Where Innovation Meets Conservation Entrepreneurship is the process of turning an idea into a business The person at the head of this process is the entrepreneur This is the person who will benefit or lose the most financially Entrepreneurs also benefit by achieving a personal sense of satisfaction about their accomplishments Each summer hundreds of workers brave the Canadian wilderness to plant trees It’s hard work but there are many rewards including good wages and a new forest 6 1
Think of entrepreneurs as doers and makers They believe strongly in their product or service and are willing to take risks in order to develop them and start new businesses An entrepreneur is usually his or her own boss the owner of his or her own company and a unique and creative thinker Being an entrepreneur requires good organization leadership and planning skills as well as an inventive mind It also takes a lot of work The good news is that there are no rules about who can be an entrepreneur You can be an entrepreneur and change the world without even leaving your home There are many kinds of entrepreneurship including environmental social and digital entrepreneurship An entrepreneur’s personal passion determines what field they end up in Environmental entrepreneurs also called ecopreneurs set out to solve environmental issues such as climate change species extinction and wastefulness using new and creative solutions They find ways to earn money while also helping the environment but money is not their main motivation Ray C Anderson Pioneer Ecopreneur Ray Anderson was a pioneer of ecopreneurship In 1973 he founded Interface a company that makes carpet tiles for offices At first he didn’t worry about the environment That changed in 1994 when he read a book called The Ecology of Commerce that encouraged caring for the environment when considering business practices What he learned caused him to change his entire business model Today Interface uses renewable solar and wind energy avoids toxic chemicals and reduces waste by recycling It takes courage to change your way of doing business Ray Anderson did just that after reading a book that explains how to make money and protect the environment You make the call Think of someone in your life that is a doer or a maker What makes them stand out Do they have any qualities that you admire Explain your thinking 7
The Essential Characteristics of Entrepreneurs Willingness to take risks In 2012 Marie de la Croix was the art director for an award-winning Swedish advertising agency Studio Total She took the big risk of quitting her job because she wanted to start an eco-friendly company In 2015 she and former co-worker Tomas Mazetti started a company called Wheelys Wheelys is a company that allows individual entrepreneurs to start their own café-on-wheels Their all-in-one bicycle coffee carts use only energy from the Sun and from the vendor’s pedaling A year later 378 Wheelys coffee-bikes were operating in 55 countries around the world including Sweden Canada and the United States Although things worked out for de la Croix nothing was guaranteed If the bikes hadn’t sold she would have been left in debt and without an income Taking risks is necessary in entrepreneurship The key is to make calculated risks A calculated risk is one that has been researched and considered carefully so that the outcome is more likely to be positive 8
Vision The founders of Wheelys had a strong vision They wanted to provide quality organic coffee and snacks in an environmentally sustainable way all around the world That meant grinding the beans by hand and using solar panels to heat the coffee Perseverance According to Marie de la Croix the first year of Wheelys was a financial failure The idea interested a lot of people but didn’t make a profit As a result half of the original team quit But like all successful ecopreneurs she was determined to figure out what had gone wrong and how to fix it She teamed up with Y Combinator a company that advises entrepreneurs and gives start-up funds to help new companies get off the ground With their help Wheelys began to grow Independence Wheelys bikes allow anyone to be an entrepreneur Entrepreneurs who buy a Wheelys bike are given the tools to run a business but are responsible for hitting the streets themselves and selling the coffee All entrepreneurs have to be independent enough to stay focused on the tasks at hand and move their company forward We did extensive testing building and branding of the bikes in order to finally see an increase of the revenue sales by more than 50 Marie de la Croix CEO Wheelys When she ran into problems Marie de la Croix found a way to solve them 9
