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Entrepreneurship – from ideas to reality
Entrepreneurship – from ideas to reality

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3 Invention, innovation and enterprise

Writers on enterprise tend to differentiate between innovation and enterprise. Not everyone who comes up with an innovative new idea, like an inventor, is an entrepreneur. The entrepreneur is the person who turns an innovative idea into either commercial ends or, in the case of a social entrepreneur, solves a particular social problem. Sometimes they may be one and the same person, but not always.

The story of inventor James Dyson is a classic example of someone who had an idea, which he was also able to create in reality. You will read more about him and the bagless vacuum cleaner in Section 4. Having an idea and successfully building a product or a company on the back of it does not always happen. So when talking about where ideas come from, we are talking about innovation. You will explore the sources of innovation next.