Some of my favourite definitions of the "entrepreneur"

• The entrepreneur is an individual that is difficult to stereotype (Stevenson, Roberts and Grousbeck 1985).
• Bygrave (1993) describes an entrepreneur as someone who perceives an opportunity and creates an organisation to pursue it.
• Schumpeter’s (1949) suggestion that the entrepreneur destroys the equilibrium with a perennial gale of creative destruction, also implies that an entrepreneur does not quietly sit back waiting for opportunity to arrive.
• Therefore entrepreneurs not only exploit opportunities, but they create their own opportunities (Russell and Faulkner 1999).
• Kuratko and Hodgetts describe an entrepreneur as “the aggressive catalyst for change in the world of business, who is an independent thinker who dares to be different in a background of common events” (1998:30).
• Timmons’ suggests that entrepreneurs work hard, driven by an intense commitment and determined perseverance, “burning with the competitive desire to excel and win” (1989:1). The author went on to say that they use failure as a tool for learning, and would rather be effective than perfect. They respond to setbacks and defeats as if they were temporary interruptions, and rely on resiliency and resourcefulness to rebound and succeed. They “have enough confidence in themselves to believe they can personally make a decisive difference in the final outcome of their ventures and in their lives” (1989:1).
• Morrison, Rimmington, and Williams (1999) summarised some of the more common characteristics from the works of Collins and Moore (1964), Kets de Vries (1977), Chell, Haworth and Brearly (1991), Timmons (1994), and Deakins (1996):
  1) Availability of appropriate role models
  2) Career experience over life-cycle
  3) Family background
  4) Family position
  5) Level of educational attainment
  6) Inheritance of entrepreneurial tradition
  7) Peer influence
  8) Social marginality
  9) Hatred for bureaucracy