Entrepreneur vs Inventor
Entrepreneur is a French word that has come to mean a person who takes the initiative and starts or sets up a business. He is the person who assumes all risks and organizes and operates the business. He is also one to enjoy the fruits of an opportunity that he sees in the market. An inventor, on the other hand, is a person who uses his brains to create a new product, something that is of value for the society. Now, to start or initiate a business is not always innovative though it always creates jobs for others and wealth for the business owner. Many people confuse between an entrepreneur and an inventor though there are many differences between the two categories of people.
An inventor is someone who first thinks of a novel idea. However, not all great ideas are turned into useful products or services for the society, and it takes an entrepreneur to convert the idea of an inventor into something of value thus generating profits for the entrepreneur. You have to decide the sort of person you are. If brainstorming and coming up with an idea is what interests you, you probably are more of an inventor. However, if you are good at planning and visualizing how to put an idea into concrete shape, you are probably more of an entrepreneur.
One person who is credited with being the greatest inventor of our times is Thomas Alva Edison. Surprisingly, Edison himself did not think much of hundreds of great ideas that came to his mind. He said that interesting ones were those that he could successfully commercialize and thus earn some money. The greatest scientist of modern times preferred to be called an entrepreneur.
Gillette is a company that specializes in making razors. Do you think a company would have survived hundred years or more by just making same razors? No, the company believes in change and progress, not necessarily great inventions.
Summary
It is clear then that an inventor is all about mind power, whereas, an entrepreneur is all about putting the products of mind into action and churning out a product that is commercial and creates wealth for the entrepreneur. Every now and then, limits have been reached, and nothing new can be invented when we are happily proved wrong. In the year 1899, the commissioner of the US patent office advised the US President McKinley to close down the office saying everything that can be invented has been invented. How wrong he was, and how lucky we are to be a part of the human race that keeps on churning out inventors and entrepreneurs to create new products of great value year after year.