Starting and operating a new business involve considerable risk and effort to overcome the inertia against creating something new. In creating and growing a new venture, the entrepreneur assumes the responsibility and risks for its development and survival and enjoys the corresponding rewards. The fact that consumers, business people, and government officials are interested in entrepreneurship is show in the increasing research on the subject, the large number of college courses and seminars on the topic, the more than two million new enterprises started each year despite a 70 percent failure rate, the significant coverage and focus by the media, and the realization that this is an important topic for industrialized, developing, and oncecontrolled economies.

Who is the focus of all this attention - who is willing to accept all the risks and put forth the effort necessary to create a new venture? It may be a man or a woman, someone from an upper-class or lower-class background, a technologist or someone lacking technologic sophistication, a college graduate or a high school dropout. The person may have been an inventor, manager, nurse, salesperson, engineer, student, teacher, homemaker, or retiree. It is someone able to juggle work, family, and civic responsibilities while meeting payroll.

Part 1. The entrepreneurial perspective
Part 2. Creating and startin the venture
Part 3. Financing the new venture
Part 4. Managing, growing, and ending the newe venture