Sino Hero Foods Ltd

Why does one become an entrepreneur ? And why is so less understood about the trials and tribulation of going out on' one's own'?

Sometimes entrepreneurship is celebrated and romanticised to such an extent that we lose all sense of the harsh realities that lay in the path of the entrepreneur. Why are the success stories oft repeated while the many who perished by the wayside not even mentioned in the footnote of the history of capitalism?

All the more pertinent is this issue in todays economic crisis context. Is it a good time be an entrepreneur I get asked all the time by eager students and friends in the corporate world who do not feel secure any more in their once cushy jobs. Maybe it is also cyclical the highs and lows of entrepreneurship.

As one One learns in high school economics about the factors of production namely Land , Labour, Capital and Entrepreneur, these have their bull and bear markets too in my opinion.

During the internet bubble, Entrepreneurs were celebrated including may who pretended to be entrepreneurs and yet raised million in equity capital. It was also the bubble phase of capital as one could not ' invest fast enough !! This also created a bull market in labour i.e ' knowledge economy' wherein there was a shortage of ' good people' whatever that meant !!!

With the internet bubble bursting, we saw the property and financial bubble take its place where capital and land became the new highs and again labour entered a bull market with all talk of ' the world is flat' economics !! Entrepreneurs were 'out' as corporate high fliers and corporate fat cats dominated by the financial firms became the new 'masters of the universe' or as the Economist magazine put it ' the sultans of global capitalism'

Well all great parties do come to an end eventually and now we are faced with a huge slump in Land(property) capital ( none left) Labour ( everyone can be laid off especially ' good people). Last man standing ? The entrepreneurs....Will this be the golden age of entrepreneurship ???