LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

What does being an entrepreneur mean nowadays?
The entrepreneur is “an individual who starts and/
or manages a business, assuming the risks and
responsibilities thereby entailed”.
But what does it really mean?
Over the years, entrepreneurship has changed, just as the
tastes of consumers and markets have changed. And with
globalization, competition has intensified.
Faced with these changes, entrepreneurs have to tweak
the kind of product or service they provide, devising new
strategies and identifying new markets; in other words, they have to innovate their company by
intuiting how a given market may or may not evolve.
This comports risk, of course, but the meaning is much deeper.
Entrepreneurs are madmen, visionary children who most of the time are imagining a reality that
doesn’t yet exist, and they don’t give a damn about those who invariably root for them to fail. They
doggedly push forward.
It’s a very crowded category – everyone wants to be an entrepreneur, at least of themselves, but only
10% manage to realize their visions in a concrete way, and a mere 2% succeeds on a significant scale.
Here are the traits that characterize a true entrepreneur, in my view:
Passion: nothing can happen without passion. An entrepreneur without passion is like a car without
gasoline – it can’t go anywhere.
Creativity: the meaning of creativity has been distorted by the artistic notion of making abstract things
that are difficult to realize. Being creative for an entrepreneur means seeing every situation from
different points of view. Creativity is life!
Optimism and Resourcefulness: although the difficulties will be many, don’t let it get you down. If what
you’re doing were easy, everyone would be doing it. It’s vital to take risks. If you don’t try, you’ll never
know what could have been. And remember, without investment there can be no return.
Tenacity and Flexibility: keep believing all the way. This trait has made the difference in many cases
between successful entrepreneurs and those who ‘gave it a try’. Don’t give up at the first obstacle.
And you need to be flexible when the rapidity of response can mean the difference between success
and failure.
Idea/Dream: it’s essential to never stop dreaming or believing in the idea. Pragmatism is just setting
concrete goals without ever allowing the dream component to threaten each step.
Objectives: these give you a framework for avoiding the pitfalls of navigating blind, a way to program
you dream and turn it into reality.
Therefore, you always need to have your short, medium and longterm
objectives clearly established.
Discipline and Study: Continually honing skills and staying informed is essential. And the resulting
knowledge must be disciplined. Without discipline, it’s like swimming with no particular stroke, which
costs energy and breath.
Dear readers, being an entrepreneur is a tough job… but someone’s gotta do it.