Entrepreneurship: A Conduit of Value

Consider these two questions:

1. How do you define entrepreneurship?
2. If you’re an entrepreneur and someone asks you what you do, how do you answer that question?

There are certainly different answers to those questions, but there is one answer which goes right to the foundation of entrepreneurship:

Entrepreneurship is a conduit of value that connects those with needs to those with a means to fulfill the needs.

So, then, it follows that the definition of an entrepreneur is:

An entrepreneur is someone who identifies the needs of people and, with courage, conviction, and resourcefulness, connects those people with a means of fulfilling their needs.

In both definitions above there are two common words especially relevant to the 21st century: “a means”. The significance of these two words may be lost in the simplicity.

“A means” quite simply implies there may be one or more means of meeting a given need. And in the connected world of the 21st century, entrepreneurs are, more than ever, collaborating to channel appropriate and effective means to fulfill needs in the most expedient and effective manner. You don’t need to own the means, but you can be the means!

As an entrepreneur, having identified a need, you have at least these options:

• Develop a unique means of fulfilling the need
• Improve upon an existing means of fulfilling the need
• Collaborate with other entrepreneurs and resources to offer a means to fulfill the need
• Network to channel a means to fulfill the need, even though it has nothing or little to do with your business

What matters in the 21st-century paradigm of entrepreneurship is to fulfill the needs of humanity in the best most expedient manner; and in the process, evolve an ever more effective network of entrepreneurial resources to achieve rapid innovation and fulfillment.

Entrepreneurship is the natural state of humanity, and every entrepreneur is a node in a global network that functions as a web of conduits through which value flows to people so they may fulfill their needs and elevate their lives to the next level.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re a solo entrepreneur or an organizational entrepreneur: you are a conduit of value. The resources at your disposal and your personal or organizational resourcefulness are how you fill the conduit. Think about that.