Before charging down that path to entrepreneurship, you might want to know a little more about the origin of the whole concept. While the word entrepreneur has been around only since the eighteenth century, people we would recognize as entrepreneurs have been around since humans first figured out that they needed to work in order to make a living. But entrepreneurs haven't always been seen in the positive terms of today, nor have they always been so admired.

Adventurer and Risk-Bearer

In 1755, Richard Cantillon wrote the first clear definition of an entrepreneur, which was translated in English as “adventurer,” as an agent who buys materials or products at certain prices with the ultimate purpose of selling those products in the future. For Cantillon, the uncertainty of those future prices is what set the entrepreneur apart from other types of businessmen. Adventurers actively traded and traveled, used their wits to survive, and made up the skills they needed as they went along, often quite literally risking their lives along with their capital. John Jacob Astor, founder of the American Fur Company, is just one example of this early entrepreneur, as well as this country's first millionaire. Since Cantillon's book wasn't published until two decades after his death, he wasn't around to witness the response to his ideas.

Innovator, Commercializer, and Organizer

Physician and economist Fran çois Quesnay published his economic theories in 1758 and focused on the entrepreneur's ability to organize and innovate. He was something of an entrepreneur himself. Poor and orphaned at thirteen, he trained himself in medicine and economics and became a physician at the court of Louis XV.

Another famed economist, Adam Smith, maintained that people are naturally industrious, not entrepreneurial. With the publication of his Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations in 1776, entrepreneurs lost standing; indeed, one later economist said Smith rendered the entrepreneur invisible.

It was Jean-Baptiste Say who resuscitated entrepreneurs and emphasized their role in an economy. After reading Smith's book, Say published his own in 1803. In it he came up with the concept (if not the exact words) of “supply creates its own demand.” He deemed entrepreneurs critical to the operation of every sort of industry because they organize the “factors of production” in order to achieve the “satisfaction of human wants.” He noted that entrepreneurs aren't merely managers but also forecasters, risk-takers, and project appraisers — indeed, the indispensable ones who make an economy work.

Later, in 1848, John Stuart Mill popularized “entrepreneur” in his Principles of Political Economy, but the concept lapsed back into obscurity by the end of the nineteenth century.

Unique Individual

In 1876, Francis Walker helped resurrect the importance of the entrepreneur, writing that the “pride of directing great operations and the sense of power in moving masses of men at will…in no inconsiderable degree…make up the remuneration of the entrepreneur.” He acknowledged that only a very few people were driven by these motivations.

Hero and Creative Destroyer

In the 1930s, Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter depicted the entrepreneur as an innovative hero. His description sounds more like that of a Knight of the Round Table, someone driven by the “dream and the will to found a private kingdom,” “the impulse to fight,” and the “joy of creating.” Schumpeter theorized that in the absence of innovation, business cycles circle in a stationary loop. The entrepreneur, by leading the way in creating new industries, disturbs this equilibrium and drives economic development. This process of rendering old industries obsolete was called “creative destruction.” Think about what happened to the ticker tape, typewriter, and horse and buggy when new and better innovations came along — dreamed up and promoted by entrepreneurs.

Engager of Uncertainty and Everyman

Chicago economist Frank Knight refined Cantillon's ideas and identified an entrepreneur as one who stakes his money and career on an uncertain venture. Risk is insurable. Knight contended that profits come from uncertainty, unique events that can't be eliminated or insured against. That entrepreneur who can rely on good judgment to choose the right course of action will win the profits. Unfortunately for the entrepreneur, after enough instances of a given situation, the uncertainty becomes a knowable risk, and profits dwindle.

In the 1970s, Nobel Laureate Theodore W. Schultz found entrepreneurs everywhere. He noted that farmers and housewives deal with costs, returns, and risks; perceive, interpret, and act in response to new information; and allocate time and resources. To him, entrepreneurship was a process that occurred all around us, not solely in the business world.

Despite the best efforts of theorists to precisely describe an entrepreneur, by now you probably realize that today any definition of the term combines facets of all the earlier ones. Creator, innovator, promoter and marketer, risk-taker, decision-maker, organizer, special type of manager, reallocator of resources, leader, and proprietor — whatever you call them, entrepreneurs are here to stay. Here's a bit about what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur in the twenty-first century.