Career Options Magazine

Risk-taker, innovator, trailblazer, opportunist: many words could be used to describe an entrepreneur, but what exactly does entrepreneurship itself entail? The most basic description of an entrepreneur is someone who starts his or her own business, but the concept goes a lot deeper than that.

One frequently referenced definition comes from Harvard Business School professor Howard Stevenson: “Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled.” What this means, according to Dave Valliere, professor of entrepreneurship at Ryerson University, is that you see an opportunity that’s “so compelling,” you have no other choice but to pursue it—even if you don’t have the necessary resources. You simply assume that you’ll find a way to get it done, he says.

The attributes of an entrepreneur

There is no “cookie-cutter” set of skills you need to be an entrepreneur, says Simon Jalbert, a participant in The Next 36, a national program for Canadian undergraduate student innovators. The one trait most entrepreneurs share, however, is drive. You need ambition and a strong work ethic in order to be a success.

“To be a successful entrepreneur, you have to love a really long work week where you’re thinking constantly about your business, and have a deep-seated passion and focus,” says Claudia Hepburn, Executive Director and co-founder of The Next 36. “Without that you can’t sell your idea to anyone, or bounce out of bed early or stay late to make it succeed.”

There are many other useful traits that can help you achieve your goal of starting a business. While drive and work ethic are difficult to “learn,” there are many valuable skills that, experts say, people are not born with but taught.

For example, an ability to sell is a skill that some people, mostly introverts, think they need to be born with—but this is a myth, says Valliere. “There’s research to support that you aren’t born with it,” he says. “Anybody can do this, learn this, and be successful in it. We’ve looked at successful entrepreneurs and found that all sorts of people are successful, and it has nothing to do with your personality.”

Another “learn-able” skill is how to think like an entrepreneur. In fact, programs like the entrepreneurship major at Ryerson University’s Ted Rogers School of Management are based on teaching entrepreneurial skills.

“It’s about seeing things that don’t yet exist and figuring out how to create them. We think of ourselves as the creative or artistic part of business,” says Valliere, who is also the director of Ryerson’s Entrepreneurship Research Institute. “Entrepreneurs see possibilities; they see things that don’t yet exist. They have a different set of mental tools.”

For example, all of the technical tools needed to create websites like Amazon or Facebook already existed before these sites were created. People may think those sites were not innovative because “anyone could have done it,” Valliere says. “They could have done it, but they didn’t. The question is, how do you develop that ability to see things before somebody does it? A lot of things are obvious after the fact.” This is what entrepreneur majors at Ryerson learn, along with opportunity identification, business planning and management of innovation.

Growing the entrepreneurial spirit in Canada

The research Valliere conducts has looked at culture as a possible cause of whether people in a society will think like entrepreneurs.

Many think that Canada doesn’t produce enough high-impact entrepreneurs who create world-class companies and products. Valliere says a country’s culture can have an impact on how many entrepreneurs are produced. “Canadians are very modest; they’re not shooting for the stars. They can, but they don’t.”

Junior Achievement is one program for high school students that aims to inspire more young Canadians to aspire to become entrepreneurs. Through free programs run by volunteers, high school students learn essential business skills and can even start their own businesses. Junior Achievement also offers many scholarships and awards to recognize achievement among Canadian youth.

According to the program’s website, Junior Achievement participants are “50 percent more likely to open their own business which leads to innovation, new jobs, and wealth creation.” They also state that “by providing youth with the skills necessary to become innovative, productive, and contributing citizens, Junior Achievement ensures the competitive well-being of Canada’s economy.”

Some high schools are also bringing entrepreneurship into the classroom. Programs like the Business Specialized High Skills Major (SHSM) in Ontario schools teach students the skills they need to be successful in business and entrepreneurship. The program is a bundle of nine Grade 11 and 12 credits, including four business major credits and two co-op credits. Students are also trained in essential skills and work habits.

“I gained specialized knowledge and skills that are highly regarded in the business world and by post-secondary institutions,” says Hayley Heaslip, who graduated with a Business SHSM from Canterbury High School in Ottawa. “I’ve molded a vital part of my skills, worked towards exploring, refining, and identifying my personal career goals, and I have been given a safe environment to test my ideas.” One of those ideas was her chocolate business, which she was able to start with the help of teachers and skills learned in her courses.

“I also had the support of my fellow classmates,” she says. “They were able to use the marketing skills they learned by helping me with branding, website design, accounting—and of course, taste testing! I built myself a basic business plan, and within a few months I had my first event booked,” says Heaslip. “This program has opened my eyes to the amazing opportunities that are there for students to build their futures as entrepreneurs.”

There are several courses on entrepreneurship in the Business SHSM for any of the post-secondary paths: university, college, apprenticeship or workforce. Courses like “Entrepreneurship: Venture Planning in an Electronic Age,” “Analysing Current Economic Issues,” and “Marketing: Goods, Services, Events” teach students the skills they need to be successful innovators.

The risky side of entrepreneurship

“Entrepreneurship is a very risky thing to do and a lot of businesses fail,” says Hepburn. “You can’t be too idealistic and caught up in your own way of thinking. You need to respond to market signals for when your product isn’t wanted.”

The public often assumes that entrepreneurs are big risk-takers, Valliere says, but it only looks risky from the outside. “Entrepreneurs don’t like to take risks…They have extra information; they know something that we don’t. So we teach how to do that—how to figure out what no one else knows yet,” he says.

Some students may be wondering if their degree will make them good entrepreneurs. The bigger question is, do you need a business degree to be a success? Rodney Larmand, President of College Pro Painters, a company that develops over 700 student entrepreneurs a year, says no. “No more than half of our students are in business,” he says. “A lot of arts students find they really like running a business. The non-business students learn where they want their life to go and how to get into the business world. And I think a lot of them will source out an entrepreneurial role in a corporation, like being a high-level manager.”

Larmand says the College Pro Painters program—running for over 40 years—can help minimize risk by providing participants with mentorship and education on how to run a business. Students lease a franchise for one year and learn the ins and outs of entrepreneurship as they go. An intense training program takes place during the school year to prepare students for work in the summer. They learn how to market their services, hire employees, deal with customers, draft estimates, create budgets, manage finances and resolve conflicts, among other business skills.

College Pro ensures its student entrepreneurs speak with past participants to gain a sense of how the program works. “That way they’re able to understand the challenges, and the ups and downs,” Larmand says. “People excel based on how quickly they learn. You have to understand you’re going to make mistakes.” Entrepreneurs make a lot of mistakes, and good entrepreneurs don’t repeat them. Success comes from how quickly you learn from those mistakes, he says.

Benefits of entrepreneurship

At the end of the day, having that drive and passion will be your most important key to success as an entrepreneur. If you’re doing what you love, and doing it on your own terms, you can achieve what many are striving for: being your own boss.

“Entrepreneurship is a good method of achieving all sorts of goals: making money, improving the world, and having a fun and interesting career,” says Valliere. “A lot of people do it for the autonomy; they don’t want to have a boss. They want to do their own thing and set their own hours. Or maybe they want to create a legacy.”

Achieving success and autonomy means you need to be proactive and self-motivated. “If you have to be directed by others, you’re not really entrepreneurial,” says Larmand.

The sooner you start thinking about your ideas, the better.

“It’s never too early to start thinking about how you can solve a problem and make life easier for people,” says Hepburn.

 

Jordan Adams is a Carleton University journalism graduate.

 

For more information, please visit: ryerson.ca/ent, tedrogersschool.ca, thenext36.ca, collegepro.com, jacan.org, edu.gov.on.ca, careeroptionsmagazine.com