There are so many types of businesses that a person can start. You can begin a small company that operates out of your home. You can invest in a franchise opportunity. You can launch a start-up that operates entirely online. Whatever it is that you do, you must know the expectations placed on your businesses.
You must also be aware of what to expect when you begin making inroads into the business world. Having an awareness of business types is the beginning of planning a suitable and competitive strategy that will allow you to gain and keep a foothold. The business world is competitive. Make sure you know what you’re getting into before you jump into the deep end.
Small Business Enterprise
Most people start with a small business. A majority of these people want to work for themselves and earn enough to live a comfortable life. As long as they can support themselves and their families, they are pleased. They enjoy setting their own hours and typically hire family and friends as staff. Boutique stores, handymen, and hairdressing salons are examples of small businesses of this type.
Large Business Enterprise
A large company is usually started by an entrepreneur who has a solid list of contacts and financial backing. This is the kind of business run by an expert in a field with extensive experience in delivering the product or service.
They are typically able to supply the accessory services and products necessary to continue using their main product/service. A small business can become a large business enterprise through expansion and creating need-based solutions or highly desirable products. Capitalizing on your product’s popularity may allow you to gain the market value necessary to begin transitioning into a large business enterprise. Microsoft and Google are two of the most famous examples of need-based SME’s that became multinational large enterprises.
Scalable Start-Up Enterprises
These are the businesses started by visionaries and entrepreneurs who have achieved notoriety and success in their fields. Scalable enterprises usually have the backing of venture capitalists or even angel investors.
The visionaries who start these companies have grand plans and truly believe their product can change the way people interact with their environment. Silicon Valley is full of businesses that started this way. The entrepreneurs behind these businesses are usually highly experienced, trained, and have the specialized education required to produce the visionary product. Companies such as Facebook and Apple are good examples of this type of business.
Social Enterprise
Social entrepreneurship generally takes the form of nonprofits or community-focused companies. These businesses are started by people who want to solve social issues and make the world a better place.
The business’s main goal is to solve an issue that creates hardship for a large group of people. The Gates Foundation and the Malala Fund are examples of companies whose business model puts the social good ahead of profits.
Innovative Enterprises
Innovative entrepreneurs start businesses that are dedicated to realizing the proof of their inventive ideas. These entrepreneurs have unique ideas and inventions, and they want to build the product or design the solutions that will bring them into effect.
Sometimes, the entrepreneurs behind these ideas want to be on the ground floor to launch the product and then hire specialists to take over the day-to-day operations. They prefer to continue inventing and ideating to the administrative upkeep a business requires.
Imitator Enterprise
Imitator enterprises are started by entrepreneurs who see someone else’s idea and seek to improve upon it. They look at the existing services and products and feel the need to innovate further. They have the vision and creativity to expand upon the existing model and take it in a new direction to help even more people.
These are the kind of entrepreneurs that learn from other people’s mistakes. They combine existing knowledge with creativity and their new ideas to come up with more focused solutions.
Buyer Enterprises
These companies show a great deal of promise and have a record of success but are still small enterprises. An entrepreneur then purchases them with the personal wealth or the backing of a venture capitalist group.
Buyer entrepreneurs speculate on the ability of an existing business to succeed and grow further. They invest money and make management and structural changes they believe will help the business to become more profitable. A venture capitalist firm invests in a business to grow it as a way to make profits. An individual entrepreneur invests for the thrill of growing a business or to make it more profitable, so they can sell it at an even higher price.
Entrepreneurship is a risky yet thrilling enterprise. Having a background in a field helps, but enthusiasm is just as good as long as you know how to hire the right people for the job. Ensure you have the capital or know where to get the funds to get started as effectively and efficiently as possible.