Historically, being entrepreneurial has been outside the mainstream of the business. Either the company was doing something entirely new or it occupied a only small niche of what was happening in the business world. Early entrepreneurs were daring, adventurous and pioneers. They were the founders of many of the big businesses today and have been a major contributor to innovation in American business. The lessons learned through their efforts are the basis for many standard business practices.
While small business has always been a cornerstone of our communities, big business dominated the major markets. However, that tide began to turn after World War II, to the point that today they provide virtually all of the net new jobs added to the economy, represent 99.7 percent of all employers, employ 53 percent of the private work force, provide 47 percent of all sales in the country, provide 55 percent of innovations, and represent 96 percent of all U.S. exporters. Entrepreneurs had always started as small businesses. For many the goal shifted from excessive profit or size to becoming a viable part of the small business community. Family businesses became more commonplace as mom and pop businesses made a comeback in the modern desire to escape the stresses of the corporate environment and return to family-oriented living. Living and working together became a much more mainstream way of making a living. Concurrent with this trend was the rise in the number of people working from their home. Some of these were home-based business and some were people who were telecommuting to a job either in a nearby city or across the globe.
The desire to break free from the urban corporate stresses led some to seek the quieter life through becoming rural entrepreneurs. Many of these enterprises have brought new life to the small towns and agricultural communities of the United States. Even social service/nonprofit agencies started seeing that they were missing something by not being entrepreneurial resulting in the rise of social entrepreneurism. And finally corporate business started noticing that the best and the brightest were no longer as attracted to their hallowed walls as they had once been - and intrapreneurism, entrepreneurism within an established business, was born.
Up until this time, the concept that entrepreneurs as innovators and risk takers was the dominant factor that best described who chose to become an entrepreneur. Then corporate American began "rightsizing" and "reengineering", and even those who would have chosen the corporate life found themselves joining the entrepreneurial ranks. Entrepreneurs now come from all walks of life, all backgrounds, all cultures - we are a very diverse group facing a huge variety of challenges in almost every field represented.
