exponentiation - What are exponents? Idea behind exponents(complex or real)?

I recently came through an article which said that $e^{\iota x}$ means that a $e$ gradually increases every moment by a factor of $\iota x$ perpendicular to the real part which I took as a force of $\iota x$ is applied perpendicular to a string of length $e$ same as in circular motion but the expression $e^{\iota x}$ has radius $1$ instead of $e$ in complex plane.
I'm very confused with the idea behind exponents.