Entrepreneur and Intrapreneur, both play a vital role in the growth and expansion of the business. As both entrepreneur and intrapreneur share, similar qualities like conviction, creativity, innovation, zeal and insight, the two are used interchangeably. However, the two are non-identical.
“You cannot discover new oceans unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.”
An Entrepreneur is an individual who sets up business or businesses, scrutinizes and solves problems, is creative, innovative, opportunist, risk-taker, self-starter, and open-minded with the hope of making a profit from the enterprise. He takes a considerable amount of risk to own and operate the business, with an aim of earning returns and rewards, from that business. He is the most important person who envisions new opportunities, products, techniques and business lines and coordinates all the activities to make them real.
Contrarily, an Intrapreneur is an employee of the organization who is paid remuneration according to the success of the business unit, for which he is hired or responsible. He desires to bring revolutionary ideas to life and yield higher returns for their companies, but want and usually obtain the freedom to do so without passing through all of the processes that exist within large companies. He begins his work in an already existing organization and sets up his new division.
Related – What Is Entrepreneurship – A Complete Guide On Entrepreneurship
So, what you think is the difference between Entrepreneurs and Intrapreneurs?
Okay! So maybe you’re here just for informational purposes, or maybe trying to figure out which one best fits you or maybe you’re here because you’re trying to figure out which one best aligns with your professional goals and what you want to accomplish in your professional life. In this article excerpt, we aim to provide you with some noteworthy points of distinction between the two:
- Who do they work for?
Entrepreneurs develop, design, produce, market, and eventually sell businesses with the end goal of financial profit. They own and operate everything from small shoe stores to tech startups.
Whereas an Intrapreneur has its boundaries and faces many problems in approval before the implementation of some ideas. He or she has to be more responsible as compared to an entrepreneur but there is no link with the success or failure of the enterprise.
- Who Has the risk?
Risk-taking is practically synonymous with entrepreneurship. That’s because the most successful entrepreneurs accept the possibility of failure (and even value failure), as long as there’s a higher likelihood of success later on. An entrepreneur places all of their eggs into one basket. The only option left being Success.
However, unlike entrepreneurs, intrapreneurs don’t necessarily exhibit risk-tolerance attitudes. They probably don’t have as much skin in the game as they do not invest their own money.
- Who really gains from success?
If the initiative is wildly successful, an intrapreneur doesn’t actually stand a lot to gain. All of the benefits of the entrepreneurial initiative go to leadership, the shareholders, the company executives. Intrapreneurs probably don’t see a large piece of that pie unless they have stock that’s super huge, in which their benefit from it is going to be fractional. Maybe they get a good bonus but that’s not something that you’re going to count on as an Intrapreneur.
Whereas the Entrepreneur, if their initiative is wildly successful they could make millions and billions and trillions (Someone like Jeff Bezos- Amazon or Mark Zuckerberg- Facebook).
- A Professional development perspective:
This is actually very different if you’re an Intrapreneur versus if you’re an Entrepreneur. The availability of resources is very clean and clear. So if you’re an Intrapreneur, you probably have some resources available to your company, you probably have a manager, maybe they even have a manager, maybe you meet that manager on a regular basis, you likely have some sort of training team, maybe you even have a budget allowance in order to invest in education, coaching, training, conferences – all of those things.
Whereas,if you’re an entrepreneur to have to find a way to actually get those professional development resources for yourself. So You’re going to be investing in the resources out of your own pocket.
- Glimpse on the Vision:
The visionary person is the Entrepreneur only. He not only identifies the risk attached to the business but also analyzes the market problems which may come in the future and have a bad impact on the stability of the business. He always thinks about the flourishing of the business.
While the Intrapreneur only identifies the risk associated with the confines of the business and not market as a whole.
- Approach and Mindset :
The principle for an entrepreneur is that one gets some opportunities to earn a profit when there is a problem. An Entrepreneur creates a professional and leading image of the business in the market overcoming the hurdles.
On the other side, the problems are considered to be a threat by the Intrapreneur for the process and operations of the business. The Intrapreneur helps to apply all the innovation into the products, services and different projects. The redesigning and advancement in the business is the authority of the Intrapreneur.
- Tasks Orientation:
It does not matter how large or small the business is, the Entrepreneur has to deal with all the related chores and no particular designation or role or responsibility is assigned.
However, the Intrapreneur is only associated with the broad vision of the business and only responsible for managing the big tasks.
Should I be an Intrapreneur or Entrepreneur?
The roles of Intrapreneur and entrepreneur come with different risks, mindsets, and opportunities.
So what’s right for you? If you feel like you want to start driving change and progress rather than just handling the basics of your job, then introspect your circumstances. How’s your financial situation? What kind of risks can you take on? How is your current job – is there room for suggestions or is creative thinking discouraged? And think about your personality as well. Are you comfortable with shouldering the whole financial risk and taking on the responsibility of ownership or do you prefer to work within an organization with their backing?
To hub, Both Entrepreneurs and Intrapreneurs have a valuable role to play in creating a future that is sustainable and equitable for everyone, whether you’re driving innovation from the outside or from within an existing organization! The good news is that if you’re motivated and ready to go, there are plenty of opportunities in both intrapreneurship and entrepreneurship. All you have to do is take the leap.
Also Read – What is a Startup? The Ultimate Startup Guide – Definition, Types & Important Terms
0
