Am I a Business Owner or an Entrepreneur?

This article is to help you determine whether you are or would like to be a business 
owner or entrepreneur. Knowing where you are and where you want to be will put
you in a better position to develop and discipline yourself accordingly.

A business owner and an entrepreneur seek to provide value and fill human need
but their differences lie in why, how and what they are doing to fulfill these needs.

For example, if there is a need for drinking water in a given area, one person can 
decide to bring in already made sachet water to sell while another can find a more
innovative way to make  water in that area drinkable. Both are solving the human 
need. Notice, the way they solved the problem becomes the difference.

The person that used the opportunity to bring in water to sell is a business owner 
while the that used a means to make the water in the area drinkable could be said
to have an entrepreneurial mindset.

WHAT?

Based on the above instance, a business owner can be seen as someone that
provides immediate solution to a problem by way of setting up a system that solves 
the problem and makes profit at the same time. He depends on other people’s ideas 
and products.

An entrepreneur thinks of an innovative way to proffer solution to a problem and goes
ahead to bring that idea into reality. Most times these solutions are lasting. He works
on his own original idea and always seeks to pursue new ideas.

HOW?

A business owner mostly runs a business by producing, buying and selling products
goods and services) with the aim of making profit. They prefer to use conventional
ways of doing things. Whereas an entrepreneur creates the business opportunities 
from original ideas with the aim of turning the idea into a viable and scalable invention. 
Entrepreneurs envision better ways of doing things and proceeds to making that way
feasible. They embed creativity and innovation in their designs, strategies and 
decisions.

WHY?

A business owner is focused on the growth of his business through customer 
satisfaction, retention, increase and through growth of profit margin.

An entrepreneur on the other hand is focused on the success of the business in the
long run and he seeks to employ sustainable means to ensure this.

Business owners are mostly into business for the purpose of making profit, meeting 
their financial goals and ensuring customer satisfaction.

Entrepreneurs create businesses to make a difference in the world. They mostly
pursue their passion and are focused on what they can offer the world.

Now that you have seen the differences between a business owner and an
entrepreneur based on:

• why they are engaged in business,
• how they engage in business and
• what they do in business,

ask yourself the same questions and see if your answers are closely related to 
business owner or entrepreneur.

However, you must know that one can be a business owner without being an 
entrepreneur but cannot be an entrepreneur without owning a business. The outcome
of an entrepreneurial journey as seen in the lives of many great entrepreneurs is a 
business. In fact, entrepreneurship can be seen as business creation.

Take a look at Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft. His idea(s) has given rise to many
business opportunities that many people are tapping into today. The windows 
operating system most of us are enjoying is as a result of his entrepreneurial journey. 
Most manufacturers of laptops and desktops use his products in their systems. These
systems in turn are being sold by different laptop vendors.This is a typical example of
how the outcome of entrepreneurship is business creation.

Another common example is Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook. His idea of 
Facebook has created numerous opportunities for many people all over the world. 
His idea has created business opportunities and also platforms to run businesses.
With his platform, business owners can now reach large amount of target audience.
In fact, his creation has opened up various opportunities that has never existed before.

Conclusively, depending on your purpose for delving into business, get clarity on your
journey and pursue your dreams knowing that either way you are touching human lives.