What Type of Entrepreneur Are You?

Introduction

As the entrepreneurial spirit continues to grip millennials and Gen Z innovators, the startup stage in the United Arab Emirates has been witnessing an incredibly vibrant trajectory. With ample governmental support in the form of relaxations in visa procedures and business-friendly Free Zone regulations, the Emirates has come to attract some of the most talented businesspersons from around the world. This trend is only likely to get bolstered as emerging markets in Asia and the Middle East come to the forefront of capital investments to lead to global growth.

However, this also implies that an entrepreneur must restructure and reorganize ideas to meet the challenges and competitiveness. We believe that the first step as an entrepreneur is to find the type of entrepreneur you are. You might already know that there are several kinds of entrepreneurs. It is evident in the sheer diversity of various startups that have been getting established in the UAE. 

The needs and required capabilities of a health-tech entrepreneur are likely to be radically different from those of a FinTech entrepreneur. Similarly, entrepreneurs looking to tap into the bustling green-tech component manufacturing landscape will have incredibly unique requirements compared to someone functioning in the fashion and e-commerce segment. Your entrepreneur type will decide at every stage of such entrepreneurs’ actions, ranging from setting up companies for fund-raising. 

If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, we believe that you must learn about the types of entrepreneurs and understand the category that you fit within the best.

Here are 4 types of entrepreneurs for you to check out:

1. Small business entrepreneurs

The businesses these entrepreneurs run are perhaps the smallest in organizational structure and scale. Despite this, their cost-benefit system is one of the best among most startup profiles. These businesses are bootstrapped and focused on small or local markets. The benefit that they have is that their operations are not contingent on the receipt of funding from investors. Most stores that fall into this category–such as drop-shipping fashion stores, cloud kitchens, and so forth, are financed with a slight debt. 

The benefit is that you preserve the equity instead of being sold to investors, and if the business succeeds, it rises to incredibly lucrative valuations.

 2. Innovation entrepreneurs

These entrepreneurs generally focus on groundbreaking fields that gain traction in the business community, ranging from healthcare to corporate companies.

Small firms that curate algorithms to optimally utilize the data stored on fitness tracking smartwatches and operational service firms that focus on providing digital secure data rooms are a part of an innovative entrepreneurial venture. Amongst the various entrepreneur types, individuals who fall within this category have a range–they can focus on building specialized components or technology to be acquired by larger firms or on creating a new product entirely with the funding of various Private Equity and Venture Capital investors.

3. Social entrepreneurs

With ESG on the rise, this is one of the most exciting entrepreneur types. Social entrepreneurs develop technologies, products, and processes that aim to combat various social issues and conflicts that face the world today. 

Their focus can range from complex problems, such as making oil corporations compliant with ESG norms. The ESG may mutually contradict (for instance, shutting oil mills to achieve the ‘E’ may result in job losses, defeating the ‘G’ and increase inflation, defeating the ‘S’) to advisory services like developing rules and norms that can nudge corporations into effective behavior.

4. Scalable startup entrepreneurs

Lastly, we come to the apple of every private equity and venture capital investor’s eyes. Scalable startup entrepreneurs develop businesses focus on markets with immense future potential, few current players, and high first-mover advantages. 

One of the prominent examples would be technologies like the metaverse. These entrepreneurs have significant overlap with innovative entrepreneurs, with one major distinction being the sheer magnitude of the scale that their businesses can achieve. This future potential draws some of the most significant private equity investments to these firms–making successful entrepreneurs in this space the poster people for the activity as a whole.