Differences Between an Entrepreneur and a Businessman

“Explore the fine line between an entrepreneur and a businessman. While both seek profits, entrepreneurs innovate and strive to make a positive impact on society, taking unconventional risks. Businessmen, on the other hand, follow established paths for profit, working with calculated risks. Uncover the differences in objectives, uniqueness, risk-taking, time investment, leadership, and competition.”

Are you also someone who assumes that an entrepreneur and a businessman are one and the same? While both may sound similar on the face of it, but there is a thin line of distinction between them.

The Basic Difference between an Entrepreneur and a Businessman

A businessman and an entrepreneur denote two different persons having a distinct perspective on business. A businessman is one who takes up an already existing path to undertake a commercial activity and make money. He would mostly choose a product or service that already has a demand in the market. Thus, although his business or company is new, the audience that it caters to is pre-existent.

But an entrepreneur is one who doesn’t want to walk on a pre-defined road but defines a new and unique way of his own. He develops an idea that can not only create a fruitful market for itself but can also have a positive societal impact. Entrepreneurs are driven by the desire to provide one-of-a-kind solutions for the challenges faced by the community. They launch a product or service that is one of its kind. Thus, an entrepreneur becomes a market leader for the product/service area he works for.

The enterprise launched by an entrepreneur is known as a Start-up Company, which is developed for the first time in terms of the concept, invention, or business procedure. He is the market leader at all times who will always dominate the market, regardless of how many competitors arrive later, and his position will stay unaffected. This is so because he becomes a pioneer in his business domain.

List of Differences Between an Entrepreneur and a Businessman

Although the distinction between a businessman and an entrepreneur is very narrow, there are several points where the two vary. Here are some of those points that draw a line of distinction between them:

1. Objective: Profit is the major motivational factor for businessmen. Although entrepreneurs too want to make money, however, at the same time, they also want to make a difference. They desire to improve the world by addressing a given problem of society.

2. Uniqueness: A businessman may operate a company that is built on a concept that is neither original nor distinctive. He might be someone who starts a retail franchise business or rents out apartments and makes a profit from it. Businessmen put their efforts, money, and time into running a company based on a pre-existing concept.

But when we talk of an entrepreneur, he is someone who devotes his time, energy, and funds to develop an absolutely unique model from the grassroots level. Even if the product is already in the market, he gives it a distinctive twist, allowing it to carve out a niche space for itself.

To name a few exceptionally successful entrepreneurs, Bill Gates (founder of Microsoft), Steve Jobs (co-founder of Apple computers), Mark Zuckerberg (founder of Facebook), Jeff Bezos (founder of e-commerce giant ‘Amazon’), etc. can’t go unnoticed.

3. Degree of risks: Calculations are used to determine the complexity and severity of the risks that businessmen take. This means that they take risks based on numbers and after carefully evaluating the pros and cons of a transaction/event. Thus, the risk factor for a businessman is comparatively low because the concept has already been tried and evaluated by other existing companies, and therefore the likelihood of failure is minimal.

But entrepreneurs, on the other hand, skydive into risks. They are extreme risk-takers and would rather act on risks than avoid them altogether.

4. Time investment: A businessman acts more quickly. The expectations of business owners are built on what is immediately in front of them. They act in the current moment to reinforce what is within their reach. Hence, they are always on their feet because they are more concerned with day-to-day operations.

On the flip side, entrepreneurs have a vision that stretches beyond the present and goes into the future. They strive for long-term goals rather than merely short-term ones. As a result, they work things out like a piece of art and might be slower than businessmen.

5. Leadership: An entrepreneur is motivating, innovative, creative, persistent, and influential. In general, he works with or recruits those individuals who have the talent or potential to be skilled.

A businessman is a competent planner, experienced manager, and data analyzer who keeps everything under control and likes to move on track. He works with/hires people depending on their characteristics and knowledge.

6. Competition: Businessmen face higher competition since they enter into markets that are already dominated by key market players. But since entrepreneurs conceive their own ideas, the level of competition they face is less. The major challenge for them is to create a marketplace for their product or service and to build awareness amongst consumers.

Conclusion

Both entrepreneurs and businessmen are indispensable for the growth of an economy.

A businessman is someone who runs or establishes a company with the same old business idea. Whereas an entrepreneur is a person who has a unique concept for starting and growing a new business and making a difference in the world.

Entrepreneurs have a reputation for being innovative. They bring in new ideas and coordinate resources together. They provide products and services that make the world a better place.

Moreover, later in the future when their start-ups succeed, entrepreneurs may become businessmen.