1. Give a brief profile of a typical entrepreneur.
-An entrepreneur is someone who creates a new business in the face of risk and
uncertainty for the purpose of achieving profit and growth by identifying
opportunities and assembling the necessary resources to capitalize on them.
-Entrepreneurs are motivated most by a desire to control their own destiny, reach
their own potential, make a difference, reap unlimited profits, and enjoy what they
are doing.
-Social
The idea of an entrepreneur starting his own business might imply an individual
who prefers to work alone; however, research indicates that entrepreneurs are
often social people. Starting a business requires contacting people to generate
funds, purchasing materials from suppliers, hiring employees and developing social
networks in which to promote the business.
Motivated
Entrepreneurs not only must be self-motivated, but they must possess the ability to
motivate others, even in times of stress and potential failure. There is frequently
very little, if any, financial payoff in the initial stages of starting a business, and an
entrepreneur must have passion for his idea and a strong desire to see the project
through. He should also be goal-oriented, able to set goals and to encourage his team
to constantly strive to meet them.
Integrity
An intrinsic understanding and adherence to strong ethics is a vital characteristic of
an entrepreneur. While an unethical business owner sometimes experiences
immediate success through deception, such as selling a poor-quality product, he will
lose clients and employees in the long run.
Creative
Entrepreneurs are naturally creative individuals who are constantly coming up with
new ideas. This is a never-ending process; once the business is up and running and
products or services are being sold, an entrepreneur studies consumer reaction,
conducts market research and works to improve what his business is offering to
stay successful.
Inquisitive
Staying on top of the competition and constantly innovating requires asking
questions, participating in continuing education workshops, attending conferences,
and learning from mistakes. An entrepreneur must be confident and have the ability
to recognize when and where he can make improvements to his company, then take
action.
Willing to Fail
There is no such thing as a risk-free start-up business. Entrepreneurs must be
willing to take those risks and deal with failure when it happens. If he fails, rather
than giving up, a true entrepreneur will evaluate his actions, determine where he
can make improvements and make a fresh attempt.
What is the primary motivation for the typical entrepreneur?
Entrepreneurs are motivated primarily by the desire to create something new, the
desire for autonomy, wealth and financial independence, the achievement of personal
objectives. The excitement of entrepreneurship and importantly, most
entrepreneurs’ objective was never money for its own sake, but they wanted to leave
a legacy in the form of a profitable long-lasting business.
2. Discuss the potential benefits and drawbacks of entrepreneur.
Some potential benefits and perks of becoming an entrepreneur:
a. A flexible schedule: As an entrepreneur, you have the opportunity to break out of
the 9-to-5 cycle and create your own schedule. Start your day early if you’re a
morning person, work later in the day if you prefer evenings, and take an afternoon
jog whenever the fancy strikes.
b. Autonomy: there is a link between autonomy and job satisfaction. It turns out that
employees who have more control over their work tend to be more engaged and less
emotionally exhausted. Just another perk of being your own boss!
c. Creating a career that aligns with your values: Entrepreneurship allows you to
fashion a life and career that directly align with your core values, like helping others,
saving the environment, or putting family first.
d. Constant growth and development: Starting a company forces you to constantly
improve your skillset, from marketing to closing deals to creating Excel reports.
There is always more to learn and apply to your business, which can prevent
complacency and encourage constant professional growth.
e. Meeting like-minded people: By becoming an entrepreneur, you will join a group
of ambitious and helpful people who believe in bettering themselves and the world.
It isn’t hard to imagine that these connections will push you to become a better
person along the way.
f. Unexpected and thrilling experiences: If you are considering becoming an
entrepreneur, you probably appreciate the value of the unexpected. Not knowing
exactly how the day is going to play out when you wake up is exciting, especially when
compared to the predictable and monotonous schedule of a traditional office job.
Another related benefit: responding to unexpected situations teaches you to live in
the moment and be more present.
g. Choosing who to work with: Entrepreneurs can choose which clients to work with,
employees to hire, and partnerships to pursue. If having control over business
relationships appeals to you, the entrepreneur life may be the perfect fit.
h. Greater self-confidence: Nothing boosts your confidence more than battling selfdoubt and coming out on top. Many entrepreneurs become more confident in their
self-sufficiency as time goes on and they see what they are truly capable of.
i.
Leadership experience: Self-discipline, communication skills, passion, optimism,
patience, and unrelenting work ethic. Building a company from the ground up hones
these leadership traits, which means that entrepreneurship can transform you into
an inspiring leader both professionally and personally.
Some Drawbacks of Entrepreneur
a. You have to persevere when it gets really tough so your salary will be
irregular, subject to the needs of the business.
b. You have to love it and have passion otherwise you are going to fail so you
have to love the fact that you are always on call and that the business owns
you, not the other way round.
c. Being an entrepreneur sometimes mean having to travel a lot or wear
multiple hats which can take a lot of time and energy away from other things
like relationships or hobbies.
d. While your friends are out enjoying nightclubs or watching entire seasons of
shows on their Netflix accounts with their significant others on a Friday night,
you as an entrepreneur are spending long hard hours working often late
nights or on the weekends.
e. Entrepreneurs also take a lot of risks Sometimes these risks can be scary and
sometimes hard for family members and friends to support or wrap their
head around.
f. The isolation and entrepreneurs sometimes feel while they’re pursuing
their dreams can be hard to deal with.
g. One drawback can be that this is difficult to attain, large networks can take a
long time to build and can sometimes be difficult to maintain or create
depending on your location, skills, or experiences.
h. It can be hard to maintain close relationships for entrepreneurs who stay very
busy however it’s not impossible.
i.
Sleep can be hard to come by as an entrepreneur, but with careful planning,
you can avoid missing too much.
j.
It’s a lot of worrying, constantly what you stress about will be different and
wide ranging and you will be called on to make all the decisions.
3. Discuss the role that the following groups are playing in leading
the ongoing surge in entrepreneurial activity:
a. Women: A woman entrepreneurship refers to a business or organization
started by a woman or a group of women. Women are highly motivated and
empowered nowadays. It is said that women bring stability to a household.
And when a woman is made the head of a business, she brings stability to the
start up too. Women entrepreneurs are playing a crucial and substantial role
in the economy in the modern world.
b. Minorities: The number of businesses in our minority communities continues to
grow, adding to our competitive advantage. Yet, despite that growth, there is still
a disparity when it comes to access to capital, contracting opportunities and
other entrepreneurial development opportunities for minority-owned firms.
c. Immigrants: Immigrants to Canada drive economic development and
innovation through their participation in entrepreneurship. While governments
have established programs to support highly skilled immigrants and
entrepreneurs to drive economic development, immigrants still face many
barriers to establishing and growing their own businesses.
d. Part-time Entrepreneurs: are the best of both worlds and can ease into a
business without sacrificing a steady paycheck and benefits.
e. Home-based Entrepreneurs: Many entrepreneurs start their businesses at
home. Home Based start-ups are blooming nowadays as it is convenient to work
from home.
f. Family Businesses: The people who start an entrepreneurship with their family
is a family business. The main advantage is that the people involved here can
trust each other. It can become an intimate business initiative that can prove
beneficial and profitable in the long run.
4. Describe the small business failure rate.
Many small businesses have inexperienced management and lack financial stability.
These businesses suffer a mortality rate significantly higher than that of larger, more
established businesses because of managerial inexperience and the limited resources
available to support the business when it is in need of cash.
What are the primary causes of business failures, and what steps
can an entrepreneur take to avoid becoming a business failure
statistic?
1. No market demand
It’s all good and dandy to be confident in the usefulness and attraction of your
business’s product or service. But if there isn’t a real demand for what you’re selling,
your business is bound to fail. In fact, 42% of failed businesses site this as the reason
for their crash. The service may have an objectively positive impact on one part of a
market, but if it’s too niche and doesn’t address a more widespread demand in that
market, there simply won’t be enough people out there spending their cash on your
concept.
What can be done?
Study the state of the market, research where the demand exists, and come up with a
plan to fill an existing gap. Is there enough of a customer base? Is your product or
service scalable? Is it profitable? The answer should be yes across the board.
2. Not enough money
In the last year alone, more than 44% of businesses that have applied for funding did
so because they needed help meeting operational expenses. Add to that the fact that
29% of start-ups reportedly fail because of a lack of cash and it becomes clear that a
shortage of money has a serious impact on small business failure rates.
What can be done?
Statistics illustrate just how hard for many small businesses to get approved for
business loans. In recent years though, fantastic innovations have been made in the
field of fintech. Those developments have opened financial possibilities that were out
of reach for small businesses just a few short years ago.
3. Lack of effective marketing
The days of spinning signs and sticking flyers underneath windshield wipers are gone
(or at least one can hope!). While those are effective strategies to market a lemonade
stand or a hotdog cart (not to knock either one of those), they’re not effective when it
comes to marketing a business that you want to grow into a real money-maker. a
whopping 14% of small businesses fail as a result of a shoddy marketing strategy.
What can be done?
First and foremost, any and every small business will want to social media
marketing into their overall marketing strategy. That in-and-of-itself will help
business owners avoid becoming part of small business failure rate statistics. The
reasons to use SMM are abundantly clear: It’s free
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The audience is humongous
Connect with customers organically
Develop trust and reputation
Market insights directly from customers
4. Being out of touch with customers
Developing a successful business plan means addressing the needs of your customers.
If you can’t or don’t identify where your customers place their value, you’ll be taking
shots in the dark. And, even if you’re lucky enough to score a couple of hits, chances
are they’ll be few and far between (and likely won’t be bullseyes).
What can be done?
Communicate effectively with your target customer base to gain a deep
understanding of what they want, why they want it, and the best way to meet those
desires. You can do that by conducting surveys, encouraging customer reviews, or
simply engaging in dialogue with existing customers. This is an ongoing process – as
the market changes, so will your customers, and so must you and your business.
5. Poor leadership
Long-term business success relies not only on a strong workforce but also (and
maybe even more so) on competent leaders. It happens too often that early success
can go to a business owner’s head, and as a result they become too relaxed in their
role as leader. As the owner of a business, losing concentration not only can have a
negative impact on how finances are managed, but also on employee morale. This is
a cause of a business failure that should not be underestimated.
What can be done?
Resolve whatever issues are causing your distraction. Yes, it’s easier said than done.
But, if you truly desire to see your business succeed, you’ll do whatever it takes to get
your priorities in line. Whether you have a hard time communicating with employees,
spend too much time ‘playing’ and not enough time working, have troubles at home,
etc. – there’s always a solution that will help you meet your responsibilities as a strong
and capable leader.
5. Who is Richard Branson?
His name is synonymous with success. Sir Richard Branson is the perfect example
of an individual who never let his limitations stop him from getting what he wants.
He founded the Virgin Group of companies and is a business magnate, philanthropist,
and investor. He is one of the most respected billionaires in the world. Sir Richard
Branson manages more than 400 companies through the Virgin Group. Having
dropped out of school at only 16 years old to build his first business, Richard has
decades of experience in the fields of business and life.
What are some of the learnings that you have acquired based on the
video and his own story?
1. There are no limits on what you can accomplish.
The billionaire astronaut is .71 years old and dyslexic, again showing that age and
disabilities don’t have to limit your dreams. In fact, he credits his dyslexia with
arming him with the skills for imagination. Branson is a role model for people with
learning disabilities or older workers, again showing that it’s never too late to try
and the only limits to our accomplishments are the ones we put on ourselves or
allow others to place on us.
2. Follow your dreams and never give up.
Never giving up on your aspirations comes with rewards, as Richard Branson
showed since he made spacecraft out of cardboard boxes as a young boy. After a
certain number of setbacks, it’s natural for self-doubt to move in, causing us to
accept dashed dreams. But once you realize it’s your negative thoughts—not the
reality of the world—that gets in the way, your dreams can be fulfilled. The
awareness that it’s not the setback that imprisons us but the way we think about
it can free us from our mind traps and self-doubt. From the ancient Chinese
Philosopher Confucius, who said, “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as
you do not stop”
3. When people say bad things about you, Just Prove them Wrong
When your name starts to become even remotely recognized in the world, there
will always be people who will have some sort of problem with you. It could be
because they’re jealous, they have nothing better to do, or they’re competitors that
are scared you’ll soon be overtaking them. In Branson’s words, “I think the best
thing to do is just to prove them wrong in every single way”, and he’s done just
that.
4. You Can’t Run a Business Without Taking Risks
The business world is filled with risks, and you can’t go through life not taking a single
one, otherwise you’ll get nowhere near where you want to be. It’s incredibly difficult to be
able to achieve success when you’re playing it safe all the time. Besides, even walking out
of the house every day has its risks. Sure, risks may not pay off, you may fail, but failure
is the path to success.
5. Don’t Give up
Kind of an obvious one I know, but far too many people quit because they’ve given it
a go for a few months and haven’t seen any results. If running a successful billiondollar business was easy, then everybody would be doing it, right? There are always
going to be momentary struggles where you feel like you want to give up, but you
have to push through these and keep on working.