UNIT 1: THE TEEN ENTREPRENEUR
Lesson One: What is an Entrepreneur?
Objective: Students research and report on an entrepreneur of their choice.
Standard: B1.1 - Analyze the characteristics of successful entrepreneurs.
Entrepreneurship is the imagination, innovative thinking, and management skills needed to
start and operation a business. Entrepreneurs see opportunities and act on them to introduce
new or better goods and services to the market.
Entrepreneurs see opportunities and act on them to introduce new or better goods and services
to the market. They develop new ideas and technologies.
Entrepreneurs take risks by investing their time and money in innovative ideas and products,
knowing they may fail in the market. Entrepreneurs try new methods of management and
organization in the hop that the will be able to use scarce resources more efficiently than their
competition.*
In this lesson, you will research and report on an entrepreneur of your choice. Here are some
possible choices:
Glen Bell
Richard Branson
Ben Cohen/Jerry Greenfield
Simon Cowell
Mark Cuban
Michael Dell
Walt Disney
Debbie Fields
Bill Gates
Howard Hughes
Wayne Huizenga
Magic Johnson
Karl Karcher
Phil Knight
Ray Kroc
Gene Montesano
Pierre Omidyar
Larry Page/Sergei Brin
Donald Trump
Sam Walton
Oprah Winfrey
Michael Zuckerberg
PRESENTATION:
Introduction
Who is your entrepreneur? Give us a brief description of who he is, what he did, and where did
he come from. Provide an opinion about the impact that this entrepreneur has had on the
world.
About the Entrepreneur
What did the entrepreneur do? Explain to us about the goods or services that this
entrepreneur has had on the world. Describe what the market was like before the entrepreneur
came out with the good or service and what happened afterwards.
Challenges:
What were some problems that the entrepreneur faced? Explain to us about some difficulties
that the entrepreneur has faced in the beginning. Explain who some of the competitors are and
explain whether or not any chances had to be made with the good or service before it became
successful. Some entrepreneurs actually fail before becoming successful.
In the present day:
How is the entrepreneur doing now? Explain to us about whether or not the entrepreneur has
gone on to do other things in his career. Are there threats from new competition? Is the
current company branching out and starting to develop new and different products?
Conclusion:
Without using personal pronouns like “I,” “my,” and “me,” give us your opinion about the
impact that both the entrepreneur and the goods and services have had in our world.
Evaluation:
After writing your research paper, you will create a 6 slide Presentation about your
entrepreneur. You will present your Presentation to the class.
Slide 1 = Presentation Page
Slide 2 = Introduction – Who is the entrepreneur
Slide 3 = What did the entrepreneur do?
Slide 4 = What were some problems that the entrepreneur faced?
Slide 5 = How is the entrepreneur doing now?
Slide 6 = Conclusion – How do you feel about the entrepreneur and the good and/or service
produced?
Your Presentation should have a different colored background.
You should include at least an image or two per slide, and there should not be more than 3
bullet points,
*quoted from JA Economics textbook, JA Worldwide, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 2007