Decide What You Want to be, a Businessman or an Entrepreneur?

Before creating a startup or initiating a business, you need to know which path you want to follow.

In the world of business, there is two-term you need to understand, there is no symbolic difference between both but starting a business by one or other will may change your career forever.

What to expect

• Functional Differences
• Definitions
• Judge your own value
• Money vs Problem-solving
• Originality of the idea
• Comparative Chart
• Conclusion

Functional Differences

There are three major functional differences between entrepreneur and businessman

• Way to Start
• Way to Operate
• Way to Grow

Way to Start: An entrepreneur start by approaching their passion/own problem and later forming companies to solve other problem while business look/think of the opportunity to earn more, for livelihood or to get rich quickly.

Way to Operate: An entrepreneur operate to find their business model (most often they struggle in begining) & with time position themselves in their niche. Their goal is to understand their customer and their need and mold their proposal to solve the same or other problem they may recognize during the journey (so change in business model). Other hand Businessman think of getting better margin applying different policy on supplier or customer. 

Way to Grow: There is no definite define line here between an entrepreneur or businessman. However, it is seen that most often an entrepreneur grow vertically or bought by other big businesses or providing other related solutions to same client segment while businessman looks to associate themselves in different businesses, means horizontal expansion. 

Definition of Businessman

A person who is engaged in carrying out any activity, related to commercial and industrial purposes is known as Businessman. He sets up his business as a new entrant in the market as for the existing business. When it comes to originality of ideas, most of the businessmen go for a business which is highly in demand or which can make huge profits for them irrespective of uniqueness.

A businessman faces tough competition because there are hundreds of rivals already existing in the market undertaking the same business. Although the risk factor is low because he walks on a path that is already tested by the rivals so the chances of failure are relatively low.

The main objective of a businessman for conducting the economic activities is to generate revenue by employing the human, financial and intellectual resources. By virtue of this, customers are treated as the king of business by the businessman.

Definition of Entrepreneur

An entrepreneur is a person who conceives a unique idea or concept to start an enterprise and brings it into reality. He is the person who bears risks and uncertainties of the business. The venture established by the entrepreneur is known as Startup Company, which is formed for the very first time regarding the idea, innovation or business process.

In economics, the entrepreneur is considered as the most important factor of production, which assembles and mobilizes the other three factors of production i.e. land, labor, and capital. In the long run, these entrepreneurs become a businessman.

Entrepreneurs are known for their creative approach. They introduce innovation and coordinate the resources. They offer such products and services which bring about a change in the world.

Some real-life examples of such entrepreneurs are Bill Gates (founder of Microsoft), Mark Zuckerberg (co-founder of Facebook), Larry Page (co-founder of Google), Steve Jobs (co-founder of Apple) etc.

Judge Your Own Value 

A businessman walks on the defined path, but an entrepreneur believes in making his own path, which becomes a guideline for other businessmen. Most of the people have a misconception that the terms businessman and entrepreneur, carry the same meaning, due to which they use them interchangeably.

So have look within yourself and try to see what drives you.

Money vs problem solving
A businessman is a person who runs the business, undertaking an unoriginal business idea. On the contrary, an entrepreneur is someone who first initiates a product or business idea to solve existing problem and thus the leader of that in the market.

Most entrepreneurs are doing business for profit, life, to achieve their financial goals and become their own boss. Although there are some entrepreneurs who are not profit oriented, people-oriented, they are more concerned about the welfare of their workers and for the satisfaction of their clients.

The answer is pretty clear if you are looking to get a rich quick solution, try to replicate some business idea around you, smartly. If you are a good observer, you can do it easily.

Originality of the idea
An entrepreneur can do business out of business idea or not an original idea. Get into existing activities such as franchising and retail. Choose a hot and profitable business idea, regardless of whether it is your original idea, or taken from someone else.

An entrepreneur is an inventor and the first creator of a product. It invests time, energy and money in your idea. Not starting a business from an idea is not original. That’s why from a start, while a businessman starts a business.

An entrepreneur is someone who creates opportunities in places that have not previously been capitalized on. They bring to fruition ideas that are often discussed but scarcely acted upon due to fear of failed implementation. When ideas are not tested to be proven as successful, businesspeople have an incentive to avoid investing in the unknown and search for a more certain and guaranteed investment. However, Entrepreneurs are risk takers. 

A good example of an Entrepreneur is Elon Musk and his creation of the Tesla Powerwall. With the Powerwall, Tesla created a lithium-ion battery that attaches to buildings and is connected to solar panels atop the roof. In the daytime, sunlight is absorbed and stored in the batteries, and the batteries use the stored energy to power your home for all hours of the day. 

The ultimate goal is to fully remove human reliability from non-renewable resources such as oil and gas. This idea is fresh and fluid as it looks to create and master something that is not currently a contemporary and responsive market for. The innovative entrepreneurship exhibited in Tesla is not unlike the brilliant ingenuity of Uber.

Musk and Uber CEO Travis Kalanick made tangible use of ideas that were often deemed to be nearly impossible to make feasible. Being an entrepreneur does not mean that you are not looking to monetize your career through your efforts. It simply means you plan on building your career off of a new way of doing things.

Comparative chart

Following comparison chart Just to give you an Idea of the initial level of business. Again as I said once entrepreneur successeed, most often they turn into a businessman

BASIS FOR COMPARISON	BUSINESSMAN	ENTREPRENEUR
Meaning	A businessman is someone who sets up a business with an existing idea offering products and services to the customers.	An entrepreneur is a person who starts an enterprise with a new idea or concept, undertaking commercial activities.
Market Position	Market Player	Market Leader
Nature	Calculative	Intuitive
Market	Creates place in existing markets	Creates new market
Risk factor	Less	Comparatively high
Methods applied for doing things	Conventional	Unconventional
Approach	Holistic	Atomistic
Orientation	Profit	People
Competition	Very high	Low

Conclusion

Entrepreneurs and businessperson and not completely separate categories. There are always businesspeople with entrepreneurial ideas and entrepreneurs with businessperson ambitions. I think the most crucial understanding of both categories is that there is always a sense of duality. 

Entrepreneurs make more refined businesspeople because new ideas create a young marketplace that needs to be explored. Similarly, well run business sparks the minds of Entrepreneurs and beget the question, how can I make this better? When it comes to both professions, you cannot have one without the other as they have an ebb and flow relationship.

Pablo Picasso once said: Good artists copy, great artists steal. Both professions have the power to change the world and we rely on the innovation of one to further the advancement of the other. So whether we build up or fix the floor, one thing remains true: we are always standing on the shoulders of giants.