One word for entrepreneurship

In our dictionary of entrepreneurial terms, you’ll find a list of entrepreneur-related words, phrases, acronyms, and other vocabulary defined in a plain-English manner.

Whether your a wantrepreneur or an established startup founder, this entrepreneurship glossary has all the jargon and industry-speak words you oughta know.

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Here are 33+ entrepreneur dictionary terms you should know:

Accelerator – An accelerator is a program to help newer startup businesses improve their growth. Accelerators are different from incubators in that they usually only work with startups which already have a business plan and basic strategy in place.

Acquisition – An acquisition is when one company takes ownership of another, usually smaller, company.

Agripreneurship – Agripreneurship is essentially entrepreneurship in the agricultural sector. Agripreneurship = agriculture + entrepreneurship.

Angel – An angel is a type of investor, often a wealthy individual, who provides capital and financial support to a fledgling startup in return for an ownership percentage.

Business Model – A business model is a description of how an existing business or business idea plans to achieve success, make a profit, and create value. Michael Lewis in his book, The New, New Thing, puts it succinctly as “how you planned to make money.”

Business Model Canvas – A business model canvas (BMC) is a template meant to concisely identify the main points of a business model in one simple diagram. There are usually 9 key components of a business model canvas, which are:

• Key Partners
• Key Activities
• Primary Resources
• Customer Segments
• Client Relationships
• Value Propositions
• Cost Structure
• Channels
• Revenue Streams

Crowdfunding – Crowdfunding is the practice of raising money online through many small donations from regular people, rather than one larger amount from an investor. The popular website Kickstarter is a crowdfunding platform.

Earlyvangelist – An earlyvangelist is a portmanteau neologism, short for “early evangelist,” meaning an early adopter of a product or service.

Ecopreneurship – Ecopreneurship is entrepreneurship where a major, or perhaps the main, focus of the business is to operate sustainably or to help the environment, such as through recycling or fighting climate change. Ecopreneurship is also known as environmental entrepreneurship and green entrepreneurship.

Elevator Pitch – An elevator pitch is a short, to-the-point message from one person to another to propose an idea, often business-related. A startup founder might deliver an elevator pitch to a potential investor seeking funding, for example. Read more on our guide on how to make an elevator pitch.

Entrepreneurship – Entrepreneurship is the process of business creation, from ideation and design through to execution and managing it. A person who starts their own business is called an entrepreneur, and they can be described as entrepreneurial.

Environmental Entrepreneurship – See “Ecopreneurship.”

Fintech – Fintech is a portmanteau word meaning “financial technology,” referring to businesses and startups in the financial sector who use modern technology to facilitate their business. Think Robinhood, Revolut, or Betterment.

Fledgling – Fledgling refers to a company or startup that is young, lacking experience, and still struggling with their business ideas, business model, market, and products or services.

Green Entrepreneurship – See “Ecopreneurship.”

Imagineer – An imagineer is someone capable of taking creative ideas or using their imagination and turning them into reality, actual solutions. As a portmanteau of imagine and engineer, the definition of imagineer is almost self-explanatory.

Incubator – An incubator is a program to assist the newest startup businesses take ideas and create viable business models, strategies, and profit plans for them. Incubators differ from accelerators in that many people often seek incubators simply with little more than just a powerful idea.

Innovation – Innovation means new, creative, unique ideas and a way to turn those ideas into actionable solutions.

Intrapreneurship – Intrapreneurship is where someone displays the traits and characteristics of entrepreneurship while within and being part of a larger company.

Related Read: Everything You Need to Know About Internships

Launch – Launch is the event where a product or service is released to the public market.

Merger – A merger is when two companies join together to become one company. Usually, a merger happens when both companies dissolve and form a brand new entity, although they could also just rename one company to include both.

Minimum Viable Product – A minimum viable product (MVP) is a version of a product or service with just enough features and value to be released to the public.

Pivot – A pivot is a recalibration or shift in business focus or the business model based on innovation, customer feedback, or to seek better return on investment.

Proof of Concept – A proof of concept (POC) is an understanding about whether or not the an idea, product, or service is feasible and has potential.

SaaS – SaaS is the abbreviation for “software as a service,” which is a business model where software is provided on a subscription basis, rather than paying a one-time fee to own it. Microsoft Office, for example, once charged hundreds of dollars for customers to purchase the software, but now, with Office 365, customers pay a small fee on a monthly basis to continue using it.

Scale – To scale means to grow a company while maintaining or improving upon its performance, effectiveness, or efficiency as it grows.

Software as a Service – See “SaaS.”

Startup – According to Steve Blank, entrepreneur and developer of the customer development method, “a startup is a temporary organization in search of a scalable, repeatable, profitable business model.” According to Quantic, this means that “startups are adaptable organizations whose primary goal is to find a business model, not execute one.”

Technopreneurship – Technopreneurship is entrepreneurship with a massive focus or reliance on technology.

Unicorn – A unicorn is a startup company, usually privately-held, which reaches a valuation of over $1 billion.

Unique Selling Point – A unique selling point, or USP, is a thing that stands out about your product or service over that of another company.

USP – See “Unique Selling Point.”

Value Proposition – A value proposition is a statement or promise of value of a given product or service, including features and benefits.

Venture Capital – Venture capital, or VC, is a type of financing where the startup offers up a partial ownership stake in the company for money. In some cases, the company may also relinquish control to executives the VC chooses, though often only for a limited period of time.

Video Pitch – See “Virtual Elevator Pitch.”

Virtual Elevator Pitch – A virtual elevator pitch is a 30- to 60-second video alternative to the traditional elevator pitch, used to pitch ideas, whether to business investors or a community like Goodwall to find climate change solutions. Read our guide on why to use one and how to make your own virtual elevator pitch.

Wantrepreneur – A wantrepreneur is someone aspiring to become an entrepreneur, perhaps with ideas or a general goal but without having started yet. A portmanteau of “want” and “entrepreneur,” some might negatively use it to mean a “wannabe entrepreneur.”

Workshop – A workshop is an event where multiple people gather to receive training and education on a particular topic. A workshop can be anywhere from a few hours to weeks in length. Often, one or more instructors lead a workshopping event to guide the participants.

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Well, there you have it, all the important vocabulary entrepreneurs need to know to survive and thrive.

Got any entrepreneurship terms we missed? Let us know in the comments below, and we’ll add it to our glossary of entrepreneur words. Thanks for reading!

Entrepreneurs. They’re the reason we have Facebook, AirBnb, LinkedIn, YouTube, and many other companies that dominate our daily life. They’re people who turn their ideas into small (or eventually big!) business ventures.

In recent years, Chile has established itself as a hub for entrepreneurship. Chile’s infrastructure, public policies, and positive government perspective on entrepreneurship have led to an excellent ecosystem for entrepreneurs.

If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur, you’re already an entrepreneur, or you just think entrepreneurship is awesome, today’s post is for you! Read on to learn 20 key entrepreneurship vocabulary words.

1. Entrepreneur/Entrepreneurship — a person who starts a business/the activity of starting businesses for profit

Example: The entrepreneur took a big risk when she quit her job and decided to pursue her idea of creating her own technology start-up.

Example: The Chilean government encourages entrepreneurship because it brings creative, excellent new business ventures into the country!

2. Venture — a risky project or business idea

Example: My latest venture is developing a new smart phone application. Even though it’s a risky venture, I’m hoping I’ll find some big investors!

3. Profit — financial gain

Example: Entrepreneurs take financial risks with the hopes of profiting from their business venture.

4. Start-Up — a newly established business

Example: When it first started, Dynamic English was a start-up language institute! The founders, Ted and Andrew, are both entrepreneurs.

5. Investor — a person that puts money into a project or small business, with the hope of eventually receiving profit

Example: When the entrepreneurs created their eco-friendly cleaning products business, they were fortunate to secure several investors to support their growth.

6. Accelerator — an organization or project that promotes or supports the fast growth of small businesses

Example: Start-Up Chile is one of the most successful start-up accelerators in Latin America. In eight years, Start-Up Chile has accelerated over 1,600 companies.

7. Incubator — an organization or space dedicated to supporting new business ventures

Example: Their start-up is housed at an incubator! The start-up incubator gives their small company the necessary office space and professional support to grow.

8. Networking — to increase your community of professional connections

Example: Networking is key for entrepreneurs. It’s a great way to develop relationships with potential investors and other entrepreneurs!

9. Copyright — the exclusive legal right to use and reproduce literary, artistic, or musical material

Example: The small photography business created a detailed guide to sell to photographers in training. They were sure to copyright the book so that wouldn’t be reproduced by a different business.

10. Patent — authorization or license granted to an inventor that prevents others from making, using, or selling their invention

Example: We got a patent for our artificial limb technology so that another company wouldn’t steal our invention.

11. Trademark — a symbol, words, or a phrase officially registered for a company

Example: An important part of developing a company’s brand is to be sure it has an official trademark.

12. Side hustle — slang for your side project or business

Example: I work full-time, but my side hustle is a little start-up that does graphic design and media work.

13. Take risks — to make choices with uncertain outcomes

Example: Taking risks is a huge part of entrepreneurship. When they started their own company, they invested large amounts and quit their jobs, even though they weren’t sure their business would succeed.

14. Launch — to initiate, start or release

Example: The start-up is launching its first product next week. Hopefully it will be successful!

15. Pitch — to propose a business idea, usually with the goal of obtaining a contract or funding

Example: We pitched our idea to the board of the company, and they gave us the funding we needed to begin the project!

16. Associate/partner — when two people start a business, they’re each other’s associates or partners

Example: My associate does client relations for our start-up, and I manage logistics and finances.

Example: My business partner and I met in college, and we’ve been working together on business ventures ever since!

17. Outsourcing — obtain goods or resources from a source outside your company

Example: We do all of our creative work in-house, but we outsource the production of our actual products.

18. Strategic alliance — a relationship between two companies that helps both companies reach their goals

Example: The architecture start-up and the landscaping start-up formed a strategic alliance to better support each other’s businesses.

19. Capital — wealth or assets available to invest in a project or business

Example: Capital is absolutely necessary to start a business! That’s why entrepreneurs spend so much time chatting with donors!

20. Venture capital — capital invested in a project where there is significant risk

Example: The venture capital firm invested in their project to create a new online storage system.

A person who undertakes the risk to start a new business is called an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur creates a company to fulfill their vision, known as an entrepreneurship, who combines money and labor to produce goods or services for profit.

Following is a long list of 100 words related to entrepreneurship that every aspiring entrepreneur should know to grow their business:

1. Acquisition: Taking ownership of another business.
2. Advertising: The activity of attracting public attention to a product or business through paid announcements in print, broadcast, or electronic media.
3. Angel investors: Individuals who back emerging entrepreneurial ventures, usually as a bridge to get from the self-funded stage to the level of business that would both need and attract venture capital.
4. Appraisal: A formal estimate of the value of something on the open market. It also describes how the estimation and conclusion of value was made.
5. Asset: Things a business owns, e.g. Buildings, vehicles stock and money in the bank.
6. Assumptions: A statement that is assumed to be true but that is not backed up with concrete evidence.
7. Barter: Direct exchange of merchandise and/or services between businesses.
8. Boot camp: Boot Camp is a training camp for learning various type of skills and is designed to get you ahead in your start-up journey
9. Brand: Refers to the words and symbols such as a name, logo and slogan that represent a business’ identity.
10. Breakeven: The amount of sales a business needs to make to cover all its costs
11. Business idea: A successful company will begin with a compelling business idea.
12. Business incubator: Provides workspace, coaching, and support services to entrepreneurs and early-stage businesses.
13. Business model: Describes how a company will capture value from the business.
14. Business valuation: An estimate of the worth of a business entity and its assets.
15. Capital expenditure: Money spent on buying or improving items that will be owned by a business for a long time, for example, buildings or equipment.
16. Cash flow: Refers to the money flowing in and out of a business
17. Cash flow forecast: An estimate of the amount of money a business will spend and receive within a certain time period
18. Consumer direct marketing: A form of network marketing in which the distributors are all consumers and must also buy the product for their personal use.
19. Conversion: The number of customers that, after visiting a company’s site or receiving its newsletter, turned into paying customers
20. Copyright: A form of protection for published and unpublished literary, scientific, and artistic works that have been fixed in a tangible or material form.
21. Corporation: A body that is granted a charter recognizing it as a separate legal entity having its own rights, privileges, and liabilities distinct from those of its members.
22. Crowdsourcing: Crowdsourcing engages a larger crowd for a common goal allowing the business to access a wide variety of skills and experience
23. Customer pain point: Relates to a particular emotion a prospective customer will feel when they think of a specific need, problem, weakness or struggle.
24. Customer’s shoes: Understanding the problem your business is addressing from the customers perspective.
25. Dark research: Using existing written data to gain further understanding in a particular subject
26. Discovery: Becoming aware of something that was not previously known
27. Downline: In a multilevel marketing business, the collection of all people signed up underneath an individual on which the individual receives payment on their sales.
28. Due diligence: The inquiry process of obtaining sufficient and accurate disclosure of all material documents and other information which may influence the outcome of the transaction.
29. Early adapter: The very first customers who will use your product/service
30. Enterprise: Enterprise has two meanings. Firstly, it is another term for a business. Secondly, the term describes an individual who takes the initiative and risk to set up a business.
31. Enterprising: When an individual or business displays an interest in new or unusual ways of doing or achieving and is characterised by great imagination.
32. Entrepreneur: A person who organizes, operates, and assumes the risk for a business venture.
33. Expenditure: Money paid or cost.
34. Fail fast fail cheap: Successful businesses will change depending on the market’s reaction.
35. Fin tech: Businesses that use modern technology to advance banking and financial services
36. Fixed assets: Things a business owns or controls for a long time, such as premises or equipment.
37. Fixed costs: Costs that stay the same, regardless of how many sales a business makes, for example, rent.
38. Founder: The name given to the individual who starts a company
39. General partnership: An organizational structure in which each general partner shares in the administration, profits, and losses of the operation.
40. Gold dust: To be of great value and difficult to find
41. Gross profit: Total income from a business’ sales minus the direct costs of making the sales
42. Hackathon: A hackathon is an event where individuals come together to creatively solve problems.
43. Hire: The act of giving someone a job.
44. Home based business: A business whose primary office is in the owner’s home. The business can be any size or any type as long as the office is located in a home.
45. Hot desk: Rather than having your own desk in an office, you will rotate desk space when required.
46. Idea: In terms of business, an idea can relate to a new concept of product or service that will typically be exchanged for money
47. Idea generation: Idea generation, also known as ideation, is the process of generating, developing and communicating new business ideas.
48. Independent contractor: One who practices an independent trade, business, or profession in which they offer their services to the public.
49. Innovate: The process of introducing change and new ideas
50. Intrapreneur: Someone who takes on entrepreneur-like ventures within a large corporate environment.
51. Joint venture: A legal entity created by two or more businesses joining together to conduct a specific business enterprise with both parties sharing profits and losses.
52. Key messages: The things you most want customers to remember about your business.
53. KPI: Key performance indicators (kpis) are a set of different measures that a business decides to use to measure its success.
54. Landing page: A simple webpage that is designed to lead the visitor to your website, normally linked to paid advertisement on google, social media, etc
55. Launch: Introducing a new product or service to market
56. Lean: Identifying how to create more value for customers with less resources.
57. Limited liability company: A legal entity that is not taxable itself and distributes the profits to its owners, but shields personal assets from business debt like a corporation.
58. Limited partnership: A business arrangement in which the day-to-day operations are controlled by one or more general partners and funded by limited or silent partners who are legally responsible for losses based on the amount of their investment.
59. Line of control: Similar to a business loan, except that the borrower pays interest only on the amount actually used.
60. Margin: The difference between the selling price of a product or service and its costs.
61. Market positioning: How a business presents its products/services in relation to its competitors; higher quality, cheaper etc.
62. Marketing: The process of researching, promoting, selling and distributing a product or service.
63. Marketing: Any activity a business does to try and contact potential customers.
64. Merger: A joining together of two previously separate corporations.
65. Mission statement: A sentence that describes what your business aims to achieve in the long term.
66. Multilevel marketing: Any business in which a person receives proceeds from their own sales and from the sales made by people they have signed up, and potentially people those people have signed up, and so on.
67. Net profit: A business’ total income minus its total costs.
68. Network marketing: A business in which a distributor network is needed to build the business. Such businesses usually are also MLM.
69. Networking: Developing business contacts to form business relationships, increase your knowledge, expand your business base, or serve the community.
70. Networking : Developing new contacts and maintaining a network of connections that could be beneficial for your business.
71. Objectives: Things a business wants to achieve.
72. Opening questions: Questions that do not have suggested answers and the respondent will answer in their own words.
73. Operations: The day-to-day activities that take place within a business.
74. Opportunity: A chance for advancement progress or profit
75. Outsourcing: Purchasing standard operational services from another business. Outsourced services typically including accounting, payroll, IT, advertising, and more.
76. Partnership: Two or more individuals who operate a continuing business for profit.
77. Patent: A property right granted to an inventor to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention for a limited time in exchange for public disclosure of the invention when the patent is granted.
78. Planning: A detailed method, formulated beforehand, for managing a business.
79. Pop up: A flexible way to test a business idea, usually opening as a temporary store, that will provide direct feedback from customers.
80. PR: Two-way communication between a business and anyone who is interested In it
81. Product / market fit: This term is used when a company is in a market where customers are buying its products/services at the right speed and the right price.
82. Profit and loss account: Will show a business total income and expenditure for a given time period.
83. Profitable: A business that is described as profitable is money making
84. Public relations: The deliberate promotion of a specific image for a business.
85. Referral: A customer gained through a recommendation from someone else.
86. Resources: The money, people, time and equipment required to run a business
87. Revenue: The money a business makes from the sales of the products or services of the business.
88. Sales: The exchange of a product or service for money. Also refers to the profession of that activity or a department within a company that performs that activity.
89. Scalability: The ability of a business to grow fast without increasing its production costs.
90. Score: Service Corps of Retired Executives provides counseling advice for small businesses.
91. Small business administration: The U.S. agency charged with “providing customer-oriented, full-service programs and accurate, timely information to the entrepreneurial community”.
92. Sole proprietorship: A business owned and operated by one person.
93. Stock: All the raw materials and finished goods owned by a business.
94. Strategic alliance: An ongoing relationship between two businesses in which they combine efforts for a specific purpose.
95. Team: A group of individuals that collaborate to achieve a common goal.
96. Trademark: A form of legal protection for words, names, symbols, sounds, or colors that distinguish goods and services.
97. Traffic: The number of visitors a website receives.
98. Variable costs: Costs that vary in line with a business level of sales.
99. Venture capital: A form of financing for a company in which the business gives up partial ownership and control of the business in exchange for capital over a limited time frame, usually 3-5 years.
100. Vision: A business’ long-term goal.

Quick Links

1. 100 Business English Vocabulary Words for Corporate
2. Words to Describe Company’s Work Culture and Environment
3. Proverbs on Business Lessons for Entrepreneurs

Let’s talk about entrepreneur vocabulary – how can you start your own business in English?

Hi there! I’m your English coach Christina, welcome to Speak English with Christina, where you’ll learn American culture and business know-how to become confident in English.

At conferences or business events, people will talk a lot about their company, their goals, their story. You can meet all the right people and get business insights that will help you boost your career.

And those are valuable opportunities, so you don’t want to get stuck on essential words that everybody uses, but that you don’t understand! I want to help you keep your credibility and reach your goals, and that starts with a review of some common vocabulary from the world of entrepreneurs. Let’s go!

Contents:

1. Basic situations for entrepreneurs
2. Specifics of online businesses
3. Your story
4. Bonus: Full list!

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1. Basic situations for entrepreneurs

First, let’s define an entrepreneur. An entrepreneur is a person who starts their own business. Often, they’ll try to cater to a specific niche. A niche is a targeted segment of society. Entrepreneurs can offer both products and services.

They can lead their company (and not their enterprise, that word isn’t used this way in English!) on the road to being profitable. Profitable means they make more money than they spend. Sometimes, instead of focusing on profits, they can focus instead on growth: that means, they want to get bigger and bigger. When they grow their company, they’re able to serve or to help many more people from the start: their clients, their customers, the people who buy their solutions. What’s the difference? Technically speaking, clients buy services and customers buy products. But in reality, we use the two words interchangeably.

You can also find other, more casual idioms for entrepreneurs on the blog.

2. Specifics of online businesses

Of course, the vocabulary for entrepreneurs is often a bit stranger than this. And sometimes, you may wonder if the other person is speaking English, or some other strange language! Let’s look.
A business can help other businesses, in B2B, business-to-business.

Or maybe they sell directly to private clients, in B2C, business-to-consumer.  For example, Speak English with Christina is both B2B and B2C. We work with both business and private clients.

If a business is selling software, do they sell their Software as a Product in SaaP, by letting clients download and use the program on their own? Or do they sell subscriptions to their software as a service in SaaS instead?

Is it a freemium, a product that’s free at first, but where you need to pay to upgrade to a better service? Or do they offer a trial period, where customers can use their software for free for a limited time, before they decide to buy or not?

You might also hear about strategies of content marketing or inbound marketing. This means that the company creates good content, like blog posts, podcasts, or videos, so that people find and visit the company’s website by themselves.

Once you have a business idea, you start building up your MVP. Now, in sports, this acronym means Most Valuable Player, but in business, we’re talking here about the Minimal Viable Product. It’s the least ambitious thing you can sell quickly, often with very few bells & whistles, or special features.

And the idea behind your MVP is to have proof of concept. That means that you prove that your concept attracts customers first, and then you can start improving it to make it even better!

When you start growing, it’s time to start thinking about scalability: does your business still work if it gets ten times more clients? Is everything going to fall apart once you try to get a hundred times more?

Can you scale your business, or do you need to stay small? And if all goes very well, you can even work a little magic! You enter the enchanted entrepreneurial forest as a unicorn: a tech company that’s worth over a billion dollars!

You can find more jargon (AND personal stories) in Great Women of Business, for instance – one of my favorite podcasts for advanced English!

3. Your story

When telling your own story, you’ll need to adapt it to your audience and your situation. Maybe you want to share how you finally found the job you always wanted?

Or how you got a lot of help from your mentor, someone with more experience who helped you overcome difficulties?

Or even, how you finally managed to get a big break, a short period of time with a lot of growth and success? People might want to hear about your achievement, the actual results you got from this adventure!

You can learn how to pitch your business in an English conversation – with scripts and strategy. Or perfect your elevator pitch in business English!

Another story you can tell is about your drive: your determination to get things done, and the reasons behind it.

Maybe you just want to solve problems for your customers. Maybe you want to add value to your clients, give them a solution that gives them the most bang for their buck. Or maybe you’re a bit more idealistic.

After all, starting your own business can be a way to make a difference. Tell us how you can make the world a better place ! 

And keep an eye out for the cultural differences in English, and with the American work culture!

4 – Bonus: The full vocabulary list

1. An entrepreneur = someone who starts their own business
2. A niche = a specific need / culture / audience for your business
3. Products and services = what you sell
4. A company = a business (don’t use “an entreprise”!)
5. Profitable = making more money than you invest. Can take some time.
6. Growth = becoming bigger, helping more people
7. To serve = to help
8. A client / a customer = someone who buys your products or services
9. B2B = Business-to-business (your clients are businesses themselves)
10. B2C = Business-to-customer (your products are for individual customers)
11. SaaP = Software-as-a-product : you buy a software, you own it.
12. SaaS = Software-as-a-service : you’re subscribed to a software
13. Freemium = Software that can be used for free (or upgraded for a price)
14. A trial period = A few days or weeks where you don’t need to pay to use a product
15. Content marketing / Inbound marketing = Blog posts and free content (to get people on your site)
16. MVP = Minimal Viable Product – The first product you can start selling fast.
17. Proof of concept = Something to show your idea can work (with low risk / possible rewards)
18. Scalability = Being able to handle success and growth:
    = are you going to crash when you have 10 times more clients?
19. A unicorn = A horse with a horn / A tech company worth a billion dollars
20. Your dream job = The job you always wanted
21. Your mentor = Someone more experienced that helps you out
22. Overcome difficulties = Succeeding despite some flaws
23. To get a big break = The first big taste of success, when you get well-known
24. Achievement = A goal you reached
25. Your drive = Your passion for your company, the vision you have
26. Solve problems = Helping people
27. Add value = Making people happy
28. The most bang for their buck = The best value/price ratio
29. Make a difference = Making the world a better place