The entrepreneur: the person who makes a business happen

1. Edexcel gives the entrepreneur three roles, and exam questions come from all three: organising resources, making business decisions and taking risks.
2. The three run together rather than in sequence, since a decision about which supplier to use is also a decision about how much risk to carry.

Organising resources: getting the right inputs in the right amounts

1. Organising resources means gathering everything the business needs and combining it so the business can trade.
   1. Premises and materials: somewhere to trade from, plus the stock or raw materials the product is made of.
   2. People: the staff and the skills they bring, from a single part-time assistant upwards.
   3. Money and equipment: the cash to pay the bills before customers pay, and the machinery, vehicles and tills the work needs.
2. Getting the amounts right matters as much as getting the resources at all, since too much stock ties up cash the business needs for its rent and may end up thrown away.
   1. Too few staff means customers queue and leave, so the sale is lost even though the product was there.

Making business decisions: the choices nobody else will make

1. In a small business there is no manager above the owner, so every decision that matters lands with them.
   1. What to sell and what to charge: which products to stock, which to drop when they stop paying, and a price high enough to cover costs but low enough that customers still come.
   2. Where to trade and who to employ: a high-street unit with passing customers and high rent or an online shop with lower costs and less visibility, and how many staff the takings can support.
   3. Whether to grow: taking on a second site or a larger order means spending before the extra revenue arrives.
2. Start-up decisions are made quickly and with incomplete information, because waiting for certainty hands the opening to someone else.
   1. Each choice also closes another one off, since money spent on a delivery van is money not spent on advertising.

Taking risks: the role that cannot be handed to anyone else

1. An entrepreneur can pay someone else to do the accounts or run the shop, but the loss still falls on them if it fails.
2. The risk is what earns the reward, because the profit left after everyone else has been paid belongs to the owner.
   1. Staff are paid their wages and suppliers are paid for their stock whether the week was busy or quiet, so the owner is paid last and only if anything is left.

Judging which role decides whether an entrepreneur succeeds

1. Which role matters most depends on the business. In a stock-heavy business, organising resources may be critical because too much cash can be tied up in inventory.
2. In a fast-moving market, decision making may matter more; in an untested market, willingness to take risk may be decisive.
3. Overall, taking risk gets the business started, but sound organisation and decisions are what make that risk sustainable.