Entrepreneurs Visionaries VS Opportunists

entrepreneurs visionaries vs opportunists difference

If you’re a successful entrepreneur, you’re an optimist and a visionary. But you are also an opportunist. You see opportunities where others don’t. And you work tirelessly to bring them to fruition. Visionary or opportunist, how you’re wired determines your success in entrepreneurship and beyond.

There are entrepreneurs visionaries, but also there are entrepreneurs that are opportunists. Who of them will be more successful entrepreneurs? In theory, there are too many different thinkings about is it better for entrepreneurs to be opportunists or not.

Undoubtedly, one of the entrepreneurial characteristics is finding different opportunities. But, on the other side, you need to remember that you should use these opportunities. Why would somebody seek to find an opportunity if he does not use it? More on this you can read in Entrepreneurial Success Factors.

Are you an entrepreneur, visionary, or opportunist? Which personality type will you be when you start your own business? If you’re like most people, you’ve heard the two terms used interchangeably. However, these two personalities are not the same. An entrepreneur has a vision. They are committed to a particular goal. They set out to make a success of their business. An opportunist doesn’t have a vision—they see the opportunity and jump on it.

This article will compare Entrepreneurs Visionaries with Opportunists to show you the differences and similarities between both types.

The Entrepreneur Opportunists

An entrepreneur opportunist doesn’t wait for the right opportunity to come knocking at his door. He actively searches for opportunities wherever he can find them. Suppose you have a business idea that has a great value proposition. In that case, you should immediately go out there and find ways to bring that value to customers. As an entrepreneur, you have a chance to take advantage of all of the great business and marketing opportunities available to you.

Related: 10 Reasons Being An Entrepreneur Is Better Than Employment

What is an entrepreneur opportunist?

I like to start with defining or profiling entrepreneurs who are opportunists.

Let’s see first what opportunism is. In Wikipedia, the definition of opportunism is:

Opportunism is the conscious policy and practice of taking selfish advantage of circumstances, with little regard for principles.

A better definition gives us the Oxford Dictionary where they state that:

Opportunism is the practice of looking for and using opportunities to gain an advantage for oneself, without considering if this is fair or right.

According to these definitions, we can conclude that:

An entrepreneur opportunist is a person who seeks opportunities to selfish utilize them without fair or right behavior.

At first, it seems that this is a good thing for entrepreneurs because they have a business that exists on the market, which is a battle where ethics and moral in this fight is not so much in use.

An entrepreneur opportunist is someone willing to seize a chance if it comes along. Opportunists are often good at spotting problems, opportunities, or problems within an opportunity. If you’re an entrepreneur opportunist, you don’t always see the bigger picture of your business. How can you expand it if you don’t see the bigger picture? You are looking for the next best thing or the next best way to do things. When something comes up in your business that you haven’t even thought of before, you’ll likely seize it as a new opportunity.

They are searching for opportunities where nobody previously has found something, and they don’t think about the correctness or rightness of that searching. They do not think if it would be successful or not after one year, two, or three years.

This is the reason why opportunistic entrepreneurs, with their opportunities, are improving only their own lives and nobody else’s life.

RelatedSmart Skills You Will Need Now as an Entrepreneur

The Entrepreneur Visionaries

If you want to be a successful entrepreneur, you need to envision what the world will be like when your company starts doing well. This means you must have a vision for the future of your business—and that vision is a set of beliefs about what the world will look like after your company starts making money. You can also use this vision to communicate your company’s goals to the public.

What’s cool about entrepreneurs is that they are constantly pushing the envelope. They are the ones who are always trying to find ways to make their businesses more profitable, more efficient, and more valuable to their customers. Because of that, they can adapt, learn, and grow. You don’t always need to have the next big idea. Sometimes, you can keep innovating small changes and building on what your current company does.

What is a visionary entrepreneur?

How do you define a “visionary entrepreneur”? The dictionary definition of a visionary is someone who sees things far into the future. The concept of a visionary can be applied to business in many ways. As the name implies, a visionary entrepreneur sees and anticipates future trends and challenges impacting its company and industry. This mindset can have an incredibly positive impact on their businesses, helping them succeed long-term.

First, a visionary person has the vision or power to look in the future and who knows what will happen in that future. Secondly, visionaries see opportunities, not by making something different from everyone else but by making exactly that same thing. However, the difference is that they are doing the same thing differently.

A great example of this is when Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone in 2007. Most people thought smartphones were too big and clunky to use. But Steve Jobs had a vision and worked relentlessly to make it happen.

Entrepreneurs visionary are people who follow what’s happening around them and simply find hot opportunities in which they enter. They are willing to take action about that opportunity. All of those opportunities are the same opportunities in which too many people are entering simultaneously. But, only one is better than all other – Visionaries.

They do not start a business in the opportunity only to improve their own lives. They start a business to improve their customers’ lives, and if they succeed in this improvement, they will also improve their own lives. I’ve already talked about How to Make Business Life Much Easier.

Difference Between Entrepreneurs Visionaries and Opportunists

Let’s look what is the main difference between entrepreneur visionaries and opportunists:

Real opportunity.

Opportunists are only opportunity seekers, while entrepreneur visionaries recognize the real opportunity. Therefore, opportunists often end up forever seeking the opportunity they will never find, while visionary entrepreneurs quickly find and use that opportunity.

Prism how they look things about the opportunity.

Entrepreneur opportunist is selfish, and it only requires an opportunity for their success, while entrepreneur visionary is considering the possibility through the prism of a potential customer, i.e., how to improve the lives of the potential customer. And, of course, improving the lives of potential customers will improve their own lives.

Short-term Vs Long-term Vision.

Visionary entrepreneurs have big visions. They see where the industry is headed and are willing to risk their capital to invest in early-stage ventures that are likely to become industry leaders in the long run. Opportunist entrepreneurs focus on short-term wins, not long-term vision. Their only goal is to make quick money. While it may seem that visionary entrepreneurs are riskier, the reality is that it’s really not that difficult for them to make money if the company that they’re involved in succeeds. What’s more important is that the visionary will continue to make money even if the business doesn’t succeed because they invest in a vision for a better tomorrow.

Conclusion

I believe entrepreneurs are visionaries. Their visions are about the future. They see opportunities and are interested in the possibilities. And because their visions are based on their own beliefs and values, their visions are often tied to those beliefs and values.

Some people are natural opportunists, and others are natural visionaries. While both types can be successful in their own ways, a visionary’s vision is much broader than an opportunist’s options. An opportunist looks at the current landscape of a market and identifies the opportunities there. In contrast, a visionary looks beyond that and sees the potential for what’s next.

So follow what happens in your environment. Find a place where everyone is, but look through the prism of potential customers and their problems. Solve those problems better, faster, and better than everyone else, and you will succeed.