, is someone who recognizes and sizes opportunities, converts those opportunities into workable ideas, adds value through time, grows and makes a profit.

What I found the most interesting were the myths that surround this topic, some of which I don’t agree on. Myth 2 says Entrepreneurs are born not made. I disagree I think entrepreneurs are born, there are certain traits that depending on what type of environment you are born in to you develop. You don’t choose what type on household, economic status, or country you are born into, and depending on the circumstances your individuality is molded by your surroundings. Yes I do believe, to a point, you make your own decisions down the line, but subconsciously all your decisions are based on past experiences whether you acknowledge that or not. The other myth I don’t really agree on is myth 4, that entrepreneurs are academic and social misfits. I don’t agree with this, I wouldn’t go as far as to call them misfits, but I do believe that in order to be extremely successful, to be classified as an entrepreneur you have to have guts. I don’t think you have to drop out of school and quit your job and then you magically become an entrepreneur, that happened a few times and it’s really rare, for example Steve Jobs. But I feel like most Americans now a days play it safe. They might not like their 9-5 jobs, but it puts food on the table and pays the bills so they are going to stick with it. In enhance, I believe misfits was just the wrong world to use. Misfit, as defined by the online dictionary (and to my understanding) is defined as “a person whose behavior or attitude sets them apart from others in an uncomfortably conspicuous way.” If that’s what a misfit means, then yeah I think you have to be one to be an entrepreneur.

            Furthermore, the textbook also talks about survival and I really liked how they put it, they say “How many gazelles survive? This simple answer is ‘none’. Sooner or later, all companies wither and die.” It’s hard to imagine that Google, Microsoft and Apple will one day seize to exist, will parish, or will go bankrupted. These companies are just so profitable and big that it seems almost impossible for them to not be on this planet forever. But it’s also hard to imagine how these companies came to be and how powerful and profitable they became. Anything is possible, so who’s to say your small business won’t be the next Google? Take Procter and Gamble for example, this company has been around for 178 years to be exact. P&G now has hundreds of brands under their name, how can this company not be in business forever? It practically has been. But we have to remember nothing lives forever and maybe one day we will see these corporations fail and crumble to the ground.