Field Observation

Entrepreneurship does not begin with an individual decision, a product idea, or a company registration.

It begins earlier, at the level of discourse.

What enables entrepreneurship is not merely action, but the gradual formation of a language environment in which action becomes legitimate, intelligible, and accountable.

From Individual Expression to Action

At the individual level, discourse first functions as a way to stabilize thought.

An individual speaks, writes, or designs language not to persuade others, but to make a position coherent enough to act from.

At this stage:

  • language organizes intention
  • responsibility remains personal
  • consequences are local and reversible

Most individual ideas never pass this threshold.

They remain private cognition rather than actionable structure.

Transition to Shared Meaning

Entrepreneurship requires discourse to cross a boundary: from private coherence to shared intelligibility.

When others can:

  • recognize the terms being used
  • understand the implied commitments
  • anticipate the direction of action

discourse becomes socially legible.

This is the point where coordination becomes possible.

The individual is no longer acting alone, even if still formally alone.

Emergence of the Community Layer

As discourse stabilizes across multiple participants, it begins to function as a coordination substrate.

At the community level:

  • language aligns expectations
  • norms begin to form implicitly
  • responsibility becomes distributed

Importantly, no formal organization is required at this stage.

What exists is a shared semantic field in which actions can be interpreted consistently.

This field is fragile but generative.

When Discourse Becomes Structural

A critical transition occurs when discourse starts producing consequences beyond the individuals involved.

This happens when:

  • commitments persist over time
  • decisions affect non-participants
  • errors accumulate rather than dissipate

At this point, language is no longer just communicative.

It becomes structural.

Entrepreneurship, in this sense, begins before any company exists.

The formation of a company is not the origin of entrepreneurship, but its formalization.

Legal incorporation crystallizes what discourse has already produced:

  • stable roles
  • transferable responsibility
  • recognized authority to act

The corporation is a semantic compression of prior discourse.

It externalizes accountability and allows action to scale beyond personal trust.

Field Note

Entrepreneurship is often described as an individual act.

In practice, it is a discursive process that moves through layers:

  • individual coherence
  • shared intelligibility
  • community coordination
  • structural consequence
  • legal embodiment

Without discourse capable of carrying responsibility across these layers, entrepreneurship cannot occur.

What is commonly called “starting a company” is merely the moment when discourse acquires a legal shell.

The entrepreneurial act has already taken place.