This document discusses what it means to be a successful entrepreneur. It provides examples from Deborah Meaden and Richard Branson's experiences starting businesses. Some key points made are: 1) Entrepreneurs turn business ideas into reality through skills, commitment, risk-taking and passion despite facing challenges and risks of failure. 2) Both Meaden and Branson experienced failures in early businesses but continued learning and improving. 3) Calculated risk is important, where entrepreneurs balance potential rewards against risks to minimize losses. Most new businesses fail within 3 years.

1. What are Entrepreneurs
All About?
An entrepreneur can be defined as an individual with
the ideas, skill, commitment, risk taking abilities and
passion to establish and maintain a successful business.
Most of can see new business
ideas but entrepreneurs turn
these ideas into reality!
Well you might now be thinking to
yourself that it does not seem that
hard to become an entrepreneur and
if people like Richard Branson and
Deborah Meaden can do it then so
can I.
Well let’s take a closer
look at what it really
means to be a successful
entrepreneur.

2. When I first started out in
business I owned a glass and
ceramic export business in Italy
selling to Harvey Nichols
So Deborah what happened
next?
The business failed. I went on to buy
a franchise in textiles with a partner
and later sold my share for a profit.
After this I went to work for my
family helping to run and later own
the leisure park my parents had
bought.
Did you notice that even though she had experienced
failure, she still kept going and learned from her
mistakes? This is a key feature of being an entrepreneur.
A good entrepreneur calculates the risks involved and
does not just assume that they will be successful.

3. Let’s see what we can learn
from Richard Branson’s
experiences of business.
I started my own successful student
magazine at just 16 years old. I
then set up a mail order record
business in the 1970’s which
became Virgin. I’m worth about
Ohh nice.....what
problems did you
face?
I had some luck in signing bands
who would became famous. I also
had to sell Virgin Records to help
keep Virgin Airways alive.

4. So Branson was lucky and had to
calculate the risks involved in
selling Virgin Records.
Entrepreneurs have to make some
Hmm so why would I want to
become an entrepreneur?
Well for many entrepreneurs the
main reason for them setting up
in business for themselves was to
be their own boss and to avoid
being told what to do.
If your only reason for setting up in
business is to make lots of money
then you might be out of luck.
Most entrepreneurs do not make a
fortune and have to work extremely
hard for their money.
On top of this, nearly a third of all
new business start-ups fail within 3
years!

5. Can’t I get lots of money from the
Government to help me set up as
a new business?
Ahh....well the Government
does provide small business with
some help but most of this is NOT
FINANCIAL! It is access to
business advice instead.
The UK Government encourage new
small business owners to visit their
Business Link website and offices to
gain access to expert advice about
how to set up in business. The quality
of this advice however can vary.
Only about 1 in 50 new small
businesses actually received any
financial help from the Government
so do not rely upon this when
planning your new business.

6. Alright then Brian seeing as how
you are so smart, explain what is
meant by calculated risk.
Well this is when an
entrepreneur balances the
possible rewards against the
possible risks of a decision.
CALCULATED RISK
A good entrepreneur knows that sometimes
they will make a loss but they should have
planned for this and tried hard to minimise its impact
upon the business.
If asked to flip a coin and to get
ten tails in a row you would be
foolish to bet upon this outcome as
it has odds of 1,024 to 1.
Entrepreneurs will have to weigh
up the levels of risks involved in a
decision.

7. Entrepreneurs accept that they will
make mistakes but a good business
person will learn from these errors
and use them to make the business
stronger.