Articles on Entrepreneurship, Home Business

Dear IL,

I browse a lot of sites in regard to entrepreneurship, look at lot of forums and read a lot of things. One of the most interesting links I have come across is the Home business section of Sita Gita and the Articles section of NEN. For the benefit of our dear IL'ites, I am planning to post one by one of them as threads in this forum. Normally, a central idea is expressed in these articles. Based on that, we can discuss in the thread. I am sure, that will bring in a lot of ideas, and will make our pursuits more effective.

To answer the question, “what does it take to be an entrepreneur?” we first need to ask the question- why focus on entrepreneurs, what do they do differently?

• In a resource constrained society, entrepreneurs are extraordinarily evolved.
• They start with aspirations that lie outside the resource base.
• And, it’s true that in a resource constrained society, entrepreneurs find, multiply and leverage resources and create wealth.
• They change the game and fight and unseat incumbents.
• They find the world different- to shape the future you must first imagine the future.
• Good entrepreneurs do not benchmark against the best practices; they create the next practices
• Fundamentally entrepreneurship is about discovery of wealth. It’s not taking what is available, but creating and discovering wealth.
• It’s about courage, passion, humility and humanity.
• It creates a social legitimacy to wealth creation and the role of business

The role and responsibility of entrepreneurs is changing as India changes. This is an important issue to think about, because the nature of entrepreneurship is different in India- it is more complex, complicated and more granular than the West.
In India there are a lot of family-inspired businesses-almost 45% of the top 500 businesses in this country belong to these categories-that is a significant portion of India’s wealth creating opportunity.
As a country, we have to learn to celebrate honest wealth creation. The kind of entrepreneurship India has- in pockets of excellence, honest, meritocracy-oriented- is exactly the kind of entrepreneurship that will make wealth creation a socially legitimate activity.
We have to create awareness and advocacy for honest people who want to make a difference, who want to express themselves and for whom business and institution building is not necessarily for personal glory.

- C.K. Prahalad
Professor of Strategy, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, U.S.A
- Courtesy: The Hindu, Business Line

Thanks Archana.
It indeed is a nice article.
Look forward to reading many more here and discuss them with all the ladies.



As the article says, need for honest entrepreneur is indeed what India needs and should encourage. Lot of times, starting a business is confused with manipulating accounts and duping people into buying your products.

A honest person starting a vegetable stand is a entrepreneur.

I am sincerely believe that Indian women are so perfect for starting their own business. The time is right and Indian women are hard-working, creative. With Internet so easily accessible, it is the best time to start.

I like your idea of discussing the articles here.
Keep it coming :)

Anjali