CAIG Center For Entrepreneurship

CONTENTS Opportunities and the Opportunity Analysis Canvas   How can I use this book? What are Entrepreneurial Opportunities? What is Strategic Decision Making?

"There is nothing more powerfull than an idea whose time has come". - Victor Hugo, poet, novelist, and dramatist At the time of this writing, this is the number of resutls when searching for business plan books on Amazon.com. As we need the business idea before writing the business plan, aspiring entrepreneurs require insight and direction on how to identify and analyze entrepreneurial ideas. This book stands alone in its focus on integrating entrepreneurial thinking, seeing and acting upon entrepreneurial opportunities. It will help you find that idea from which to build a company.  What is an opportunity? In this context, the term opportunity refers to the potential to create a new venture. This can be a fro-profit company, a non-profit company, a venture within an established company or organization, or any related venture that creates value for the customers and the owners of the venture.  Why are there millions of missed opportunities? In retrospect,...

This book’s structure aligns with the opportunity analysis canvas, as each of the nine steps are addressed in a dedicated chapter. The focus of each chapter is to first introduce you to the topic. This provides a background on the subject, and emphasizes its relationship to entrepreneurship. Tools including self-assessments, research databases, and reference materials are highlighted. Tips and techniques are then presented for how to develop your skills and knowledge. Next, a feature entrepreneur is profiled. Lastly, challenge questions are posed for you to develop your opportunity analysis abilities.  These nine steps are explored in three parts: Steps 1 – 3 -  Thinking entrepreneurially: Thinking in this context is influenced by individual mindsets, motivations, and behaviors. Part I addresses these first three steps of the opportunity analysis canvas. This sets the stage for the subsequent chapters on seeing entrepreneurially.  Steps 4 – 7 - Seeing entrepren...

"Don't start a company unless it's an obsession and something you love. If you have an exist strategy, it's not an obsession". - Mark Cuban, American businessman, investor, and owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, Landmark Theatres, and Magnolia Pictures.    To explore the roles of entrepreneurial thinking and opportunity identification, an introduction to entrepreneurial opportunities is in order.  As we examine entrepreneurial opportunities, we're going to expend this chapter discussing the foundational elements of entrepreneurship. we'll also explore modern interpretations of the term entrepreneurial opportunities and discuss emerging opportunities. Casson defines entrepreneurial opportunities as "those situations in which new goods, services, raw materials, and organizing methods can be introduced and sold at greater than their cost of production". Drucker classifies entrepreneurial opportunities into three categories: ...

When you're first thinking through an idea , it's important not to get bogged down in complexity. Thinking simply and clearly is hard to do. Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin Group (400 + companies including Virgin America, Virgin Atlantic Airways, Virgin Cola, Virgin Galactic, Virgin Media, Virgin Mobile, Virgin Money, and Virgin Records)      As we examine decision making , and specifically strategic decision making, we'll explore the term in an entrepreneurial context. We'll continue our discussion of Amazon, and the elements that motivated them to select the product categories that they began with. We'll also introduce the concept of cognition, and connect cognition to the entrepreneurial process.      Decisions typically share a similar path. We recognize a problem. We generate alternatives. We evaluate those alternatives. Then, we select the alternatives that best satisfies our evaluation criteria. This is true for many different types of dec...

CONTENTS Entrepreneurial Mindset Entrepreneurial Motivation Entrepreneurial Behavior      With an appreciation for the opportunities and challenges of strategic decision making, you can explore the next chapters on entrepreneurial mindset , motivation , and behavior as the first three steps of the Opportunity Analysis Canvas.  Retrieved from: The Opportunity Analysis Canvas - Edition 2.0

Part of the challenge of being an entrepreneur, if you’re going for a really huge opportunity, is trying to find problems that aren’t quite on the radar yet and try to solve those.- Sean Parker Co-founder of Napster and First President of Facebook. Why is the entrepreneur at the heart of entrepreneurship?      While I will introduce the role of market opportunities, technology changes, and other factors in entrepreneurship, it is important to recognize that the person, the entrepreneur, is at the heart of the matter. Without the entrepreneur, there is no entrepreneurship. This is why an understanding of the mindset of entrepreneurs is critical to understanding how to develop and launch successful ventures.      By exploring the components of the entrepreneurial mindset, you can understand exactly who are entrepreneurs . Entrepreneurs can be independent individuals, intensely committed to persevering in starting and growing a venture. The...

Motivation is everything. You can do the work of two people, but you can’t be two people. Instead, you have to inspire the next guy down the line and get him to inspire his people. Lee Iacocca Past President and CEO of Chrysler. Entrepreneurial motivation encompasses the factors by which goal-directed behavior is initiated, energized, and maintained. For entrepreneurial strategic decision-making, three factors are emphasized: self-efficacy, cognitive motivation, and tolerance for ambiguity. Retrieved from: The Opportunity Analysis Canvas  Do you have high self-efficacy?      As we turn our attention to entrepreneurial motivation, we're going to start the conversation with a discussion of self-efficacy. Specifically, we'll examine how self-efficacy impacts you and your motivations, and how to improve your personal self-efficacy.     Self-efficacy is your belief in your ability to accomplish a specific task. It intersects an element ...