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What a fun question! If I said entrepreneurs are made, it would be easy. There’s no further discussion right – it becomes a talent of a select few people and others don’t have a chance at it. Entrepreneurship however is similar to a job, a tough job nevertheless and some things will make it easy. For starters, a good financial buffer will make entrepreneurship bearable. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that only such people are successful in this. Life is fairer than that and unfairer in a few other respects. But entrepreneurs are made through their experiences, learnings and a strong desire to create a business.

We have numerous characteristics that define entrepreneurship – these are collated from studies of hundreds of entrepreneurs across the world. The one common thing amongst them all is the ability to create and run a business.

Are Entrepreneurs born or made?

Let’s say entrepreneurs are born and not made. This means that only a select few could be entrepreneurs just based on their birth lottery and the rest of the world would not be able to innovate. However, I understand this question is being asked about whether it is traits that can be learnt. I think we associate too much importance with the reasons than the results. If you look at entrepreneurship, it is just a way to create a business – there are numerous ways, skills and backgrounds that can create and run a business successfully.

The whole discussion about whether entrepreneurs are born or made is a moot point, instead a better question is to ask – how to become an entrepreneur. It is the same thing about leadership – these skills are transferrable. The best thing we can do is to find a way to incorporate these skills into our environment and define a path to success. That will answer the nature vs nurture debate.

The ultimate ability of an entrepreneur is to take risks and create something. Anyone with a passion or interest in a problem can take ownership

• Risk-taking ability and ambition can be learned by anyone
• Education and the ability to learn, and be humble is a skills that can be taught and transferrable
• Our innate qualities are based on experiences rather than something that only we can do
• Ultimately, becoming an entrepreneur is a mix of what we are (based on previous experiences) and the new skills that we are willing to learn.

Who is an entrepreneur, can they be trained?

Let’s start with the basics. The meaning of an entrepreneur lies in the ability to take risks and do something. Ultimately, the point of entrepreneurship is to create something of value right? This may either be a small business or a startup. Both of these however create value. While discussing this, let’s try and see what makes an entrepreneur, is it by birth or something that we can train for?

Looking at the definition, we know that this is something anyone can do. Like anything, we can pick up the skills required for becoming a business owner or creating something new. You can find specific business courses that are tailored to teach you to become an entrepreneur. My Number one advice on this would be to start with a business idea. The business idea and size of the market help us to understand the skills required to start a business. Once we build these skills, we can either learn on the job or in parallel. But this shouldn’t stop us from starting a business.

Sometimes people use this question as an excuse to delay starting a business. If someone is asking you this question, you can confidently say that it is something that you can learn and adapt to.