I found the readings on entrepreneurship that we completed over a period of 12 weeks to be quite insightful. The readings focused on several aspects of entrepreneurship: what is meant by an entrepreneur, what are the characteristics common to entrepreneurs, how a business idea can be developed, the importance of a business plan and the components of it, why financial considerations are paramount and why sources of capital must be managed carefully, why and how to apply growth strategies, how to create entrepreneurs even when the company has grown into a large corporation, the avenues for social entrepreneurship, why and how family businesses foster entrepreneurship, and what are the perspectives beyond the success of an enterprise.
The readings on the characteristics of an entrepreneur agreed that there is no single definition of the word entrepreneur . There is no specific character set either. People who are quiet may be as enterprising as gregarious people, people who are eloquent are not the only people who can become entrepreneurs, neither is a friendly demeanor and an ability to get along with people the only marker for the entrepreneur . Entrepreneurs are people who have an idea, and the tenacity to build up the idea, to bring it to fruition without giving up. Even when an idea fails, an enterprising person simply goes back to the drawing board or goes and learns more about it. Along with a willingness to take calculated risks is the willingness to learn. All successful entrepreneurs listen to advice, watch how other businesses function and learn from every opportunity. They also foster networks either old professional networks or create new networks as they go about setting up their business. Most importantly, they all have a plan and contingency plans.
I was most impacted by the Week 6 readings which related to the aspect of planning in any enterprise regardless of size. I thought that more than any other lesson this was the most critical, perhaps as critical as understanding how to manage finances in a business. All other readings that we covered in the following weeks related to growth strategies, social entrepreneurship and so forth are hinged on the success of a venture. The success of a venture is dependent on how well it is planned.
It was an eye-opener to learn that there are so many stages to planning a business; it is little wonder that many businesses want to avoid this step. It can take quite a while and the temptation is to eschew the process and get ‘down to business’, as it were. It is clear from the readings that no matter how painstaking, planning should always be done; not just plan A but plan B as well (this being the fallback plan). Planning starts the minute we have an idea. How to develop the idea also requires some planning, in that we need to decide on the best method for developing the idea – brainstorm, use focus groups, use the checklist method . Once we have the idea, the next step is to understand who are we targeting with our business and get about developing and writing the plan. The guidelines given in the reading about what headings need to be included in the plan are really useful because it saves time for me. I can focus on doing specific research and start writing. I am sure as I start putting findings on paper, my plan will become stronger. Risk assessment is essential. By doing this I will come to know what are the loose ends which will help me make my plan robust.
Financial feasibility and planning is again critical. I need to know whether my investment will create returns and if so when I will break even and when I will start seeing profits. Although it may seem a little overreaching to project a balance sheet even before I have started a business, when I read about business failures I realize most of them were struggling with cashflow the most.
Even if I were to open a food cart business, I should know what is the latest demand in terms of food people want to eat, which locality I should target, where I should procure ingredients, what should be the pricing, how many orders I need in a day to have money to rotate, how much of the ingredients I should buy to avoid wastage, and if I am not able to meet the required number of orders, what can I do with the leftover ingredients.
References
Hirsrich, R., Peters, M. & Shepherd, D., 2013. Creativity and the Business idea. In: Entrepreneurship 9th Edition. s.l.:McGraw Hill Education, p. 112.
Kirby, D. A., 2002. The Nature, Characteristics and Behaviour of the Entrepreneur. In: Entrepreneurship. s.l.:McGraw Hill Education, p. 86.
Timmons, J., Gillin, L., Burshtein, S. & Spinelli, S., 2010. The entreprenurial mind. In: New Venture Creation: Entrepreneurship for the 21st Century : a Pacific Rim Perspective. s.l.:McGraw Hill Education.
