When faced with this question, many writers simply say a response is too hard because there are so many variables that it makes it difficult to define one answer. It depends on their background, education and history, they say.

Author Alain de Botton, though, can succinctly articulate a reply. In an article for Wired UK magazine this month, he sums up his view of what it means to be an entrepreneur while analysing the success of Apple chief Steve Jobs.

Botton writes, ‘Entrepreneurship depends on a sense that the present order is an unreliable and cowardly indicator of the possible. The absence of certain practices and products is deemed by entrepreneurs to be neither right nor inevitable, merely evidence of conformity and lack of imagination.’

He goes on to say entrepreneurship is not about ‘greed or theft’, and that in ‘its purest form, it is a reward for having correctly interpreted reality ahead of your peers, for having seen possibilities that other folk missed.’

This notion of entrepreneurship may seem to be a tad idealistic, given today’s money-driven world; however, when analysing the success of real game-changers, did they set out to achieve mass profits, or did they want to create something that the general public didn’t even know that they needed or wanted? More likely the latter.

Also, I fall on the side of the fence that believes true entrepreneurs are born, not made, although I do believe that you can develop entrepreneurial traits by training and experience.

They are a force to be reckoned with. They want to pursue their own dreams rather than follow those of others. That is why it is particularly odd when people say they are entrepreneurs, when there is much evidence to the contrary. The Apprentice applicants are famous for it.