Q.Who is an entrepreneur? Give a brief definition.

The word 'entrepreneur' comes from the French 'entreprendre', meaning 'to undertake', and describes the individual behind a new enterprise.

More fully, an entrepreneur is an individual who identifies a business opportunity, assumes the risk and uncertainty of starting and running an enterprise, mobilises and organises the factors of production, and innovates to convert the idea into a going concern, in pursuit of profit and growth.

The term 'entrepreneur' comes from the French word 'entreprendre', meaning 'to undertake'. Historically it described a person who undertook the risk of a military or commercial venture on someone else's behalf; over time the meaning narrowed to the person who starts, organises, and runs a business enterprise, bearing its risk in the hope of profit.

A fuller definition: an entrepreneur is an individual who (1) conceives a business idea by identifying an opportunity or an unmet need, (2) assumes the risk and uncertainty involved in starting and running an enterprise around that idea, (3) mobilises and organises the factors of production — land, labour, and capital — needed to run the enterprise, and (4) innovates, in the sense of finding a new or better way of doing something, in order to convert the idea into a going concern.

The entrepreneur is thus best understood as the human agent behind an enterprise — the person who notices a gap in the market, believes an idea is worth pursuing, and is willing to stake time, money, and reputation on making it work. This is distinct from 'entrepreneurship', which refers to the ongoing PROCESS this person carries out, not the person themselves.