Learn who a digital entrepreneur is, what they do, how they affect the economy, how to become one, and what you need to ask yourself before you commit to the path.
What Is Digital Entrepreneur
A digital entrepreneur is an individual that uses the power of entrepreneurship and digital technology skills to create and solve world challenges in the digital landscape.
A digital entrepreneur is an entrepreneur who creates, organizes and operates a business with technology as its core operation process. They make a living or earn a side income from the Internet or online.
Digital entrepreneurs are innovators solving life challenges and opportunities for digital technology.
DigitalPreneur is short for digital entrepreneurs, and we also know them as online entrepreneurs, internet entrepreneurs, tech founders, and entrepreneurs.
Digital entrepreneurs play a big role in today’s economy, using digital skills to solve B2B (business to business) and B2C (business to customer) needs. Exploring every opportunity and bringing out creative ideas to the market.
Digital + Entrepreneur = DigitalPreneur
Key note
- DigitalPreneur is short for digital entrepreneurs and is the entrepreneur who builds and runs their business digitally and earns or makes a living from the Internet.
- Digital Entrepreneurs are mostly tech-savvy, ambitious, creative, and hungry for change, innovative, disrupters, business-minded, IT people.
- Digital entrepreneurs are software engineers, app developers, website designers, bloggers, SaaS founders, digital nomads, digital marketers, online business coaches, freelancers, Youtuber, vloggers, social media influencers, and many more.
What Is Digital Entrepreneurship?
Digital entrepreneurship is the act of using technology as the core operation to create, launch, and run a new value business or change existing business processes, culture, and customer experiences. This includes digital-only business and traditional entrepreneurs transforming their startup or business with new technology.
Digital entrepreneurship is all about digital transformation, which is the use of digital technology in all areas of business, including:
- Fresh ways of designing and providing products and services
- Fresh ways of generating more revenue
- Fresh ways of finding more clients
- Fresh opportunities to collaborate with platforms and partners
- Fresh sources of opportunity, risk, and competitive advantage
- Fresh ways to grow and measure ROI (Return In Investment).
Impact of the Digital Economy
you can also refer to the digital economy also as the Internet Economy, the New Economy, or Web Economy.
According to research by Weforum. “by 2022, over 60% of global GDP will be digitized. About 70% of the new value created in the economy over the next decade will be based on digitally enabled platforms. About 50% of the world’s population does not take part in the digital economy at all–and growth in internet adoption is slowing.”
The growth of the digital economy has brought about cheap labor. Robots, computers, and machines to perform tasks decreasingly use human labor. However, it now requires workers to have certain skills to secure their jobs.
“It is widely accepted that the growth of the digital economy has a widespread impact on the whole economy.”
sciencedaily
Competitors are now more global and more intense because of the digital economy. You can reach and do business with anybody from anywhere around the world. More sales and worldwide branding (recognition).
What is Digital Transformation?
Digital transformation is changing the way business is being done, making business transactions fast, reliable, safe and easy. We can now send files and documents online fast and easy with the use of emails and store things online with cloud computing.
The digital transformation has taken over many industries today. For example, it has replaced the taxi business with Uber, making the services of taxi cheap, easy and faster to use.
These days you don’t need a mobile sim card to make calls with WiFi you can get any country mobile number with the service of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol).
You can save movies, music, videos, document any files you want with cloud storage, and access them from anywhere in the world with a laptop or smartphone.
Starting a business is so much easier now; You can come up with a business idea in the morning and lunch by afternoon and be making sales before the day runs out. We can go on and on. It is said, “Any traditional business that does not make the transformation now to the digital landscape would go out of business or losing a large percentage of their market shares”.
“Every digital transformation will begin and end with the customer, and I can see that in the minds of every CEO I talk to.”
MARC BENIOFF, CHAIRMAN AND CO-CEO, SALESFORCE
Difference Between Entrepreneurs and Digital Entrepreneurs
Although digital entrepreneurs can also be a Traditional Entrepreneur, there are slight differences between them. Traditional entrepreneurs can create a business without or little use of digital technology. For example, a fashion designer or an architect might need to use computer software to design a project, but they need not build the software themselves.
This is where the digital entrepreneur comes in, they build this software, app or any applications a traditional entrepreneur would need to transact their business online. For example; The social media platform (Facebook, Instagram and many more), graphic design tools, the online sales funnels, Microsoft office tools and many more.
“It’s right in the sense that all entrepreneurs are using digital technology to build, lunch, and grow their business. But it’s wrong in the sense that not all entrepreneurs are doing everything digitally. ”
copy blogger
Example of Digital Entrepreneur
The digital technology industry has made many self-made billionaires and millionaires. The next names you will see are a few of the people who made their money with digital technology and are who we call digitalpreneurs.
Syed Balkhi is a blog and digital entrepreneur, blogger, entrepreneur, and tech investor. He is the founder and Co-founder of 10+ digital startup which includes (OptinMonster, WPBeginner, SoliloquyWP, Envira Gallery, WPForms, MonsterInsights, WP Mail SMTP, seedpod) and he also an investor in lots of popular digital platform out there.
Bill Gates needs no introduction, he is one of the early users and founders of digital technology, and I am sure you have come across his startups. Bill Gates is the founder of Microsoft, which has the window Os and the Microsoft Office tools and many more.
Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, if you do not know what Facebook is, no problem. I am sure you know about WhatsApp and Instagram. these are social media platform mark bought and today there are now household brands we make use of every day to communicate with friends and family.
Jeff Bezos is a digital entrepreneur, entrepreneur, and investor. He is the founder of the biggest online eCommerce brand, Amazon, which started as a bookstore. Now the Amazon brand puts Jeff in the position of one of the richest men in the world.
Neil Patel is an entrepreneur, digital entrepreneur, investor, blogger, digital marketing expert, and social media influencer. He has Co-founder and founder of many digital companies. Hello Bar, KissMetrics, crazy Egg just to name a few.
What is Digital Currency?
The rise of digital business has brought about digital currency known as a cryptocurrency or virtual currency. We only use these currencies on the digital or electronic platform as a medium of exchange. You cannot hold them physically. Thousands of and eCommerce and online services now accept them as payment as the cryptocurrency is growing fast.
Fascinating Cryptocurrency Facts by Leftroni
- A post about Bitcoin appears every 3 seconds on social media.
- We expect the global blockchain market size to reach $57 million by 2025.
- There are 153 million Bitcoin user addresses in 2019.
- Between 3 million to 3.8 million of Bitcoins are lost forever.
- Bitcoin accounts for $6 billion of daily transactions.
- The current market cap of Bitcoin sits at $144.96 billion.
Digital entrepreneurship and Financing
There are different ways to finance your digital brand; Let’s look at the most popular method digital entrepreneurs are using.
Families and Friends
These are money you get from families and friends, while this is sometimes hard to get because they might not believe in your business ideas, but it is sure worth trying.
Your Own Money/Savings
If you have your own money, you can start up a digital business with $1000 depending on what you are building. If you have technical skills, you can even start at $100. you can even use many of the freemium tools out there and create something great. There are a lot of tools out there you can use to create your digital business, that doesn’t require any technical knowledge at all.
Loans from Bank or Financial Institutions
There are a thousand financial institutions that give loans to entrepreneurs and startups. You can try Kiva and Accion there are one of the best out there.
Angel Investors
This is most common in the tech industry, there are a lot of investors looking for a startup to invest in. You can find them on social media or investor websites such as iAngels, AngelList, CrunchBase, Funded and many more out there.
Venture Capital
They provide startup, early-stage and small businesses that have the potential for long growth. Venture capital has become very popular and they love small business and tech companies.
Crowdfunding
You can get people to fund your project for a reward, all you need is a prototype, the Kickstarter and Indiegogo are the best crowdfunding platforms.
The benefit of Digital Entrepreneurship
There is a lot of enjoy having your own business and there are even more when you have a digital business, these are the 6 best benefits we love.
Earn while you sleep
Yes, you heard that right Sleep while you earn. You can automate all of your Yes, you heard that right Sleep while you earn. You can automate all of your business, from Marketing to sales, you can have Chabot answer the questions, drip sale letter. you can set everything up to run automatically while you sleep.
Be Your Own Boss
This is the first advantage of owning your own digital business. Choose when you work, the hours you work and who you work with. You set everything to your terms because you are the boss.
Online Networking
There are now thousands of platforms online you can meet new people with similar interests as you. If you need advice, motivation, mentor, people with similar interests as you or want to know what is happening in your industry, just browse the web.
Online Payment Processors
Online payment has been very common these days, you can pay, shop for anything without leaving your home. Send money to your loved ones without going to the bank. You can get paid for your goods and services without disclosing your bank details with a service like PayPal you can receive and send money with just a click all you need is an email.
Work While You Travel
If you love to travel, but you can’t because of your job or you can only set up one vacation a year. With digital business, you can be in Dubai with the sun kissing your skin. While you run your business, all you need is a laptop or smartphone and an Internet connection. In the digital world, it is called the laptop lifestyle.
Worldwide sales
Back in the days if you want to sell something you have to print a flyer that you can post or give to limited people. However, with digital technology, you can run an ad from your home country and target a person who needs it all over the world.
We would love to know your thought, are you a digitalpreneur or planning to be one… or do you own an online business but you never thought of yourself as a digital entrepreneur? Inspire us with your story below or send us a message on our social media channel or you can send us an email.
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