If you are interested in finding out how to become an entrepreneur, the most honest answer is that “it depends”. It depends because we are all different.

Being an entrepreneur is all about organizing and managing your own business, being very pro-active, and accepting higher levels of risk in exchange for higher rewards. Each one of us does all of the above in a slightly different way.

The Entrepreneurial Mindset

Entrepreneurship differs from owning your business.

A simple business owner is comfortable wherever he is right now and lacks ambition. Most of them are just owners of their own job, and that’s it.

An entrepreneur has a drive to reach big goals – and that goes way beyond “making lots of money”. Entrepreneurs are made of dreams, ask the right questions and study a lot to turn their dreams into a project, and then work relentlessly towards building the project from nothing into something he or she can be proud of.

Realizing Your Entrepreneurial Dream

There are no set rules here. You can skin this cat in many different ways. It is a very personal journey.

However, these are some fundamentals that have helped many other entrepreneurs before you.

1. Create Value

You can either create a little value to many people, or a lot of value to a selected few. Regardless, unless you create value to others, they will not give you their money.

If you open a restaurant and you serve food, you will have to serve hundreds or thousands of meals because your profit margins are limited. If you build new homes in highly desirable locations, you will have much higher profits by selling tens of homes.

2. Plan It All

Perhaps you love your idea, but is the market big enough? How is the competition? It is much simpler to realize now that your idea wasn’t that good, than spending time and money chasing ghosts.

3. Always Be Closing

You might believe your idea is “making widgets”. Actually, your entrepreneurial project is “selling the widgets you make”.

If you want to make money, you will need customers. Making the best widgets will not assure they sell themselves – otherwise Betamax would have won its fight against VHS.

You can delegate many aspects of your business, but marketing is probably not one of them.

BONUS: The Most Important Principle

Live your entrepreneurial life on your own terms. This is your dream, your drive.