Élisa: “What’s the point of starting a business?”
To answer this question—which seems simple at first glance but is actually quite complex—it is important to start by defining what a business is. There are many definitions of a business. But the one we will use here is that a business is an organization—that is, a group of people who mobilize resources such as facilities, tools, machinery, knowledge, information, or financial resources to produce goods or services and sell them to customers willing to pay for them.
Jean-Marie Courrent, University of Montpellier
This organization stems from an idea that takes root and grows in the mind of one or more individuals. When the entrepreneur or entrepreneurial team believes that this idea will be well received by the market—in other words, that there will be enough customers—this idea is called an opportunity. It may be the idea for a new product or service, a new way of producing or offering that product or service, or even a new business. It is this conviction that the project will find its market that transforms the initial idea into an entrepreneurial project. This project can therefore take the form of starting a new business, but it can also develop within an existing organization.
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Answering the question “What is the point of starting a business?” therefore means considering the value of starting a business—both for customers and for the entrepreneur. Starting a business serves to meet the expectations of consumers, and even of society as a whole, as exemplified by the introduction of less polluting vehicles into the market.
It also serves to fulfill the personal aspirations of the entrepreneur or their team, who may see the entrepreneurial venture as a way to exercise their freedom of decision-making, take pleasure in innovating, gain power, become wealthy, and contribute to a better world…
This article is co-published withLUM, the University of Montpellier’s science and society magazine.
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Jean-Marie Courrent, Professor of Entrepreneurship and SME Management, University of Montpellier
This article is republished fromThe Conversationunder a Creative Commons license. Readthe original article.