Chapter 1

• is a “...process initiated and carried out by individuals, which serves to identify, evaluate, and exploit entrepreneurial opportunities”

• the term can be traced back to the French word “entre-

  prendre,” meaning, “to do something” or “to take things into

  one's own hands”

Entrepreneurs:

• identify business opportunities and make new technologies and concepts commercially viable.

• They are often, but not always, business owners.

• a person who organizes and manages a business undertaking, assuming the risk for the sake of profit

Business owners:

• securing and increasing efficiency, especially in later phases of a company

a “natural person who takes up a commercial or self-employed professional activity” (Achleitner, 2019)

Global Entrepreneurship Monitor

collect annually the number of founders worldwide

those adults who are in the process of starting their own business or have been running their own business for no more than 42 months. In the GEM, all types of self-employment are considered to be business start-

ups

• early stage Total Entrepreneurial Activity Index (TEA), indicates the proportion of the target group of early stage founders in the population.

• In many industrialized countries, start-up rates are traditionally low, as labor markets offer attractive alternatives. With a low level of economic development, significantly more people become self-employed due to the lack of job offers.

The “nascent entrepreneurs” (future founders) are busy with their foundation but have not yet completely established the business.

• “hobby start-ups” with low added value for the overall economy are also included in the statistics, entrepreneurship should be limited to innovative ventures in which new products, ideas, and processes are created and achieve growth...

• why ar 42 months the cut-off date for measuring early stage entrepreneurial activity

• Small- and Medium-Sized Enterprises

• The line is typically drawn at 500 employees in the United States and 250 employees in Europe.

• EU classification as picture

These SMEs are typical for the German economy and are characterized by the unity of ownership and management.

• “Serial entrepreneurs” found various companies sequentially, sometimes in different industries, and often exit one as they move to the next.

• “Portfolio entrepreneurs” manage an entire portfolio of firms, i.e., several companies in parallel

• bearers of risk who make decisions on the procurement and use of resources and thus deal with uncertainty

• arbitrageurs, who expose and exploit price differences and market opportunities

• innovators, who introduce new technologies or products, discover new markets, or create new types of institutions

• coordinators of scarce resources who collect various resources (such as money, real estate, and technology) to set up new companies

The German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy estimated that only 9% of start-ups brought real innovations to market

• unsatisfactory levels of income

• stress together with health and family reasons

• disagreements between the founders, which resulted in the cessation of business activities in 34% of the cases.

Most closures of new companies occur between the second and fifth year of their existence

The ratio indicating the number of startups per person

capable of working

There is no universal definition of entrepreneurship, though the innovative character of the projects is often emphasized. It is a process in which entrepreneurial opportunities are identified, evaluated, and used. Descriptions of entrepreneurship have existed since the 18th century, though different points of view exist. Entrepreneurs are sometimes seen, for example, as arbitrageurs, sometimes as bearers of risk, and sometimes as initiators of creative destruction. Today, their character is often described as a combination of these roles, i.e., as carriers of risk, arbitrageurs, innovators, and coordinators of resources.

The GEM records the worldwide level of early-stage entrepreneurial activity. Startups are important for national economies because they initiate the use of new technologies and compensate, at least partially, for the loss of jobs due to the closure of now redundant companies.

Start-up projects are mostly SMEs. But what exactly is meant by SME is different around the world. In the EU, SMEs are typically defined as companies with fewer than 250 employees. Turnover and total assets may also be taken into account. Either way, and regardless of the precise definition used, SMEs play an important role in the economy, as they constitute by far the largest number of enterprises and contribute a significant share of value added and employmen