Entrepreneurial or start-up companies must keep a pioneering spirit

A 1723 edition of a French dictionary first included the term, “entrepreneur” and that was nearly 300 years ago! About two centuries later, economist Joseph Schumpeter redefined the term in a 1934 speech by saying that entrepreneurs are “innovators who use a process of shattering the status quo of the existing products and services, to set up new products, new services.”  Then, in 1985, Professor W.B. Gartner added that an entrepreneur was “a person who started a new business where there was none before.” But in the last decade of the 20^th century we started to use a new term to describe entrepreneurial companies and that term is “start-ups.” Originally, “start-up companies” only described “dot coms” or other rapid growth enterprises but today the term “start-up” is used to describe any new entrepreneurial company no matter if its leader uses the title: Proprietor, president, owner, manager, CEO, or entrepreneur. The common thread is the pioneering spirit of the founders. However, unlike the pioneers who settled this land, we now live in a regulated environment that makes lawyers necessary. This means that one of the tasks that each modern entrepreneur faces as part of growing an enterprise is that of finding a lawyer who will guide the company through governmental regulation while at the same time preserving the pioneering spirit that fuels the growth and wealth of the company.