From Dream to Reality: My Path to Entrepreneurship

Nowadays, the term “entrepreneur” has become a topic of universal interest. According to Queensland Government, an entrepreneur is a person who converts an opportunity into a workable and marketable concept. Another definition states that an entrepreneur is the one who creates a new business in the face of risk and uncertainty for the purpose of achieving profit and growth by identifying opportunities and assembling the necessary resources to capitalize on them. Petty and Bygrave believed that entrepreneur is a person who typically is focused on opportunities and not so much constraints. To be honest, I chose to write “My dream to become an entrepreneur” essay due to the fact that I'm really passion about becoming an entrepreneur. So in this paper I will reveal what is like to be an entrepreneur and what characteristics he should have.

Though there is no complete definition of entrepreneur, the definitions mentioned above shared the same idea that entrepreneur is a person who has at least the following characteristics: can recognize and seize opportunity; dare to take risk and have ability to translate thoughts in action.

The opportunity identification process is an intentional process. Entrepreneur is the person who evaluates opportunity and takes initiatives to turn opportunity into the reality and success. Entrepreneur is also called risk-taker. Risk-taking propensity is an integral part of entrepreneur’s personality traits. In the process of making innovation, entrepreneurs will undoubtedly face with uncountable challenges, but they are willing to take risk. It is because most of entrepreneurs are optimistic, confident and energetic. These typical characteristics can be found in the most famous entrepreneurs in the world such as Steve Jobs or Jack Ma.

However, just daring to take risk without proper knowledge is not true entrepreneur. This is simply an activity of a dream catcher who just chases wild ambition. Thus, a true entrepreneur is usually equipped with proper knowledge and experience in the area that he or she is focussing on. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg stopped studying at Harvard to pursue his ambitious plan to develop a social network which later became the most influential social networks in the world. It was not by chance but a result of his long-time research and experiments, together with rich knowledge in software engineering.

Besides basic characteristics representing an entrepreneur, it is my view that modern entrepreneur should be also aware of ethics and social responsibility. The entrepreneur is the prime mover in economic development; however, there are many businesses are taking advantages of loopholes in legal system to gain maximum profits. They are not true entrepreneurs since they do not contribute to the development of the country and steal other entrepreneur’s opportunities.

The Financial Times released a case study on a typical successful Vietnamese entrepreneur, Dang Le Nguyen Vu, founder of Trung Nguyen Corporation, who was given the title “Vietnam’s Coffee King”. His story began in 1996 when a 3rd year university student found immense love for coffee and did profound research on coffee. Upon realizing vast potential of coffee industry, Vu stopped studying medicine to start business with poor resources, literally with only an old bicycle as the biggest asset. Though facing great difficulties, he dared to seize the opportunities in the coffee industry. He used his old bicycle to travel around the region to help farmers renovate lands and grow best coffee. Today, his hard work and strong determination has paid off, Trung Nguyen coffee with unique flavour has become some of the most popular coffee brands in Asia. Thousands of coffee farmers in Central Highland, one of the poorest regions in Vietnam, have been out of poverty and some have become millionaires thanks to Trung Nguyen. Vu has changed the sad fact that Vietnam only exported raw coffee beans while established companies such as Nestle and Starbucks were making huge profits through branding of a product they never grow.

What makes him special and an inspiring character is his way of thinking. Vu is better known with his life mission of boosting entrepreneurial spirit in Vietnamese youth. He founded a Library of Light and has been travelling around the country in a journey called “Journey of great mindset” to give away life-changing books for free to 30 million young Vietnamese.

It can be concluded that the road to become an entrepreneur is often a tough and rough one filled with unexpected dead ends and roadblocks, nevertheless I am ready to face with obstacles and challenges! Success and rewards come to those who have vision, who is well prepared to face with challenges and be aware of social responsibility.

References

• Bjerke, B. (2007). Understanding entrepreneurship. Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar, p.17.
• Business.qld.gov.au. (2016). Being an entrepreneur | Business Queensland. [online]
• Casson, M. (1982). The entrepreneur. 1st ed. Cheltenham, U.K.: Edward Elgar, p.373.
• Krueger, N., Reilly, M. and Carsrud, A. (2000). Competing models of entrepreneurial intentions. Journal of Business Venturing, 15(5-6), pp.411-432.
• Petty, W. and Bygrave, W. (1993). What does Finance have to say to the entrepreneur?. Journal of Small Business Finance, [online] (2), p.132. 
• Shmavonian, K. (2012). Chairman Vu, Vietnam's Coffee King. [online] Forbes.com. 
• Witzel, M. (2012). Case study: Trung Nguyên coffee | Financial Times. [online] Ft.com.