What makes entrepreneurs entrepreneurial?

In this weeks class we had a discussion about how real entrepreneurs act. Do they prepare and plan or do they rather hav a just-do-it approach?

I don’t think, that we got to a conclusion, but Saras Sarasvathy have written some insightful articles about it – discussiong the causation versus effectuation approach to entrepreneurship.

On the website Effectuation.org there are a couple of great articles “What makes entrepreneurs entreprneurial” eand “Effectuation versus Causation”.

From more than a thousand entrepreneurs that I have met, the vast majority – at least 80% – of entrepreneurs have the effectuation approach. They haven’t developed a unique product, and they haven’t made much of a market analysis. They just start a business based on:

- what they are good at

- what they want to do in their life

- where they have a customer base to start on.

They may never grow big – although some do – but they get started fast later the best of them grow big. They focus on where they can sell something today and not where the big markets will be tomorrow.

Filed under: Uncategorized, entrepreneurial process, mindset

Textbook readings I

For those of you who bought New Venture Creation, I recommend chapters 4 and 5 if you want to learn about creating business opportunities (ch. 4 – p. 115-141) and screening opportunities (ch. 5 – p. 169-171).

Chapter 4 has a couple of good exercises – fx. p. 167-168 about Idea Generation.

Chapter 5 has a couple of good exercises for screening and shaping venture opportunities. But relax a bit in the beginning. Develop your idea before you make the tough screening.

Finally I recommend chapter 3 – p. 79-96 for an introduction to the entrepreneurial process.

Filed under: Uncategorized, entrepreneurial process