Sriram Vadlamani at Trak.in wrote a post on Are Bloggers Entrepreneurs? The discussion through the post seems to be demonstrating that bloggers can be considered as entrepreneurs. However, the resulting discussion in comments section trended towards showing bloggers are not entrepreneurs.

Across many other blogs, I am observing that entrepreneurism is being associated with (or related) to the personal risk and/or risk of invested money. There is a fundamental flaw in the chain of thinking. And this fundamental flaw comes from our misunderstanding of the true meaning. We take the literal meaning of the definition and fail to put entrepreneurship in proper context.

The central premise of entrepreneurism is about “risk of the idea”. The risk is associated with whether the idea solves any problem, how that idea can be executed, whether a business model can be derived out of it, or whether it can be sustained profitably. The basis of entrepreneurship does not stand on pillar of personal risk and risk of capital. These two aspects are just the enablers or facilitators. They do not, cannot, and will not drive entrepreneurship. If that were the case, then all angel investors and venture capitals would be called entrepreneurs. Buffett takes personal risk and capital risk by putting money into companies (many times distress and depressed companies), he should be called entrepreneurs! Do we call them entrepreneurs?

Just because one takes personal risk or invests money does not make him/her entrepreneur. Otherwise we should call stock market traders, owners of street corner shop, and vegetable vendors as entrepreneurs. Even a college student can be called an entrepreneur. He spends money, time, and takes personal risk by spending 3 to 4 years in college not knowing what kind of job he will get after graduating.

History shows us that entrepreneurs are successful when they focus on core problem, when they focus on a unique solution, and solve that problem in better way. Here unique solution does not necessarily mean innovation, and better could be cheaper, faster, simpler, ease, etc.

Anybody who starts a blog is not an entrepreneur. However, a blogger can be considered as an entrepreneur provided an individual is using blog as a medium to promote a unique idea. That idea could be addressing a problem. It could be providing solutions to that problem. If there is a need for it, than the blog will become popular, and end up being a profitable venture. The individual is addressing the core premise, i.e. risk of the idea, focused on problem, and solution to it. I would call them blogopreneur.

Let us take an example. There is a lack Indian blogs that provide opinions and viewpoints, based on individual thoughts, facts, data-driven analysis, and well researched posts. If an individual decides to focus on that topic and makes a profitable business venture out of it, then that blogger can be called as an entrepreneur. However, starting a blog to rewrite the news, or republishing the information is not entrepreneurial. They are just bloggers and not blogopreneurs.

Therefore, I believe entrepreneurship is not limited to taking personal risk or capital. It is about providing a unique solution to a problem. If that solution is unique, and there is need for it, and benefits its end users, it will automatically turn out to be a profitable venture.

We fail to identify the difference between business venture and entrepreneurial venture. It has been ingrained in our lexicon that any business venture is entrepreneurial. Among all of the tech startups that have mushroomed in last two years, ninety percent of them are attempting a business venture. The gist is there is no entrepreneurism associated with these ninety percent of tech startups. This is a topic in itself which I will discuss sometime in future.

bloggers, blogopreneurs