Excursion 2

I have chosen to reference all non-specific third persons in the book as “she” or “her.” This is a purely personal choice for this book. The majority of entrepreneurs, globally, are male; it is, in my personal opinion, appropriate to encourage girls and women to be entrepreneurs, just as we have encouraged girls and women to explore opportunities in previously male-dominated fields like STEM and medicine.

I use the word “entrepreneur” throughout the book to refer to someone, anyone, who is doing one or more of the following:

• Identifying an opportunity
• Serving as a change agent
• Thinking about starting a new organization
• Starting a new organization
• Growing an organization
• Changing an existing organization to address a new opportunity

There is no value in rehashing 100 years of academic arguments between economists and organizational scholars about whether an “entrepreneur” is distinct from a “manager” or “businessperson,” much less whether entrepreneurs exist at all (see note below). I believe that I have observed, spoken to, and been an entrepreneur. I therefore use the term in its widest sense to simplify the text. For similar reasons, I tend to talk about “businesses,” but everything about “business models” can (and perhaps should) be applied to any organization, including not-for-profits, governments, and educational institutions.

Finally, the book was commissioned and published by Pearson Education in the UK. As such, the book utilizes UK-English spelling. This website is my own creation; despite living and working in the UK for years, I tend to revert to American English for spelling. Any inconsistencies between the language in the book and the language on this website are entirely my own responsibility.