What is entrepreneurship? Is it for me? How do you assess the potential of an idea? How to develop your idea into a $1M opportunity? How do you develop a business plan? How can you be an entrepreneur in a corporate environment? Should passion be the main factor motivating you, or is there a point to stop? How do you run a business with a small budget?
These are a few of the questions which the course on Entrepreneurship by Prof. Jan Lepoutre helped us to answer.
The course started with everyone talking about their previous entrepreneurial experiences. Entrepreneurship is not just about establishing a new business; it’s about exploring an opportunity, learning in the process of doing and managing risks simultaneously. Running a successful business is not just based on chance or luck. Failures or hurdles are the part of the process and one should know how to tackle and implement appropriate contingency plans.
Developing an entrepreneurial mindset - Keeping the ultimate goal in mind
We learned that entrepreneurial thinking is effectual as one needs to imagine possible new ends using a given set of means. If there is an unexpected situation, then turning that into an opportunity serves well. The goal is to maximize profit for the whole value chain (all the people involved), not for an individual to whom the idea belongs or who stated it.
Always trying to put things to action is the best way to ascertain your ideas and helps you understand the feasibility and viability of the plan. Therefore, start with whatever resources are available in terms
of knowledge, competencies, budget, and network. When it comes to business, risk is a huge part of pursuing anything new. One should know how to manage that risk over time. Uncertainty could be managed by talking about ideas.
Importance of your network
Another observation from the course was that your network plays an important role as through these connections one could leverage the knowledge they could offer, expand collaborations, and grow further.
Anything is possible!
From the ideation stage of trying to find a need of an expat in France, we learned that it doesn’t take many resources to start with something. There were various needs like finding a hairdresser familiar with your taste, finding people with similar cultural backgrounds to connect with, getting things from your home country which are difficult to find here, etc. I am inspired by the abundance of opportunities out there.
We also had an opportunity to interview some successful entrepreneurs. The common learning was that all of them started with the minimum resources available and were able to successfully grow
because they pursued regardless of the hurdles by figuring out ways to make things work.
From learning about how to gather resources for running a business to how a powerful pitch should clearly state the concept and consequence, the course covered everything. It’s important to emphasize how the idea creates value.
From learning about how to gather resources for running a business to how a powerful pitch should clearly state the concept and consequence, the course covered everything. It’s important to emphasize how the idea creates value.
To conclude, I would say that the course has been a surprising and inspirational journey. It has pushed me to pursue something cause close to my heart in the future.
We would like to thank Professor Jan Lepoutre for making the course interactive and insightful.
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