We see the lifestyle of numerous entrepreneurs on social media and the internet. People wish to live a life like them. But what we see is the result of the hard work they did when we were asleep. Entrepreneurship requires dedication, long hours, creativity, critical thinking, and other skills. Now, we're not going to say it's not for everyone. Anybody can become a successful entrepreneur if they put in the time and effort and are willing to take risks.
What is entrepreneurship? It refers to starting and managing a business to gain profit while taking risks. Entrepreneurs come across numerous risks, such as reputational, competitive, financial, and bankruptcy risks.
If you're about to start your entrepreneurship journey, you must know the different types of entrepreneurship to decide which one is the best for you. Consider your budget, the things you specialize in, and what you're passionate about to determine the kind of entrepreneurship best for you.
Kinds of Entrepreneurship
What are types of entrepreneurship? Four major types of entrepreneurship are classified according to the different demands and processes of the business.
- Scalable startups
- Social entrepreneurship
- Intrapreneurship
- Small businesses
While these are the main ones, we've added other types of entrepreneurship to the list described by the person's personality traits, skills, and characteristics.
1. Social Entrepreneurship
Just like other types of entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurs sell their products in the market to generate a profit. The only difference here is that the profit generated by the products is reinvested to enhance the quality of life of the whole community. Here's a story to make this idea even clearer.
Nathan is a young entrepreneur who makes cheese using his pet goats, Billy and Buttler's, milk and sells it to the town's people. His business skyrocketed until people started leaving town to improve their and their vulnerable family members' lives. Nathan's sales dropped dramatically. That's when he came up with the idea of investing part of his profits in enhancing the quality of life for the vulnerable people of the community. Now the town had medical and other advanced facilities for the elderly and disabled. People returned, and Nathan's business took off again.
Social entrepreneurship is not only about profit but also bringing change in society. If you want to do something for your community and earn money, this kind of entrepreneurship is best for you.
2. Small Businesses
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Even if you weren't aware of different types of entrepreneurship, you would have known about this one. Small businesses are owned by individuals where the revenue, investment, and number of employees are fewer than big corporations. A small business has from one to five hundred employees.
Most people fund their small businesses with their savings or take loans from family or friends because it's not on a scale where you would have to find investors.
Small businesses are less likely to be affected by changes in economic conditions than big businesses. Most of the larger firms are connected to overseas companies. Big corporations are negatively or positively affected when exchange rates fluctuate.
On the other hand, exchange rates don't impact small businesses that much. This means if economic conditions bring loss to companies, small brands wouldn't be suffering as much as big ones.
If your mind is convinced of small business entrepreneurship, we have an inexpensive solution for your small store's presence on multiple platforms. Your business will need a website to present your business online. Web developers are expensive, but you know what isn't? Strikingly website builder.
Strikingly is cherished by millions of people worldwide for how easy it makes the website-building process.
Image taken from Strikingly
It offers ready-to-use website templates which you only have to modify according to your business in the site editor. Strikingly doesn't require coding or web design experience and lets you build unlimited websites for free. If you want access to premium features, you can subscribe to plans starting from $8 a month (when billed yearly).
Strikingly will be a great tool to build your e-commerce store because of its extensive Simple Store features. You can add the Simple Store to your Strikingly site as a section. Go to the site editor, click the "Add new section" button, and choose Simple Store.
Image taken from Strikingly
Here's a list of features Strikignly's Simple Store offers:
- Ability to accept payments via multiple payment methods.
- Product filter and categorization.
- Selling digital products.
- Store coupons for returning consumers.
- Custom checkout forms.
- Adding various shipping methods.
- Display product reviews to gain your potential buyers' trust.
- Analytics to see what products and web pages are doing well and what aren't.
Strikingly's Simple Store allows you to showcase and sell more than 500 products.
Image taken from Strikingly’s user’s website
3. Intrapreneurship
This is one of the most common types of entrepreneurship. An intrapreneur does everything a regular entrepreneur does, but without the risk of losing money and the benefit of taking all the profit his idea earned.
An intrapreneur is a company employee who comes up with innovative ideas for projects and ways to perform tasks efficiently. A regular entrepreneur is rewarded with the money his innovations make. But how does this kind of entrepreneur get rewarded? By the company. An intrapreneur gives innovative ideas to his firm and, in return, receives a bonus.
The good thing about being an entrepreneur is that you're not risking your money. And the con is that you don't get all the money your innovations make. Your idea can be worth billions, but you don't get all of it. You only get what the company wants to give you.
4. Scalable Startups
A scalable startup is a kind of entrepreneurship where the person starts on a small scale. Later they put in more resources by investing their money or involving venture capitalists to take the company to a larger scale.
Numerous scalable startups are tech companies that begin in garages at home or some small place. Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon, and Harley-Davidson, are all great examples of scalable startups that start from a garage.
Scalable startups are one of the types of entrepreneurship that don't require massive capital to begin and have a low risk. This business model doesn't hold the entrepreneur back because of a lack of resources.
5. Innovative Entrepreneurship
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Innovative enterprise is one of the types of entrepreneurship described by the businessman's characteristics, abilities, and personality.
Innovative entrepreneurs are constantly looking to find innovative product or service ideas. If you want to come up with a unique concept, you must know all the marketing trends. Not just the things that are trending right now but also the ones that were once a trend.
When you know the ins and outs of your industry, you can spot a problem in a product or service and then come up with its solution giving your audience a unique product or service.
Innovative entrepreneurs don't only come up with brilliant alteration ideas, but they also change the way businesses are operated. This kind of entrepreneurship is about getting out of the traditional methods and pushing the boundaries to stand out from the crowd.
6. Buyer Entrepreneurship
You must have heard the phrase "money attracts money." Buyer entrepreneurship is the real-life representation of this phrase. Someone who buys a well-fixed or developing business is called a buyer entrepreneur.
To become a buyer entrepreneur, you must have extensive knowledge and experience in your industry to spot which business has the potential to thrive and which doesn't. Buyer entrepreneurship is a high-risk business model because you will take a start from a large scale and invest massive capital.
A great example of buyer entrepreneurship is Google purchasing small businesses that it thought to be good additions to its existing products.
7. Imitative Entrepreneurship
As the name suggests, an imitative entrepreneur copies an innovative entrepreneur's products to sell under his business's name. Don't be too quick to judge. There's more to an imitative entrepreneur than just copying others. They don't launch the products as they are. They study them and look for a missing feature that could've made it better. Then, they develop ways to enhance that product and launch it in the market.
8. Research Entrepreneurship
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Research entrepreneurship is for you if you're a perfectionist and like to do your homework before taking any step. A research entrepreneur comes up with a unique idea, and before implementing it, he conducts deep research to see if his product or service has the potential.
Research entrepreneurs like to minimize the risk of failure by looking at facts, figures, and other people's experiences.
After learning about the different types of entrepreneurship, conduct a self-analysis to know which kind suits your personality and mindset. No matter what kind of entrepreneurship you go for, you will have to put in more time and effort than you probably put into your job. Remember, entrepreneurship is viable. And if you're passionate about what you do, you'll be able to establish a massive business like Apple, Google, or Amazon.
