HISTORY OF ENTREPRENURSHIP

The word entrepreneur is French and, literally translated, means “between taker” or “go-between”

Here are some well-known entrepreneurs who changed the world. For what is each entrepreneur most famous?

·         Thomas Edison

·         P.T. Barnum

·         Wlliam Harley & Arthur Davidson

·         Maggie Lena Walker

·         Ingvar Kamprad

·         Stephen Wozniak and Steve Jobs

·         Russell Simmons

·         Dineh Mohajer

The history Starts

—  Earliest period

An early example of the earliest definition of an entrepreneur as a go-between is Marco Polo, who attempted to establish trade routes to the Far East. As a go-between, Marco Polo would sign a contract with a money person (forerunner of today’s venture capitalist) to sell his goods. A common contract during this time provided a loan to the merchant–adventurer at a 22.5 percent rate, including insurance. While the capitalist was a passive risk bearer, the merchant–adventurer took the active role in trading, bearing all the physical and emotional risks

—  Middle Ages

In the middle Ages, the term entrepreneur was used to describe both an actor and a person who managed large production projects. A typical entrepreneur in the middle Ages was the cleric—the person in charge of great architectural works, such as castles and fortifications, public buildings, abbeys, and cathedrals.

—  17^th Century

Richard Cantillon, a noted economist and author in the 1700s, Cantillon developed one of the early theories of the entrepreneur and is regarded by some as the founder of the term. He viewed the entrepreneur as a risk taker, observing that merchants, farmers, craftsmen, and other sole proprietors “buy at a certain price and sell at an uncertain price, therefore operating at a risk. “One entrepreneur in this period was John Law, a Frenchman, who was allowed to establish a royal bank. The bank eventually evolved into an exclusive franchise to form a trading company in the New World—the Mississippi Company. Unfortunately, this monopoly on French trade led to Law’s downfall when he attempted to push the company’s stock price higher than the value of its assets, leading to the collapse of the company.

—  18th century

In the 18th century, the person with capital was differentiated from the one who needed capital. In other words, the entrepreneur was distinguished from the capital provider (the present-day venture capitalist). One reason for this differentiation was the industrialization occurring throughout the world. Many of the inventions developed during this time were reactions to the changing world, as was the case with the inventions of Eli Whitney and Thomas Edison. Both Whitney and Edison were developing new technologies and were unable to finance their inventions themselves. Whereas Whitney financed his cotton gin with expropriated British crown property, Edison raised capital from private sources to develop and experiment in the fields of electricity and chemistry. Both Edison and Whitney were capital users (entrepreneurs), not providers (venture capitalists). A venture capitalist is a professional money manager who makes risk investments from a pool of equity capital to obtain a high rate of return on the investments.

·         19th and early 20th centuries

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, entrepreneurs were frequently not distinguished from managers and were viewed mostly from an economic perspective. Andrew Carnegie is one of the best examples of this definition. Carnegie invented nothing, but rather adapted and developed new technology in the creation of products to achieve economic vitality. Carnegie, who descended from a poor Scottish family, made the American steel industry one of the wonders of the industrial world, primarily through his unremitting competitiveness rather than his inventiveness or creativity.

In the middle of the 20th century, the notion of an entrepreneur as an innovator was established:

The function of the entrepreneur is to reform or revolutionize the pattern of production by exploiting an invention or, more generally, an untried technological method of producing a new commodity or producing an old one in a new way, opening a new source of supply of materials or a new outlet for products, by organizing a new industry. The concept of innovation and newness is an integral part of entrepreneurship in this definition. Indeed, innovation, the act of introducing something new, is one of the most difficult tasks for the entrepreneur. It takes not only the ability to create and conceptualize but also the ability to understand all the forces at work in the environment This ability to innovate can be observed throughout history, from the Egyptians who designed and built great pyramids out of stone blocks weighing many tons each, to the Apollo lunar module, to laser surgery, to wireless communication.

·         David McClelland

               “A person who organizes and maintains a business undertaking assuming the risks for the sake of profit”.

·         William Bygrave

                 “An entrepreneur is someone who perceives an opportunity and creates an organization to pursue it”.

·         William Gartner

The entrepreneur theme is the idea that entrepreneurship involves individuals with unique personality characteristics and abilities.

·         Jean Baptist Say

The bringing together of the factors of production with the provision of management and the bearing of the risks associated with the venture.

·         Joseph  A. Schumpeter

To found a private kingdom... the will to conquer, the impulse to fight, to prove oneself superior to others, to succeed for the sake of it, and not for the fruits of success itself... finally there is the joy of creating of getting things done or simply exercising one’s energy and ingenuity.

·         Alfred Marshalls

Someone who “combines through vigorous activity the factors of production, labor and capital so as to produce an increased output of goods and services thereby increasing the total wealth or material welfare of society.