INTRODUCTION

An entrepreneur is a person who organize and operates a business concern for the
purpose of making profit. He is uniquely talented person having the qualities of skill,
initiative and an insight of innovation to achieve high goals. He looks for opportunities,
identities and seizes them for making economic gains. Entrepreneurs play a vital role in the
economic development of a country. The economic progress of a country also depends
on the success or failure of the entrepreneurial development in that country.

Entrepreneurs play a vital role in the economic development of a country.

The economic resources alone will not produce development. There should be
dynamic entrepreneurs with vision, initiative and drive to make changes in the economic
field. It is very often said that "India is a rich country inhabited by the poor". India is
endowed with plenty of natural resources and good climate. Inspire of these blessings,
India is only a developing one. The main reason for this under development is the lack of
sufficient number of dynamic entrepreneurs. A country can achieve economic development
only when it is able to utilize its natural resources effectively.

Economic development essentially means a process of upward change by which

the real per capita income of a country increases over a long period of time. It provides large
scale employment. Thus, it helps in reducing unemployment in the country.

The word 'entrepreneur' is derived from the French word 'entreprendre' which
means 'to undertake'. Originally it was meant to designate an organizer of musical or other
entertainments. In the early sixteenth century it was applied to those who were engaged in
military expeditions. It was extended to cover civil engineering activities such as
construction and fortification in the seventeenth century. It was only in the beginning of the
eighteenth century that the word was used to refer to economic activities. Thus, the
concept entrepreneur is considered to be evolved about more than four centuries. Since
then, the term 'entrepreneur' is used in various ways expressing various views.
Entrepreneurship is the journey of opportunity exploration and risk manage meant to
create value for profit and/or social good. Gottlieb said that an entrepreneur is someone
who can take any idea, whether it be a product and/or service, and have the skill set, will,
courage to take extreme risk to do whatever it takes to turn that concept into reality
and not only bring it to market, but make it a viable product and/or service that people
want or need. Entrepreneurship has become an everyday buzzword. Policymakers,
economists, academics and even university students are talking about it. Seminars,
conferences and workshops are being organized every year across the world which
emphasized on the importance of entrepreneurship to country, society as well as individual
This, in turn, has increasingly made entrepreneurship emerged as one of the most popular
research domain in academic circles to study on the importance and contributions of
entrepreneurship (Lee, Chang et al. 2005) |10J.Courses in entrepreneurship are also
becoming a popular at college and university levels (Brown 1999) [1l]. Although there
are no specific traits of an entrepreneur but there are certain characteristics that most
successful entrepreneurs possess, Ability to plan, Communication Skills, Marketing skills,
Basic Management Skills, Interpersonal Skills, Leadership Skills. Successful entrepreneurs are
those who always learn from their failures; who always tried to solve problems; tried to
strength their weakness and make sure that this is what we actually want. They are the risk
taker and it is the prime motive that should be developed in the students. This study is
mainly concentrated among the college students with special reference to students living
in the Thrissur area.
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION