Integrated approach to entrepreneurship and intrapreneurship

Abstract

A significant percentage of new ventures fail and some of them succeed. While there is a lot of research material available to identify the mistakes entrepreneurs do, there is very little available on the area on impact of entrepreneurial journey on entrepreneurs. Research indicates that more than 50% of respondents do not want to take up any new venture again in life. What is surprising is that many entrepreneurs who look successful to normal people are distressed. Many of these people have lost self-esteem and lost the spark that made them special. The scope of the research of this project is to understand why a few entrepreneurs can bounce back from such situation while a majority of them scale back on their activities. Once we identify the reasons, we wanted to help the entrepreneurs and people who are planning to take this path by providing tools which will help them understand and avoid the common pitfalls which have so severely affected many of their Seniors .We started working on the characteristics of successful entrepreneurs and tried to find out if there is any attribute which can explain why some bounce back. We realized that all the entrepreneurs who bounced back and those who did not have more or less similar characteristics. Both these types have risked a lot and worked extremely hard with careful planning for the success of the venture. After deeper probing, we found that the difference between people who bounce back and those who do not is the approach to venture and certain life s perspectives. We have also realized that due to sense of urgency, entrepreneurs minds get clouded and they ignore some aspects of environment from where they operate which are required for a strong support foundation. These mistakes could be fatal for organization and more importantly fatal for the self esteem of entrepreneurs. We propose that entrepreneurs can increase their chance of success and retain their self-esteem by having correct perspectives and working little differently in the following four stages of the journey.? Vision and purpose of life? Goals? Building an environment to operate from? Execution4In each of these areas, we believe we have some insights to offer. We came up with certain tools which will help entrepreneurs avoid the mistakes and have a fulfilling journey.