Entrepreneurship

You Might be more of a Micropreneur than an Entrepreneur.

Charity Muia
Micropreneurs, the smallest of Small Business Owners

As you start a business, you definitely consider yourself as an entrepreneur. However, if you don’t want to build your enterprise to grow to a bigger enterprise, you might be more of a micropreneur than an entrepreneur. 

Do you have less than five workers, or no employees at all? Are you the ‘Jack of all trades’ and in-charge of almost everything from accounting to marketing?  If that’s the case for you, you are a mcropreneur. 

As a micropreneur, you start and run a very small business. This business helps you maintain a healthy lifestyle while you do work that you enjoy. 

If you want your small business to remain small, it doesn’t mean you don’t need to strategize, put efforts and work hard just like an entrepreneur working towards building a bigger enterprise. Your business’ success is entirely dependent on you and you probably never think of hiring help or delegating duties to employees as you would rather do it all on your own.

Running a big business does not appeal to you and don’t have a plan of expanding your existing enterprise. You probably run your small business from your home office or co-working space or operate from a rented shelf space. Additionally, you perhaps don’t make a significant financial investment in your business. 

Simply, micropreneurs;
  • Don’t spend a lot of money on their businesses.
  • Focus on remaining .
  • Don’t hire staff..
  • Don’t have a formal office room. 

The traditional micropreneur works from home and manages all aspects of their business. Entrepreneurs on the other hand employ people, delegate roles, or outsource to help them grow. 

Traits
of Micropreneurs

As many people start businesses, their biggest goal is to grow their enterprises and make more money. However, micropreneurs have a different perspective when it comes to business ownership and have different traits that enable them to be and succeed as micropreneurs. If you are a micropreneur or an aspiring micopreneur, these are the best traits of a micropreneur.

1.They look for opportunities everywhere they can 

A micropreneur will always be a micropreneur in such, once they start a business, no matter how many times they shut down, they will always start a new one. These individuals will always want to start something new in the future. 

Micropreneurs are ‘wired’ to find solutions and seek out new opportunities everywhere they go. They are excellent at spotting flaws and gaps in current solutions – they are extremely opportunistic. 

A micropreneur is constantly thinking about their business. Knowing that they are solely responsible for the business’ success or failure pushes them to constantly search for new ways to do things.

The drawback of this trait is; always looking for better ways to do things and always looking for something else to do can be draining. 

2.Micropreneurs solve small and specific problems

As a micropreneur, you don’t have anyone else to help you solve a problem. Knowing this, you have no choice when a problem comes up other than solving it. You will have so many problems coming up since you are handling all the aspects of your business. 

Depending on themselves to get things done is one of the strong traits of micropreneurs.

Additionally, solving these small and specific problems, micropreneurs perfect their craft and most of them end up becoming experts in their specific industries. 

3.Micropreneurs work well is small teams or alone

One of the traits that defines micropreneurs is their ability to work alone or in small teams. 

Many micropreneurs don’t need guidance to get things done. However, this does not mean they are always isolated. They are highly driven and don’t have any trouble keeping up with their daily tasks. Checking of their to-do list is a joy.

In cases which they are working in a team, they are more effective at work than others – they tend to do the majority of the project by themselves.  

Some business owners need outside help to guide them in the right direction or to keep them focused. Thus, they tend to work with a larger team because the risk of starting a company on their own is not appealing. 

On the other hand, micropreneurs tend to work alone or with a small group of people. In reality, they find that they are more productive when they are not responsible for others. Additionally, they prefer to work in calm environments with very few distractions such as a home office.

4.They are curious individuals 

Micropreneurs have a way of wanting to know about everything. 

This curiosity makes them question things not everybody would give a time in the day. They tend to spend a lot of time researching to quench their curiosity. 

As they interact with people in their networks or new people, they are very inquisitive. They want to know what people do for a living and why they chose to do that or ask about your industry.

Their curiosity helps them find opportunities almost everywhere they go and find solutions to problems they never thought existed. 

5.They have a unique way of doing things

Different micropreneurs have different ways of doing things and managing their work.

Most micropreneurs do not prescribe into the common way of doing things. They choose to forge their own course/path rather than walking in the footsteps of others. They love doing things that are not being done by others – they do things their own way. 

This comes as a drawback as they tend to always look for new strategies as they run their business even if their previous strategy was working. They keep looking for new ways to do the same thing.