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Tag: Entrepreneurs

  • How Nootropics Make You A Better Entrepreneur

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    Just imagine a pill you can take to enhance your points of view, increase your memory, and make you more productive. In it sounds like an ultimate life hack, you’re not the only one.

    There are pills that guarantee that out there, yet how they work is a little complicated.

    These pills are known as nootropics or smart drugs.

    So what are nootropics?

    Nootropics are a class of brain power enhancing supplements that are utilized to enhance focus and help to boost memory. Nootropics are regularly used to increase capacity to focus, help people concentrate more and reduce anxiety.

    You will often observe Nootropics called as “smart drugs” as they are connected with increased intelligence, focus and motivation.

    Be they are not at all like brilliant medications which can frequently bring about negative reactions or side effects with long term use. Nootropics are safe to use and pose a low risk of any side effects if used properly.

    Numerous nootropics have similar systems of working by improving communication between neurons in your brain, adjusting neurotransmitter levels or by balancing brain cell health.

    They also improve metabolism of your neurons, support neuroplasticity, or even support the development of new neurons and neurotransmitters.

    How Nootropics work?

    There are various sorts of Nootropic supplements accessible. Also, there are distinctive classifications and “families” of Nootropics, for example, Racetams and Ampakines.

    Each of these particular supplements work in different ways and have different working mechanism. Given this, there is not one answer to the question “How Do Nootropics Work?” rather a wide range of answers.

    There are however some basic ways in which nootropics work and modulate the neutrons in your brain. One of them is listed below

    Together, the neurotransmitters and the receptors make up a “framework.” There are an immense huge number of these neuronal frameworks inside the mind.

    What a Nootropic supplement does, generally, is to explicitly target and increase the proficiency of those frameworks which result in enhanced cognitive abilities.

    How Nootropics will make you a better entrepreneur?

    The initial step for an entrepreneur is to investigate what they are doing battling against. For some (myself included) it is to enhance focus and effectiveness during the working hours was my primary objective.

    Diehard business people working 18-hour days require to last longer during the day and work normally when sleep deprived.

    This is where nootropic role come into play. Below are the benefits of nootropics that will help you to become a better entrepreneur.

    1. Increase concentration

    Before you consider enhancing your memory capacities, you should first increase your concentration. Nootropics can help with that, particularly in case you can’t concentrate on a particular work over a longer period of time. This is a noteworthy issue with entrepreneurs who encounter inconvenience in concentrating for longer hours of work.

    2. Enhances memory

    It is easy to read and comprehend a specific topic but the vast majority discover it somewhat troublesome to recover data from their memory. Nootropics have appeared to have beneficial outcome on a man’s memory.

    It enhances and repairs all parts of your memory capacities, including the working memory and recall. It additionally supports brain cell development and enhances the connections between the neurons. Aside from these advantages, they additionally repair the neuron, which thusly gives a help in comprehension of data information and recalling it.

    3. Improves brain health

    With busy schedule and poor diet, out brain takes a genuine bashing. Nootropics not only enhance your memory and information investigation but also improves the overall health of brain. They increases oxygen stream to the brain and maintains neurons and brain cells which keeps the brainwaves casual and more effective.

    4. Better mood

    The primary reason behind why many individuals can’t concentrate and focus at a specific task is foul mood. A few studies demonstrate that improper eating habits and sleeping habits can affect your mood. Nootropics can boost and stimulate mood enhancing neuroreceptors which makes your mood better and helps you to concentrate more.

    Conclusion

    Being an entrepreneur is not an easy job. You have to think outside the box that will make your business grow. Nootropics can help you to concentrate more and help you make your product awesome. If with a single nootropic you do not see significant results, you can combine different nootropics to see greater results. This is known as nootropic stacks.

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    Source by Ritika Singh

    Views: 0

  • Enterpriship – The Art and Science of Entrepreneurship, Leadership, and Management

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    Every individual who starts, owns, or is a member of the management team of an enterprise, should strive to build sustainable advantage. Sustainable advantage is essential to value creation because cash flows become predictable and reliable over long periods of time. As a consequence, it is easier to plan for investments in new endeavors and to maintain contingency reserves for downturns.

    Building sustainable advantage requires proficiency in the disciplines of entrepreneurship, leadership, and management. Collectively, these three disciplines embrace “enterpriship.”

    Enterpriship is both an art and a science. Art is an occupation that requires both knowledge and skills; science is method for systematizing knowledge. Through both knowledge and skills, enterpriship provides a systematized approach to building sustainable enterprises by employing the techniques of entrepreneurship, leadership, and management.

    Entrepreneurship is a competency for starting, developing, and assuming risk for an enterprise. Leadership is a competency for aspiring, inspiring, and motivating others. Management is a competency for directing and controlling events and activities – management as a “team” has the authority and responsibility for the enterprise.

    Being proficient in all three competencies requires experience. Entrepreneurs may lack the leadership and management competencies, leaders may lack entrepreneurial and management competencies, and managers may lack the entrepreneurial and leadership competencies to build a sustainable enterprise.

    Upwardly mobile entrepreneurs have to demonstrate to investors that they can build large markets. Lifestyle business enterprise owners, such as dry cleaners, hairdressers, professional service providers, restaurateurs, and retailers, are responsible for everything in their businesses. Executives and managers in larger enterprises are under constant pressure from investors to generate quality earnings on an ongoing basis.

    The enterprise depends upon the use of all three enterpriship competencies as do the employees, customers, suppliers and investors.

    When entrepreneurs start enterprises, they tend to focus on the benefits and features of their products and/or services. Intrapreneurs, who are agents of change in established enterprises, tend to do the same thing. However, focusing on products and/or services alone is insufficient for building sustainable advantage over time.

    Without people there is nothing in business. Processes must be effective and efficient at delivering quality products and/or services conveniently. If an enterprise can’t deliver, a competitor will.

    Hence, the management team collectively must be proficient in entrepreneurial, leadership, and managerial roles that dictate successful people-oriented, process-oriented, and product and/or service capabilities.

    The entrepreneurial role is both process-oriented and product-oriented, through which innovative ideas are transformed into value at every stage of an enterprise’s development.

    The leadership role is people-oriented, through which direction is set that others will follow to achieve results – equally applicable to top-level executives, team leaders within functions, or anywhere in between.

    The managerial role is process-oriented, through which resources (time, materials, and supplies) are applied to activities to achieve results.

    These three roles embrace the planning and policy development, deployment and execution, and performance measurement activities of the enterprise. Deployment means positioning the resources of the enterprise in the best markets for its products and/or services. Execution means getting things done through people and processes effectively and efficiently.

    Unless the management team employs these three enterpriship competencies collectively to address people, process, and product and/or service capabilities, the enterprise will be unable to build sustainable advantage over time, and will ultimately decline, and maybe fail.

    If the management team can systematize building sustainable advantage through the effective and efficient use of people and processes, then there more time to spend on developing the benefits and features of products and/or services. Enterpriship provides the approach…

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    Source by Nigel Brooks

    Views: 1

  • Effortless Entrepreneur – Book Review

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    By: Nick Friedman & Omar Soliman (2010)

    ISBN 978-0-307-58799-2

    Book Price: $17.00

    Multimillion-dollar franchise

    Nick Friedman and Omar Soliman are founders of, “College Hunks Hauling Junk.” This company has become a multimillion-dollar franchise and the nation’s premier junk removal service. Nick and Omar have been named among the Top 30 Under 30 Entrepreneurs in America by Inc., and have been profiled in the New York Times.

    Entrepreneurial success

    Nick and Omar supply readers with 13 chapters leading to entrepreneurial success. They discuss the following topics; the making of an entrepreneur (Ch. 3); creating your business foundation (Ch. 4); building staff and client loyalty (Ch. 7); optimizing your ability to make the sale (Ch. 10); working smarter and playing harder (Ch. 13), etc.

    Passionate pursuit of business dreams

    Nick Friedman and Omar Soliman relate their journey with passion and energy. This book conveys more than a love for building a business; it also exhibits practical steps along the journey. Nick and Omar relay, “As we expanded and built systems that allowed our company to function more effectively, we discovered that we could spend less and less time doing the everyday grunt work… and more time doing the things we really enjoyed… “

    The crux of this book shows how anyone can convert a common serviced industry into a wealthy enterprise. The authors state, “… now we’re trash men. Of course, by trash men we mean we’re Gen Y entrepreneurs in our mid-twenties who understand that trash is cash and transformed a summer gig into a multimillion dollar business.”

    Nick and Omar use challenging words to arrest readers from inactivity saying, “To succeed as an entrepreneur, be prepared to act on your ideas. Otherwise, you’re just another dreamer who wishes and longs and prays to have a business but never gets further than sneezing… people who turn ideas into reality make the difference… “

    Vision motivates! Friedman and Soliman express this key to success through practical examples as they share, “… the more passionate you are about achieving goals, the greater your chance for growth. Our vision was clear when we started… we didn’t blink twice at spending $13,000 to buy our 1-800-Junk-USA phone number… “

    Shift into entrepreneurial breakthrough

    Nick Friedman and Omar Soliman energize readers to shift into Entrepreneurial breakthrough in business.

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    Source by Dr. Steven J. Lynne

    Views: 1

  • Make Money Through Internet Entrepreneurship

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    There are many opportunities in internet entrepreneurship that anyone can utilize to make more money. You can be a laptop entrepreneur where you use your laptop anywhere to do business online at your own pace. This entrepreneurship is flexible and, if utilized efficiently, can enable one to make more money online.

    You can be an expat in another country and still earn money through internet entrepreneurship. You can go anywhere in the world and still do business online as a laptop entrepreneur. The profession is flexible and offers many options. However, it is not for the faint-hearted. Building a brand name on the internet does not happen overnight. It needs someone who is persistent to succeed. Competition is fierce and, therefore, needs one to put more efforts to success online.

    As a laptop entrepreneur, you can choose to do internet marketing, email marketing, social media marketing, web designing, web development, customer support management, article writing, blogging, and programmer, to mention just a few among hundreds of options. There are vast opportunities in these professions while working online at your own pace. However, you need to build your name before you can have a comfort zone of working from home.

    There is a growing demand of web designers online because big companies want an optimal online presence. They want to compete online because there is a large customer base on the internet. Whoever helps these companies to rank high in search engines can get sufficient income. Once you do a good job then many companies will come for your services as a laptop entrepreneur. Your channels will widen and thus making living good for you.

    A laptop entrepreneur who specializes in search engine optimization is also in high demand. Many websites need search engine optimization in order to increase their visibility online. Therefore, someone who excels in SEO can earn a lot of money just by working through internet entrepreneurship. Big and medium-sized companies are willing to cash-out on laptop entrepreneurs who can give them positive results. There is a plethora of opportunities on internet entrepreneurship.

    The other growing trend is seen in internet marketing. Everything is about gaining more traffic online. Companies are willing to pay internet marketers who can help promote their products to a lager customer base online. Opportunities are vast for a laptop entrepreneur. The profession is for someone who enjoys working alone and taking risks associated with internet entrepreneurship. A determined, committed, self-motivated, and self-disciplined person can survive in an online business and, therefore, make more money.

    Article writing and blogging are also good channels to follow as a laptop entrepreneur who wants to maximize earnings online. They are also a form of marketing and generating traffic to websites. There are opportunities for laptop entrepreneurs.

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    Source by Corey Ferreira

    Views: 0

  • 12 Benefits and 12 Challenges of Being an Entrepreneur

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    All over the world, people are breaking free from the traditional employment model and choosing to achieve business success as entrepreneurs. Will you be the next?

    Let’s start by covering 12 of the most commonly-mentioned benefits of being an entrepreneur to inspire you on your journey:

    1. You can choose your own schedule.

    2. You are free to travel.

    3. You can take sick days or vacation days whenever you need them.

    4. If there are necessary tasks you don’t enjoy or have time for, you can outsource them.

    5. You can select your own employees.

    6. Learning to be a better boss also teaches you to be a better employee.

    7. Your innovative ideas have a chance to shine unfettered.

    8. You do not have to wear a uniform or follow a company dress code.

    9. You enjoy better job security than most people.

    10. Entrepreneurship teaches you the benefits of hard work.

    11. You can always feed your curiosity by learning more about every aspect of your business.

    12. Your ambition can always drive you to greater heights and business success.

    As you can see, entrepreneurship is becoming popular because it comes with a whole new lifestyle for those who are willing to seize it.

    Of course, entrepreneurship isn’t all sunshine and freedom. According to the United States Small Business Association, a third of small businesses fail within the first two years, and more than half fail within the first five years.

    Not surprisingly, the challenges of entrepreneurship represent the flipside of the advantages we discussed above:

    1. Choosing your own schedule can result in wasted time without the proper time-management skills.

    2. Even while traveling, it may be necessary to handle work-related crises, because you are basically always “on call.”

    3. There are no paid sick days or vacation days, so you must decide how much each day off is worth to you.

    4. You are responsible for completing any tasks you can’t afford to outsource.

    5. Hiring employees means you must learn how to conduct interviews, uphold workers’ legal rights, and coordinate payroll.

    6. If you don’t yet have the leadership capabilities to direct others, you will be taking a crash course once you hire freelancers or employees.

    7. You must narrow all of your innovative ideas down to the ones that have the most potential to help you achieve business success.

    8. If you don’t maintain a professional appearance in person and online, it is sure to reflect poorly on your company.

    9. You are responsible for funding your business, even if you’re operating at a loss.

    10. Only results are profitable, not time clocked, so it’s possible you will work hard and still end up disappointed.

    11. You must be familiar with each aspect of how your business operates, including those which may not interest you, to ensure everything is running smoothly.

    12. Only you can motivate yourself to achieve business success.

    To sum it up, let’s say that with freedom comes responsibility. If you can’t handle one, you aren’t yet ready for the other.

    Of course, I don’t believe people should give up on their dreams. Just be sure to arm yourself with knowledge and understand what you are getting yourself into.

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    Source by Evelyn Gawlowska

    Views: 0

  • Fast Business Loans – 3 Strategies to the Right Choice

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    Entrepreneurs and business people alike are finding themselves in need of a fast business loan to help shore up working capital as the economy continues to falter. While a loan at a commercial bank may be an option for some, there are a number of factors that prohibit businesses from going this direction for their capital funding needs. Chief among them is the low approval rate and lengthy application process. While these loans may have the best rates and terms, many businesses find themselves with urgent capital needs.

    Consequently, many lenders have entered the marketplace that purport to be “fast business loans”. It is important that all business owners take a very sober and honest appraisal of these types of loans in order to make a decision that will positively affect the outcome of their business.

    1.)Read the Fine Print- Any lender that is claiming to offer “instant business loans” should be viewed with skepticism. Most of these lenders may be traditional “payday” type lenders or signature loan lenders that are trying to capture some of the business market. Usually the loan amounts are very small, often under $5000, and the interest rates and fees may be exorbitant. Never pay a fee upfront to apply for any loan, online or off.

    2.)What is the Loan Purpose?– It may seem obvious, but any business looking for a quick business loan may not be actually considering this question other than “paying a past due bill” or something like that. If the loan is not being used to generate additional revenue, or consolidate bills that will open up additional cash flow, a business person should strongly consider against it, even if they do have an over due bill. Moving debt from one lender to another, often at higher interest rates is a dangerous shell game for any business.

    3.)What is the interest/factor rate?– This one simple fact usually holds up in all forms of lending. The faster you get the money, the more you are going to pay for it. The reason is simple. True dedicated underwriting which helps a lender understand their risk and set the interest rate for the loan accordingly requires documents from the prospective borrower. If a lender is going to forgo this and underwrite the loan purely on electronically available means, it usually means you will be paying a very high interest rate to compensate the lender for this additional risk. Luckily there are options now that can get loan fundings to business owners in 7 to 10 days without paying extremely high interest rates.

    The bottom line for a those seeking fast business loans is, do not let your sense of urgency override good judgment and common sense. Take the time to understand all the terms correctly, and keep asking questions until you get an answer. The consequences may be disastrous for your business and business lenders do not necessarily have your best interest in mind.

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    Source by Neal Coxworth

    Views: 0

  • Book Review Of Millionaire Fastlane

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    Book Review of Millionaire Fastlane by M.J. Demarco

    This book is one of the best books on Entrepreneurship in which the author lays out five commandments to be on the Millionaire Fastlane. According to the author, until and unless the business complies with the five commandments, they are not destined to be successful. These commandments are:

    Commandment of Need, Entry, Control, Scale and Time (NECST).

    Commandment of Need:

    Millionaires affect lives of millions of people by adding some values to their lives and hence are millionaires. If the marketplace does not care about your product or service then it is not going to add value to the marketplace and it is a failed venture before it takes off. So, every business should first figure out if there is a need for the service or product your business is going to deliver or not.

    So, we have seen test products being sold for free to test the water. All they are doing is trying to figure out if there is any demand or not.

    People often start business with wrong reasons. They are good at something and very skilled and open a business about it. But if the marketplace does not care about it, it’s going to be a failure because marketplace is a selfish place. It does not care what you want, what you have, how good you are. All it cares about it is what is it for them. If it adds some value to their lives then they will buy it otherwise not. So, it’s a big eye opener for me and could be for so many budding entrepreneurs.

    Commandment of Entry:

    This is the second commandment to successful business. If the barrier to entry is very easy it means millions will be doing the same thing and you will not have the ability to scale your business but rather will have to decrease the price and compete those millions. Usually war of price harms all the parties. For example if creating a website and writing a blog and generate income is your business then there is not enough barrier to entry unless you try to add something extra value to the marketplace which not anyone else has added yet. An example which the author gives few times is when he thought about starting Limo business. He found it failed both the first and second commandments. There was no need for one more limo business and barrier was very low to enter into this business.

    Commandment of Control:

    If you have no control over your business and you have given entire authority to another party, you are doomed to failure.

    Many entrepreneurs start a company and then hire a CEO or CFO to completely take control of operation or finance. They know nothing about what is going on and that is the recipe to failure. Especially when entrepreneurs do not have any basic financial knowledge like what is loan mortgage, how to calculate simple interest but hire an expert to help them make decisions. Since they themselves cannot take a second look at the decisions made by their advisers, chances are that they might screw up and entrepreneur will have to bear the loss.

    One of the examples given in the book about the benefit of controlling the business is given as the following. If you are a doctor working at a private-care facility it’s natural to think that you are on the fastlane because your magnitude (price/unit) is large and that will increase the net profit and hence wealth. But, the control of the private care facility is not held by the doctors but by the owner. So, it’s him who is on the fastlane not the doctor who depends on his intrinsic value to increase the wealth.

    Commandment of Scale:

    The author gives an example of a burger stall outside a supermarket. No matter how much the owner tries, he cannot scale his business and reach out to customers outside of the supermarket. So, this business violates the commandment of scale. But an e-store that sells some product in the internet has unlimited number of customers and hence has the capacity to scale his business to unlimited level. However, if the entrepreneur can create franchise of any burger store then he has the ability to scale and will be on the fastlane.

    The author gives an example of a quote by the billionaire Mark Cuban who said it only one business to be successful. So, it’s important that we undertake projects which can be scaled up. In baseball terms, take swing for home runs not singles. If you do decide to play singles, you have to replicate the effort many more times.

    The Fastlane wealth equation is:

    Wealth = Net Profit + Asset Value

    Net Profit = Units sold * Unit Profit

    The leverage is created by the units sold. If you are selling burgers on the supermarket lot, you are limiting the leverage and hence you are on the speed limit of 15 mph road. Also, you cannot increase the price of the burger so the unit profit cannot be controlled as well.

    So, either you have to be able to reach millions of people to increase the Units Sold quantity or sell at very high price to extra wealthy clients to increase the unit profit values.

    Commandment of time:

    Time is the scarcest resource we have. Most people spend money frugally and time freely. That according to the author is exactly the wrong way to the road to wealth. Time is limited and money is abundant. Only difference between successful and unsuccessful people is the way they spend their time. The former value each moment of their life and spend it to increase their self-worth. The latter waste it on fulfilling their immediate desires like watching TV series, indulging in games etc. for long period of time etc.

    As per the author, fastlane is not an easy path but sure it should be a fast way to earn wealth.

    As a fastlaner, our goal should be to automate the travel. If you have a business which requires you to dedicate each moment of your life all the time and always have to trade time for money, it’s a job masked as a business. It’s a money tree that never grows.

    It’s normal to work more than 80 hours per week in the starting phase of a business but it’s not normal to work like that for the rest of the life which is a normal for most of the people working normal life. One of the famous quotes from the book which is often used outside as well is about how most of the people define as normal. Normal is to wake up at 6 am, fight traffic, work 8 hours or slave 8 hours Monday to Friday, save 10% and repeat for 50 years. Normal is to believe that stock market will make us rich and fastest car and bigger house will make us happy. The definition of normal is corrupted by the society and we are conditioned to believe that. In short, the author believes, normal is modern day slavery and that’s why only few have the courage and the intelligence to come out of normalcy and drive on a millionaire’s fastlane.

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    Source by Manju Pradhanang

    Views: 0

  • Five Distinct Mindsets of an Entrepreneur

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    I have written in this column before about whether entrepreneurs are made or born (January 18). As I noted in that column, the issue is no longer the subject of debate. Entrepreneurs can be made, that much is clear. Unfortunately, the culmination of that debate begs a new question: What do aspiring entrepreneurs need to learn?

    The most fruitful research into this question has identified a number of cognitive skills that “expert entrepreneurs” possess. Cognitive skills are, in short, unique ways of thinking. Entrepreneurs who have been examined to reveal the cognitive skills they possess are usually NOT able to articulate them. They are aware that they’ve developed capabilities to convert disparate resources into profitable opportunities, but they can’t exactly say how they do it.

    Research has identified distinct patterns in the thought processes in an exceedingly diverse set of entrepreneurs. Scholars have translated these patterns into terms that can be used by people who teach entrepreneurship and, more importantly, those who practice it.

    In another field of study, Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner wrote a book titled “Five Minds for the Future”. The rationale for Gardner’s work is that: “One cannot even begin to develop an educational system unless one has in mind the knowledge and skills that one values, and the kinds of individuals one hopes will emerge at the end”. His book focuses on the five “mindsets” that he believes essential to general education: the disciplined mind, the synthesizing mind, the creative mind, the ethical mind, and the responsible mind.

    While Gardner’s minds are debatable, his perspective that the way people think largely defines who they become is instructive. In light of his work, it seems natural to wonder whether it is possible to identify five specific “mindsets” that are important to entrepreneurial success. My own research has identified five such mindsets: the opportunity recognizing mind, the designing mind, the risk managing mind, the resilient mind, and the effectuating mind.

    The opportunity recognizing mind is cultivated by identifying “pain points” in industry-specific value chains. Expert entrepreneurs rapidly go from spotting a pain point to analyzing the size of the market opportunity. Aspiring entrepreneurs, in contrast, are more likely to extrapolate from limited experience, and they tend to neglect analyzing the SIZE of the opportunity.

    The designing mind has learned how to create repeatable production processes that consistently create valuable output for an identified market. In fact, one of the main differentiators between entrepreneurship and small business is the entrepreneur designs and develops of production processes that do not require his or her constant attention. Small business owners generally enjoy working in their business. Entrepreneurs prefer the design approach of working on their business.

    Risk management is a too-often overlooked element of entrepreneurial expertise. A common belief is that entrepreneurs are risk takers. In reality, entrepreneurs have learned to be highly effective risk minimizers. Where others see intolerable risk, the expert entrepreneur has learned to reduce the risk to an acceptable level. For example, expert entrepreneurs operate according to the “principle of affordable loss” when launching a new venture. They don’t risk more than they can afford to lose.

    The resilient mind is simply the ability to bounce back from the inevitable failures and setbacks that all entrepreneurs encounter. Expert entrepreneurs have learned to distinguish their business failures from personal failure. Without question they still experience disappointment and frustration, but they don’t turn their negative emotions inward. They view their business experiences objectively, and they strive to learn as much or more from their failures than they do from their successes.

    Finally, the effectuating mind is simply the ability realistically to assess one’s talents, situation, and prospects. Any particular entrepreneurial opportunity could be pursued by anyone, but not everyone can pursue each opportunity. Some people simply will be better prepared to capitalize on an opportunity than others. This may be due to their life history, family circumstances, genetic gifts, or other factors. Expert entrepreneurs have learned honestly to assess their own unique talents and to leverage them in pursuit of opportunity. They do not care that others may be better suited to pursue other, potentially more lucrative, opportunities.

    The five mindsets entrepreneurial expertise are targets for lifelong learning and development. No matter your current level of expertise in any of these mindsets it is likely that you have room for improvement. If you deliberately practice and develop skills in these specific mindsets over time, the chances for your entrepreneurial success inexorably will improve.

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    Source by Dr. Thomas Duening

    Views: 0

  • Creativity and Entrepreneurship

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    We will commence our assignment with a discussion of sources of new ideas. We will then examine methods of generating ideas, creative problem solving, the product planning and development process, and then e-commerce. We will then generate several new ideas using brain writing, the checklist method, and free association. We will apply the product development stage to our new ideas and end our discussion with two alternatives to e-commerce.

    Sources of new ideas include consumers, existing products and services, distribution channels and even the Federal Government (Hisrich, 2008). The files of the patent office are full of new ideas and new product ideas can form as a result of government regulations. Research and development is the largest source of new ideas and can occur in a formal lab or in a garage or basement.

    Many methods can be use to generate new ideas. In focus groups, a moderator leads a group of people through open, in-depth discussions. These groups generally consist of eight to fourteen participants. They are stimulated by comments from other group members in creatively conceptualizing and developing a new product idea to fill a market need. Focus groups are also an excellent way to screen ideas and concepts. Problem inventory analysis is another great method of generating new ideas. It uses individuals in a manner that is similar to that of focus groups. Consumers are provided with a list of problems in a general product category and are then asked to identify and discuss products in this category that have the particular problem. This method should be used primarily to identify product ideas for further evaluation.

    Creative problem solving takes the generation of new ideas to a higher level. Brainstorming allows people to be stimulated to greater creativity by meeting with others and participating in organized group experiences. Rules include the following:

    a) Criticism not allowed

    b) Freewheeling is encouraged

    c) Quantity of ideas is desired

    d) Encourage combinations and improvements of ideas

    Brainstorming should be fun and not contain any domination or inhibition of discussion. It is highly effective in groups of six to twelve individuals and can generate ideas about a problem within a limited time frame through the spontaneous contributions of participants. Reverse brainstorming offers a different perspective as it is similar to brainstorming, except criticism is allowed. It is based on finding fault by asking in how many ways an idea can fail. The focus is on the negative aspects of a product, service, or idea. One must be careful to maintain group's morale though. Reverse brainstorming can be used prior to other forms of creative techniques to stimulate innovative thinking and involves the identification of everything wrong with an idea. It is usually worthwhile since is easier for people to be critical about an idea instead of coming up with a new one.

    Brainwriting is a form of written brainstorming and gives participants more time to think than brainstorming. It is silent and each group member writes down three ideas within five minutes. A form is passed around to all participants while a leader monitors time intervals and can even modify them. The Gordon method is another method of creative problem solving and begins with group members not knowing the exact nature of a problem. This ensures that a solution is not clouded by preconceived ideas and behavioral problems. A general concept associated with the problem is mentioned and the group then expresses a number of ideas. A concept is then developed and related concepts are developed. Finally, the actual problem is revealed.

    The checklist method involves the development of a new idea through a list of related issues or suggestions. The following questions demonstrate how the checklist method is used:

    ii.Put to other uses? New ways to use as-is?

    iii.Adapt? What else like this? What could I copy

    iv.Modify? New twist? Change meaning, color, form, shape?

    v.Magnify? What to add?

    vi.Minify? What substitute? Smaller?

    vii.Substitute? What else instead? Other material?

    viii.Rearrange? Other pattern?

    ix.Reverse?

    x.Combine? Blend?

    Free association is another form of creative problem solving and is one of the simplest and yet most most effective methods. It is helpful in developing an entirely new slant to a problem. First, a word or phrase related to a problem is written down. Then other ones are written down and so on. Each new word attempts to add something new to the ongoing thought processes. This creates a chain of ideas ending with a new product idea.

    The product planning and development process is crucial to an entrepreneur's success. One must first establish evaluation criteria by assessing the market opportunity and size. One must evaluate current competing producers, prices, and marketing efforts. New idea should have synergy with existing management capabilities and marketing strategies. The proposed product or service idea should be able to be supported by and contribute to a company's financial well-being. One should evaluate the compatibility of a new product's production requirements with existing plant, machinery, and personnel. Entrepreneurs should be concerned with formally evaluating an idea throughout its evolution. The idea stage involves identifying new product or service ideas while eliminating impractical product or service ideas.

    One must determine the need for the new idea as well as its value to the company to ensure both prior to proceeding with the ideas. The need determination should focus on the type of need, its timing, the users involved with trying the product or service, the importance of controllable marketing variables, the overall market structure, and the characteristics of the market. In the concept stage, a new product should be developed further and refined through interaction with consumers. The refined idea is then tested to determine consumer acceptance. Features, price, and promotion should be evaluated for the concept being studied and any major competing products. The product development stage involves determining consumer reactions to the physical product. An entrepreneur can provide samples in this stage. The final stage of the development process consists of the test marketing stage, which provides actual sales results that indicate the acceptance level of consumers.

    E-commerce is a relatively new concept in the business world and should be used creatively. An entrepreneur must address additional specific issues due to continually-evolving technology. For instance, one must decide if he will run the internet operations of the business or outsource the task to another firm. A website is often created and must be aesthetically-pleasing and fully functional. Ninety percent of small businesses use websites and ease of use is important with websites. The website is a communication vehicle in which search capability and speed are equally important. A website should have a shopping cart, secure server connection, credit card payment processing, and a customer feedback feature. It should be customized for specific target market groups and should be compatible with various browsers.

    The tracking of customer information is vitally important when dealing with e-commerce. This is often accomplished via electronic databases. Doing so supports personal marketing and captures customer attention with customized one-to-one marketing. It is critically important to protect the privacy of individuals when keeping databases.

    When conducting e-commerce as an entrepreneurial company, one's products should be able to be delivered economically and conveniently. Products must be interesting to a large number of people and a company must be prepared to ship products out of its geographic location. Online operations must bring significant reductions in cost as compared to having a store.

    We now turn our attention to the generation of clothing ideas for Libya. We utilized brainwriting with a time limit of five minutes to come up with a new idea. We drafted an adjustable robe for women that can be rolled up and then attached with velcro to shorten it when desired to offer additional clothing and styling capabilities. We then used the checklist method and came up with the following:

    xi.Modify? New twist? Change meaning, color, form, shape?

    a) Can offer robe in multiple colors such as white, red, and blue

    xii.Substitute? What else instead? Other material?

    a) Can make robes out of breathable polyester / nylon material as used in athletic wear

    b) Allows for wicking away of sweat and moisture to keep clothing dry and light in weight

    We then used free association to come up with a list of related words:

    -xiii.cooling, light weight, windproof, light colors, reflective material xiv. End result is metallic-colored fabric that will reflect sunlight like aluminum foil

    We then applied product development stages to the new ideas to formulate a final product concept. We first established our evaluation criteria by assessing market opportunity and size. The population of Libya is 6,173,579, so this will serve as our potential market (Wikipedia, 2009). We then turned to the idea stage to identify new product ideas. These ideas included the following thought process:

    a) Can offer robe in multiple colors such as white, red, and blue

    b) Can make robes out of breathable polyester / nylon material as used in athletic wear

    c) Roll-up velcro to shorten robe for greater cooling and comfort

    d) metallic-colored fabric that will reflect sunlight like aluminum foil

    xv.Eliminate impractical product / service ideas in this stage

    a) Metallic-colored fabric will be eliminated

    b) Reflecting sun can create an oven effect on wearer

    c) Can actually make customer hotter and not cooler

    xvi.Determine the need for the new idea as well as its value to the company to ensure both prior to proceeding with ideas

    a) Multiple robe colors will appeal to different people

    b) Wicking-material robe will appeal to men more

    c) Roll-up robe will appeal to women more

    d) Can result in greater sales and market share

    e) Is beneficial to company to sell more robes while meeting individual needs of customers via mass customization

    We then moved on to the concept stage to further develop and refine our new product ideas through interaction with consumers. We plan on participating in trade shows to present our new ideas. We will display prototypes and obtain feedback from potential customers. Our refined ideas will then be tested to determine consumer acceptance. We will take consumer ideas into consideration and tweak prototypes accordingly. We will then consider the pricing and products of our competition and price our products accordingly to maintain a competitive edge. In the product development stage, we will determine consumers' reactions to the physical product by allowing customers to try our robes on at trade shows. We will then participate in the test marketing stage by proving actual sales results once our products enter the market.

    Alternatives for the use of e-commerce in conducting one of the product development stages for the actual commercialization of our final product idea can involve the creation of a company website that is easy to use. We will incorporate powerful search capabilities while ensuring that our site performs with acceptable speed. We will include a shopping cart, secure server connection, credit card payment, and customer feedback feature in our website. In addition, our website will be customized for specific target market groups and be compatible with various browsers. We will also track customer information by creating an electronic database that supports personal marketing. This will allow us to capture customers' attention with customized one-to-one marketing while protecting the privacy of individuals via strong database encryption. Incorporating online operations will bring significant reductions in cost as compared to having a store. This will allow us to pass savings on to customers via lower prices and greater value.

    Bibliography

    Hisrich, Robert D., Peters, Michael P., and Shepherd, Dean A. (2008). Entrepreneurship
    (7th ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill Irwin.

    Wikipedia (2009). Libya. Retrieved July 23,2009 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libya .

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    Source by Bobby Mobini

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  • 10 Characteristics of a Successful Entrepreneur

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    For many people, entrepreneurship has become the job choice of the 21st century. That's understandable given the challenges and rewards of building a successful business. If you are considering entrepreneurship, you should begin the process by understanding the mental, psychological and behavioral characteristics needed for success.

    1. Positive mental attitude . This is arguably the most important of all the characteristics. You will never be a successful entrepreneur without a positive attitude. The one thing you can be sure of is that you will experience difficult times. Your success or failure will be determined at these times. If you maintain your confidence, persevere and continue to stay positive, you will be successful. Conversely, if you allow doubt and uncertainty to prevail, you will probably fail.

    2. Enjoy being around people . Being a successful entrepreneur means you will continuously interact with a diverse array of people such as customers, potential customers, colleagues, competitors, suppliers, lawyers, accountants and coaches. It really helps if you enjoy being around these people.

    3. Excellent communication skills . Communication can be defined as the accurate exchange of information between two or more parties. This is important because you will have many conversations. You need to be able to accurately exchange information in a fast-moving world using a variety of communication methods (eg, interpersonal, electronic). Of particular importance is the ability to listen and truly understand where another person is coming from.

    4. Have a need to achieve . Successful entrepreneurs are achievement-oriented. They value accomplishment and the intrinsic rewards that go along with achieving difficult goals. It is a strong motivator for most business owners.

    5. Resourceful . Most new businesses have limited resources such as money, information and time. Successful entrepreneurs figure out how to get the most out of these resources. They are masters at stretching a dollar and making a few resources go a long way.

    6. Objective . It is not easy to be objective about your business because you are passionate about making it successful. However, you do need to be impartial and dispassionate when it comes to making business decisions because emotion, bias and sentiment can result in poor choices.

    7. Committed . Building a successful business requires an absolute commitment. It takes a lot of work and there will be times when you become discouraged. It is during these times that you must be steadfast, faithful and committed to your vision.

    8. Dependable . This should go without saying but I will say it anyway. There is a strong positive relationship between your perceived level of reliability and the success of your business. No matter what type of business you have, your customers expect you to be dependable.

    9. Proactive and not reactive . Successful entrepreneurs anticipate problems in advance and deal with them before they occur. If you simply react to problems and issues as they arise, you may get overwhelmed.

    10. Possess technical skills and knowledge . Every business requires unique technical skills and knowledge on part of the owner. You have to be good at what you do for your business to succeed. This often means getting additional education and training on an ongoing basis, sometimes for the purpose of obtaining specific credentials (eg, certifications, licenses).

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    Source by Tyrone Holmes

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