Harvard Business Review Entrepreneur's Handbook

Introduction

William Bygrave, a scholar and practitioner of entrepreneurship, describes an entrepreneur as someone who not only perceives an opportunity but also “creates an organization to pursue it.”

That last part of Bygrave’s definition is essential. Ideas are one thing, but opportunities as we generally understand them are best addressed through business organizations formed by entrepreneurs. Thomas Edison, for example, recognized the business opportunity in urban electric illumination, which he pursued through tireless laboratory experiments that eventually produced a workable incandescent light bulb. But invention was only part of Edison’s ...