entrepreneurial journey is

2.1 Overview of the Entrepreneurial Journey

Learning objectives.

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Explain the entrepreneurial journey to explore and discover entrepreneurship as a career choice
• Identify the steps, decisions, and actions involved in the entrepreneurial journey
• Recognize the rewards and risks of the steps in the entrepreneurial journey

Self-Employment as an Entrepreneurial Journey

When the economy and the job market are strong, the entrepreneur has a safety net that decreases the risks in creating a new venture , a startup company or organization that conducts business or is created to satisfy a need, and allows for a quick recovery if the venture is not successful. There are more new startups when there are high levels of confidence in both the venture’s success and the entrepreneur’s confidence in finding employment if the venture fails. People over 40 years of age account for most new startup activity, in part because of the continuing trend in which a business may choose not to hire an employee but instead hire an independent contractor , a person who provides work similar to an employee without being part of the payroll for the contracting business, and who is responsible for paying their own taxes and providing their own benefits. With previous knowledge and expertise, this group of entrepreneurs recognizes opportunities created by this move away from hiring full-time employees to more outsourcing to independent contractors. One contributor is the gig economy , which involves using temporary and often transitional positions hired on a case-by-case basis, rather than keeping a full staff of hired employees. Advantages for the employer include a decrease in cost of benefits and loyalties to specific employees. Advantages for the hired worker or independent contractor (sometimes called a freelancer ) include no long-term commitment and flexibility in accepting contracts. From an entrepreneurial perspective, the creation of websites that support the gig economy offers opportunities for independent ventures. Many people today are becoming small entrepreneurs. This process goes by a variety of names, such as the sharing economy , the gig economy, the peer economy , or the collaborative economy . Maybe it means driving for a company such as Lyft , Uber , or GrubHub , or perhaps offering services through TaskRabbit , UpWork , or LivePerson . The projected numbers of independent contractors and on-demand workers are stated as 42 percent for small businesses by the year 2020, a growth of 8 percent from current figures. 1 And a projection of greater than 50 percent of the workforce will be independent contractors by 2027 if this trend continues at the current pace. 2 In the “Freelancing in America: 2019” report, the sixth annual study by UpWork and Freelancers Union, 57 million United States citizens are estimated to freelance, with income approaching 5 percent of US gross domestic product (GDP) at nearly $1 trillion and earning a median rate of $28.00 an hour, representing an hourly income greater than 70 percent of workers in the overall US economy. 3 One report found that 94 percent of net job growth from 2005 to 2015 was in alternative work categories, with 60 percent due to independent contractors and contract company workers. 4

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of self-employed Americans is growing, with 9.6 million self-employed people at the end of 2016. That number is expected to grow to 10.3 million by 2026. 5 A more recent study by FreshBooks’ second annual “Self-Employment” report predicts that 27 million US employees will leave traditional work in favor of self-employment by 2020, tripling the current population of full-time self-employed professionals to 42 million. The main driver for this change in the workforce is a greater desire for control over one’s career with the ability to have greater control over working hours and acceptance of work. 6 , 7 Of course, self-employment is a broad category that includes small-business owners as well as entrepreneurial startups and freelance gig employees. Since 2016, there has been a downward slide in the number of employees working for self-employed businesses, which results from a variety of factors, including difficulties in finding qualified employees, qualified employees having more employment options, such as employment through the gig economy, outsourcing activities, and technology actions that decrease the need for employees, with entrepreneurial activity remaining steady. 8

Entrepreneurship around the World

In a 2017 Business Insider article, “America Needs Immigrant Entrepreneurs,” David Jolley writes that immigrants constitute 15 percent of the US workforce and 25 percent of the country’s workforce of entrepreneurs. 9 Forty percent of startups include at least one immigrant. Jolley’s article cites a study that identified immigrants as twice as likely to start a business as people born in the United States. In 2016, 40.2 percent of Fortune 500 companies were founded by at least one immigrant or a child of immigrant parents. Dinah Brin, writing for Forbes , stated in a 2018 article that immigrants form 25 percent of new US businesses and that new immigrant-owned firms generated 4 to 5 million jobs. 10

These statistics and other findings have prompted countries such as Canada to revise their immigration policies to attract more entrepreneurial-minded immigrants. A World Bank report from May 2018 ranked the United States 53rd out of 190 countries for ease in starting a business, with higher scores representing greater ease. 11 The same report ranks the United States eighth for ease of doing business. The difference in these rankings indicates that once a business is established, factors such as regulations, permits, access to credit, and infrastructure support the business owner’s ability to continue the business, but actually starting the business is more challenging. For any given country, ease in starting a business and the country’s interest in supporting entrepreneurial activity are crucial in both attracting entrepreneurial people and supporting their ability to open a business. Imposing restrictive regulations and processes on new ventures significantly decreases the number of new ventures.

According to a 2018/2019 report, the highest rate of entrepreneurial activity worldwide in 2018 was in Angola at 41 percent. 12 Angola’s low-income economy meant fewer employment opportunities, creating pressures to find other ways to earn an income. Guatemala and Chile reported 28 percent and 25 percent of entrepreneurial activity, respectively, with medium- and high-income economies. These percentages are quite high, considering that these economies offer employment opportunities in existing companies. In terms of innovation, India at 47 percent, and Luxembourg and Chile at 48 percent each, take the lead in offering new products and services not previously available. This entrepreneurial activity reflects the ease of starting a business. The Netherlands, Poland, and Sweden were reported as the easiest countries in which to start a new business, in part because many people in those countries view entrepreneurship as an attractive lifestyle. As you can see, both economic opportunities and a country’s specific support for entrepreneurial behavior contribute to the number of people who enter entrepreneurial activities.

From a gender perspective, there are currently over 11 million woman-owned businesses in the United States. This number includes both small business owners and entrepreneurs. Thirty years ago, there were only 4 million woman-owned businesses. 13 The number of woman-owned businesses has increased 45 percent between 2007 and 2016, five times faster than the national average, with 78 percent of new women-owned businesses started by women of color.

Starting Your Entrepreneurial Journey

How do you fit into this entrepreneurial journey? This chapter will help you to explore and discover your potential for entrepreneurship as a career choice. Think of this exploration and discovery experience as a way to map out a strategy to reach your goals or dreams. Let’s imagine that your dream vacation is a hiking trip to Glacier National Park in the US state of Montana. Just as hikers have different levels of experience, so do entrepreneurs. Just as your plan for a wilderness hike would involve many stages, your entrepreneurial journey involves multiple levels of self-discovery, exploration, experiences, and accomplishments on your way to success. For our purposes, the term entrepreneurial venture means any type of new business, organization, project, or operation of interest that includes a level of risk in acting on an opportunity that has not previously been established. For each story of entrepreneurial success that is shared—such as that of Facebook or Airbnb—there are even more lesser-known entrepreneurial success stories such as Zipline , a company that delivers medical supplies in Rwanda and Ghana by drone. These entrepreneurs faced the same dilemmas in pursuing their passion, or opportunities, which led them to their entrepreneurial destiny. They courageously stepped out of their comfort zones to explore the possibilities that lie ahead. What is the difference between entrepreneurs and you? The main difference is taking that first step. Many people have ideas that fit into the definition of an entrepreneurial idea but never take that first step. Just as the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu suggests, every journey begins with a single step.

Are You Ready?

Taking the first step.

Go to Fire Nation’s website on taking the first step to learn more. Changing your mindset (your perception of yourself and your life situation) and encountering trigger events (significant external situations) can nudge you into taking the first step toward being an entrepreneur.

• Is there a venture you’ve always thought you should start but never did?
• Think about what factors are stopping you. Consider your mindset and how you might change your mindset so that your venture could become a reality.
• What are some possible trigger events that could make the difference between starting your venture and waiting to start your venture?

Opening your future to the possibility of starting your own venture brings new and exciting experiences ( Figure 2.2 ). Every entrepreneur moves through several steps in considering the entrepreneurial journey. Once you understand this journey, the steps will help you define your path toward creating and starting your new venture. Each step of this process offers another level of understanding that prepares you for long-term success. How will you achieve this success? By taking one step at a time, exploring and learning, considering new ideas and expectations, and applying these experiences to achieve your personal outcome. Think of the entrepreneurial journey as a guide to knowing what is in store for you as you start your new venture.

One benefit of outlining a step-by-step process is the opportunity to explore different paths or behaviors that may lead to an entrepreneurial venture. Think again of your dream visit to Glacier National Park. How would you get there? What equipment would you need? What kinds of experiences would you expect to have? Think of the Glacier National Park journey as your entrepreneurial journey, a metaphor intended to help you as you create your career as an entrepreneur.

What makes someone ready or willing to choose entrepreneurship over becoming an employee of an established business or a small business owner? It takes confidence, courage, determination, resilience, and some know-how to select entrepreneurship as a career as well as the recognition of the opportunity. An entrepreneur is defined as someone who not only recognizes an opportunity but who also is willing to act on that opportunity. Both actions are required. We might identify an opportunity, but many people do not act on the idea. Confidence, courage, and willingness are necessary to take that first step, as well as remembering the following:

• You are unique. Even if two similar people attempted to launch identical ventures, the results would likely not be the same. This is because each one of us has different ideas, approaches, available resources, and comfort levels, all of which influence the venture’s development and eventual success.
• Although there are no hard and fast rules or theories of the best way to launch into entrepreneurship, we can gain wisdom from the lessons learned by experienced entrepreneurs.
• Selecting an entrepreneurial career requires honesty, reflection, and a tendency to be action oriented. You will need to recognize your own strengths, limitations, and commitment as part of that honesty. Reflection is required for self-growth—seeking improvements in your own skills, interactions, and decision making—and commitment is required to maintain consistency in your willingness to make the new venture a top priority in your life. You will also need to understand that you cannot accomplish everything by yourself, and you may need to ask for help. It helps to be curious, open, and able to take calculated risks and to be resourceful and resilient when faced with challenges or obstacles.

Entrepreneurial Potential Self-Assessment

Take this quick Entrepreneurial Potential Self-Assessment to assess your potential to become an entrepreneur. After completing this self-assessment, what new information did you learn about yourself? Do you think your answers will change as you acquire more life experiences and education? Why or why not?

Optimizing Interest Areas

What are three areas that interest you? These could be hobbies, work activities, or entertainment activities. How would someone else describe your skills and interests, or what you are known for? Answering these questions provides insights into your strengths and interests. Next, what is one area that you are passionate about? What strengths could you bring to this passion to build your own business?

Keep an open mind in looking for an opportunity that fits your strengths and interests. If you decide to explore entrepreneurship, what would be your first step? What are your initial thoughts about being an entrepreneur? What would you review or search to find more information on your idea or area of interest? With whom would you first question or discuss this idea? Why?

The Entrepreneurial Journey as a Trip

The entrepreneurial journey is your exploration to discover if entrepreneurship is right for you. Every entrepreneurial journey is unique; no two individuals will experience it in the same way. Along the way, you will find opportunities and risks coupled with challenges and rewards. It’s useful to think about the entrepreneurial journey as an exciting trip or other adventure. Most of the preparations and steps involved with planning a trip are like those for starting a venture. Just as you would plan and prepare for a trip—starting with inspiration and leading up to finally traveling on the trip—you might follow similar steps to launch a venture. And just as you would prepare for any challenges that you might encounter on a trip—bad weather, lost luggage, or detours—so you should consider potential obstacles or barriers along your entrepreneurial journey ( Figure 2.3 ). Think of these difficulties as opportunities to learn more about the entrepreneurial process—and about yourself and how you manage challenges.

Developing a venture can be an exciting and active experience. It is also a lot of hard work, which can be equally rewarding and enjoyable. Here we present the entrepreneurial journey as seven specific steps, or experiences, which you will encounter along the road to becoming an entrepreneur. You’ll find more information about the entrepreneurial journey in other chapters in this book.

• Step 1: Inspiration – What is your motivation for becoming an entrepreneur?
• Step 2: Preparation – Do you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur?
• Step 3: Assessment – What is the idea you plan to offer through your venture?
• Step 4: Exploring Resources – What resources and characteristics do you need to make this venture work?
• Step 5: Business Plan – What type of business structure and business model will your venture have?
• Step 6: Navigation – In what direction will you take your venture? Where will you go for guidance?
• Step 7: Launch – When and how will you launch your venture?

As you work through each step of the entrepreneurial journey you should prepare for significant aspects of this experience. You will meet with rewards and challenges, the consequences that result from the decisions made at various points along your journey. To visualize the steps of the entrepreneurial journey, imagine your possible hiking trip to Glacier National Park ( Table 2.1 ). Just as hikers have different levels of experience, so do entrepreneurs. Compare the following aspects of preparing for a hike with aspects of your entrepreneurial journey.

Step 1: Inspiration

When you think of being an entrepreneur, what is the inspiration for your venture? Just as you might have an inspiration for a hiking trip to Glacier National Park, you will have an inspiration behind the decision to become an entrepreneur. When you’re planning a trip to a new and exciting place, one thing you might do is to imagine what you will experience along the journey and on arriving at your destination ( Figure 2.4 ). This portion of the entrepreneurial journey includes imagining yourself as an entrepreneur or as part of an entrepreneurial team. For this stage, you need a creative, open, and innovative state of mind, also known as an entrepreneurial mindset , which is discussed in more detail in The Entrepreneurial Mindset and Creativity, Innovation, and Invention . Dream big about your potential future and opportunities ( Figure 2.5 ).

Step 2: Preparation

Just as when you are preparing for a trip, you need a plan ( Figure 2.6 ) to move forward on your entrepreneurial journey. Before your dream hiking trip, you might gather information about Glacier National Park from a trusted source, such as a good friend with travel experience, or you might conduct online research. Your friend’s feedback could be just the motivation you need to try this experience yourself. Or you might use your research to determine if the trip is possible. You will need to look at maps, either online or on paper. Either way, you might also consider travel and accommodation options, such as booking a flight and finding a place to stay. You might want to create benchmarks to align your journey with your available resources, such as the amount of time and the amount of money you have to spend on the trip. Benchmarking is a method of tracking target expectations with actionable results by comparing one’s own company’s performance with an industry average, a leader within the industry, or a market segment. Benchmarking can help design the trip to meet incremental goals and timelines. From both a travel plan and an entrepreneurial perspective, although benchmarking is used as a control mechanism, we know that situations can arise that require an alteration in the plan, causing the benchmarked items to also need adjustments.

Link to Learning

Which type of benchmarking will help you the most in beginning your entrepreneurial journey? Visit the American Society for Quality’s resource page on benchmarking for help.

To plan for an entrepreneurial journey, you should first conduct some preliminary research regarding your venture idea. Your research must be honest and objective if it is to give you a clear picture of the venture. Next, you might organize and prioritize your research and thoughts. For instance, you might see an idea like yours online or on television, and feel disappointed that someone stole your great idea or beat you to the punch. This is a common occurrence in entrepreneurship, but it should not discourage you. Instead, use that knowledge and energy to find an overlooked or different aspect of your original idea. The difference might even be the focus on a different target market , a specific group of consumers for whom you envision developing a product or service. Further, it is critical to maintain a fluid focus upon expanding the scope of a product or service to uniquely differentiate provisions of benefits apart from existing benefits or those offered by competitors. A focus on a different target market is exactly how the Jitterbug smartphone was created, because it targeted senior citizens. The Jitterbug smartphone offers a larger screen, larger buttons, and simpler features that make it easier for older people to make quick calls or send texts.

Preparation also includes opening space in your life to the time and energy commitment needed to support your new venture. Are the important people in your life willing to support the interest and passion you will need to dedicate the time, energy, and other resources to this new venture? Review the questions shown in ( Figure 2.7 ) to consider your answers to these questions. Preparation through research and other activities is discussed in more detail in Identifying Entrepreneurial Opportunity .

Step 3: Assessment

Now that you have decided where to go for your trip and have gathered information to prepare for it, the next action is to create and set your schedule. This action is simple but critical, because it involves connecting and coordinating information and resources that fit your lifestyle and needs. For example, you might schedule an early-morning Uber or Lyft to the airport and electronic delivery of your plane tickets to your smartphone. For the entrepreneurial journey, this phase might also include recognizing appropriate relationships and gathering needed resources. For many entrepreneurs, the opportunity to receive guidance from trusted advisors or mentors may provide valuable insights on how to manage the process. This step allows for reflection on your idea and intentions. After you’ve done your researching and gathering knowledge about your idea through the preparation step, is the idea still viable? Is the idea still interesting to you? With a better understanding of the industry, your idea, and your own interests that you gained in Step 2, is this idea something that you still want to explore? This step is discussed more fully in Problem Solving and Need Recognition Techniques with deeper coverage on the topic of opportunity recognition ( Figure 2.8 ).

Step 4: Exploring Resources

Regardless of where you might travel, you could not complete your trip without adequate resources such as available financing. There are many ways you might fund a hiking trip: savings, loan, pay-as-you-go, sponsorship (family or friends), or any combination of these options, to name a few. No matter how you finance your trip, it might help to have a balance of available credit and cash on hand to support your day-to-day expenses and any extracurricular activities or even unforeseen emergencies. As discussed in Entrepreneurial Finance and Accounting , the US Small Business Administration (SBA) provides funding opportunities.

This scenario is mirrored in the entrepreneurial journey. Just as you wouldn’t begin a trip without adequate resources, including access to cash, you wouldn’t begin your entrepreneurial journey without the necessary resources, including cash. The options between funding a trip and funding a new venture are similar, but they have different names. For example, on a trip, you might use the cash you have on hand, from savings or a personal loan. For an entrepreneurial journey, you might address cash management —management of cash inflows and outflows to support cash needs of the venture—to include bootstrapping , a funding strategy that seeks to optimize use of personal funds and other creative strategies (such as bartering) to minimize cash outflows. (See Entrepreneurial Finance and Accounting for more information on bootstrapping.) Bootstrapping includes ideas like leasing instead of purchasing, borrowing resources, or trading unneeded resources for needed ones. Another example of cash management includes a business model that offers subscriptions rather than a payment received for an item purchased. Subscriptions provide the entrepreneur with cash up front, with the buyer receiving benefits throughout the year. Consider the example of Amazon. Amazon offers Prime with a yearly subscription service, as well as Subscribe & Save , Amazon Instant Video , Amazon Mom , and Amazon Web Services , all based on a subscription business model.

According to Entrepreneur.com, other potential subscription-based models include services or products geared to older consumers, with 8,000 people turning sixty-five every day. A similar idea offers services to college students. Both ideas would offer family members a subscription that sends monthly gifts or products to either the elderly person or college student. We also see this model offered to pet owners who pay a monthly subscription to receive treats and toys for the family dog. Looking back at Amazon, we see the company offering the ease of repeat purchases for frequently used products such as vitamins and air filters.

Entrepreneur In Action

Prospurly is a subscription-based company that uses Cratejoy ’s subscription platform to sell small-batch artisanal products for bath, body, and home, marketing a natural lifestyle focused on the happiness of living a simple and appreciated life. Conduct your own research on Prospurly and other subscription-based businesses. Read the article, “How I Built a Subscription Business That’s Made over 50k in 6 Months,” on Cratejoy for more information about this company and Prospurly’s move from ideation to profitability.

Other ideas for finding funding include applying for grant funding. The importance of cash and cash management requires in-depth coverage, which is presented in Entrepreneurial Finance and Accounting and Business Structure Options: Legal, Tax, and Risk Issues .

The idea of exploring resources includes many other options besides how to fund a new venture. In a trial run , you would offer your product or service for sale within a limited market on a test basis to evaluate what additional resources are needed to support the success of the venture ( Figure 2.9 ). Examples of places where a trial run fits well, depending on your product, include farmers markets, in-home sales, or through friends and family. The idea is to track the feedback you receive about your product or service. How do people react to the price, the quality of the product, the packaging? You can experiment by selecting one variable to adjust—changing the price, the packaging, the sales pitch, the presentation, or the quantity—to track reactions and make improvements based on this feedback. You may then decide to adjust other variables to gather more information, as well as considering what other resources are needed for the success of the new venture. Financing and ideas to preserve your financial stability are discussed more fully in Entrepreneurial Finance and Accounting .

Step 5: Business Plan

The ability to travel and visit new locations is a privilege and a great opportunity to gain exposure to new experiences and opportunities. In addition to the work involved in preparing for a trip, the act and process of traveling involves constant decision making to achieve your desired goals and outcomes. For instance, should you travel to one location in Glacier National Park and explore that area in depth? Or should you attempt to visit as many areas of the park as possible with your given resources and abilities?

The challenge at this step of your entrepreneurial journey is to remain focused on managing your resources to meet your goals and outcomes as you write your business plan for your new venture. You will need to focus on the skills, experience, and resources necessary for your venture, and the management and decision making required to ensure success and adjust your plan based on changes and new information. Just as you might find a location in Glacier National Park where you want to stay for a couple of nights, a deviation from your original business plan (discussed in Business Model and Plan ) will also require adjustments and changes based on new information and insights.

Be honest with yourself by running a reality check about your ability to manage a venture, especially from a personal-capacity perspective. For example, if you start a business, will it be a part-time or full-time venture? Will you start while in school? Or will you wait until after graduation? The timing of opening the venture can be the difference between success and failure. Consider the difference between hiking in Glacier National Park in the middle of winter, when the daytime temperature is thirteen degrees below zero, and hiking in the middle of summer, when the daytime temperature is seventy-nine degrees. The timing of your visit to the park is an important part of your enjoyment and success in reaching your destination. In planning for your trip, you would pay attention to your departure time to ensure enjoyment and success in your adventure. Similarly, as part of your business plan, you would also research the best time to open your venture.

Finally, during your travels, getting lost, overwhelmed, or sidetracked is always possible. If you get lost when traveling, you might refer to social navigation apps such as Google Maps , Waze , or HERE WeGo , to find turn-by-turn directions and information. Or you might refer to a weblink, a printed map, or a local expert or guide familiar with the area. The business plan is your map. You should identify decision points and milestones , significant key accomplishments, in your plan. Milestones could include points such as hitting your breakeven point , the point at which income from operations results in exactly enough revenue to cover costs. If the financial projections in your business plan are unattainable, what is your next move within the plan? If you don’t reach the milestones identified in your business plan, what alternative choices can you make to redirect your venture? The business plan, in its first draft, should inform you whether your venture has a chance at success. If there are negative areas, what can you change? Building this plan before starting the business provides you with knowledge and insights about your idea. Make any necessary changes to the plan to strengthen the possibility of success. Then when you open the venture, track whether the reality of the venture aligns with your business plan’s projections and expectations. The business plan functions as both a road map to help you see where you are going next in building your venture and as a checklist to track whether you are on course or need to make adjustments. When entrepreneurs get off track, they can check out self-help websites, speak with a business coach or counselor, or contact local agencies or organizations, including those affiliated with the federal SBA. Organizations that offer free (or low-cost) small business counseling, mentoring, and training, include:

• SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives): https://www.score.org/
• Small Business Development Center (SBDC): https://www.sba.gov/offices/headquarters/osbdc/resources
• Women’s Business Center (WBC): https://www.sba.gov/local-assistance/find/?type=Women%27s%20Business%20Center&pageNumber=1
• US Export Assistance Center: https://www.export.gov/welcome
• Veterans Business Outreach Center (VBOC): https://veteransoutreachcenter.org/
• Other organizations include locally organized support such as pop-up entrepreneurial schools like PopUp Business School (https://www.popupbusinessschool.co.uk/) and https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/this-free-program-trains-people-how-to-start-a-business-but-without-debt

These and other resources will be discussed in more depth in Building Networks and Foundations . Look at the review questions and the discussion questions at the end of this section to prepare for creating your business plan. Business plans ( Figure 2.10 ) are discussed more fully in Business Model and Plan .

Step 6: Navigation

Once you’ve completed your trip, reflect on the experiences you had. No matter how well you feel you have planned, there is no way you can prepare for all of the potential challenges, changes, and obstacles that may occur: missed or changed flights, poor weather, an unexpected illness, a trail or road closed for repairs, or sudden good fortune. What parts of the trip went well? If you ran into a problem, how did you handle it? Was the problem something you could have anticipated and planned for? Or was it unexpected? What did you learn from the experience? If you were planning a trip to another national park, what would you do differently in your planning stage? Just as seasoned travelers adjust to their circumstances and learn from their experiences, so should you, as an entrepreneur, learn to adjust by meeting and managing challenges head on.

After completing your business plan, you will probably need to adjust your plan ( Figure 2.11 ). You might decide that you will not have enough resources to survive the time until your venture reaches the breakeven point, or you might determine that the location you selected is no longer available. There are multiple variables that require further exploration and research.

By nurturing an entrepreneurial mindset , you will be better prepared when opportunities, challenges, or obstacles surface. Although you won’t be able to predict or plan for every potential scenario along the entrepreneurial journey, an entrepreneurial mindset helps you to be resourceful when opportunities, challenges, or disappointments occur. By unpacking, or by taking an inventory of your available resources, you can also get a better picture of what you may need to unload, retain, or discard, or even if a new direction is the best course of action. On your entrepreneurial journey, evaluating the experience or situation is a perfect opportunity for you to determine how realistic, overambitious, or shortsighted your dreams and goals for your venture may be. This chapter will explore your vision for your future and your venture. Does your vision include a level of flexibility when you discover new information that supports exploring a new area?

Step 7: Launch

The actual launch is the exciting event when you open your business. By this point, you have made improvements to your product through feedback received in your trial run; you’ve identified the value or benefits provided by your product; you’ve identified your target market; and you’ve identified the location of your launch, whether it is a geographical location or an Internet location.

Inc . magazine provides an analysis of the best locations to launch a new venture, with Austin, Texas, taking the lead (see “Surge Cities: These Are the 50 Best Places in America for Starting a Business,” in Suggested Resources ). Consider your target market and the resources necessary to support your venture when choosing the location for your launch. Advice from within the entrepreneurial world suggests that sometimes the launch should take place “under the radar,” meaning in a location where you can make mistakes, fine-tune your business model and offerings, and even become successful without competitors noticing that you have created a disruption within the industry. (You will learn more about this in Launch for Growth to Success ).

Even as you are launching your venture, many variables will require your attention, just as we covered in Step 7. Navigating through these variables as your venture grows requires constant attention as new potential opportunities arise.

Sixto Cancel and Think of Us

Sixto Cancel successfully faced the harsh challenges of aging out of the foster-care system without adult support or guidance. He imagined a better foster-care system for young people then cofounded the firm Think of Us. Think of Us is a platform that helps young people in foster care build their own personalized digital advisory board of supportive adults who act as a virtual life-coaching group. The adults guide the young people through the foster-care system and ensure that they are able to become independent when they leave the system at age eighteen. For more information about this venture, visit www.thinkof-us.org.

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• 11 “Ease of Doing Business Rankings.” Doing Business . May 2019. http://www.doingbusiness.org/en/rankings
• 12 Niels Bosma and Donna Kelley. “Global Entrepreneurship Monitor 2018/2019 Global Report.” GEM Consortium . January 21, 2019. https://www.gemconsortium.org/report/50213
• 13 Gary Stockton. “Statistics and Obstacles Facing Women Entrepreneurs.” Experian . January 29, 2018. http://www.experian.com/blogs/small-business-matters/2018/01/29/statistics-and-obstacles-facing-women-entrepreneurs/

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• Book title: Entrepreneurship
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The 5 Stages of Entrepreneurship

Published: January 25, 2023

Entrepreneurship isn’t for the faint-hearted. Of course, the thrills of creating an effective business, working on your own terms, and enjoying financial freedom are rewarding. However, turning your idea into a profitable business is no simple task.

There will be hurdles to overcome. However, depending on your business idea, it may take months or years to scale these challenges and reach the finish line. Sadly, most entrepreneurs never see success. Nearly 75% of startups fail, according to Harvard Business Review . 

The good news: Your business doesn’t have to be another casualty. In this post, you’ll learn the five stages of entrepreneurship and the common pitfalls you should avoid in each. You’ll also see real-life examples of entrepreneurs at each stage. 

What are the five stages of entrepreneurship?

The “Five Stages of Entrepreneurship” is a simple framework that helps new founders to understand the entrepreneurship journey. The stages include ideation, planning, execution, scaling, and hypergrowth.

The Five Stages of Entrepreneurship

Starting a business can seem like a daunting task. That’s especially true if you start the process without a roadmap. 

The Five Stages of Entrepreneurship divide the startup journey into more manageable chunks. Each stage of your entrepreneurial enterprise will come with unique challenges. You’ll also need to complete certain foundational steps to set your business up for success. 

Below, we explore the five stages of entrepreneurship and the common challenges to expect at each stage.

Stage 1: Ideation

Ideation is the first stage of every entrepreneurial journey. The goal here is to identify and validate a profitable business idea.

Here are three common ways entrepreneurs develop ideas: 

• Considering what they’re passionate about. For a role model, turn to Nike Co-founder Phil Knight . His interest in shoes and sports strongly influenced his decision to start the athletic shoe company.
• Identifying a problem in an existing market. This is how the idea for Uber came about. Travis Kalanick and Garrett Camp were returning from a LeWeb, an annual tech conference. It was a cold winter night, and unfortunately, they couldn’t get a cab. So they asked themselves, “What if you could request a ride from your phone?” The rest is history.
• Focusing on niche markets . A niche market is a small, underserved segment of a large and established market. Jacamo, for instance, is a clothing retail company targeting larger (and taller) men who typically struggle to find large-sized, fashionable clothes.

After an initial brainstorming session, you’ll need to narrow your scope and focus on one idea. We’ll explain how you can validate concepts below. 

Idea Validation

Ensuring the viability of your idea is essential. When you confirm the market need for your product, you avoid the risk of pouring your resources into a business idea that’s a dud.

Most entrepreneurs skip this crucial step. They assume there’s a market for their product without validating their hypothesis. The result? They build a product that no one wants, causing their businesses to die in infancy. 

A CB Insights Report reveals this is one major reason businesses fail. Don’t make the same mistake. If you’re unsure of a market’s potential for your idea, think twice before committing resources to it.

How to Validate Your Business Idea

One way to validate your idea is to evaluate the performance of similar businesses. A perfect example is Chanty. 

Chanty is a communication and team collaboration app that went head-to-head with companies like Slack. When Chanty came on the scene, Slack was already dominating the market and raking in millions of dollars in revenue. This proved to Dmytro Okunyev, Chanty’s Founder, that they could get a slice of the market. 

You can also validate your ideas during discussions with trusted peers. As David Darmanin , Founder of Hotjar, says, “Step one of validating an idea is reaching out to your personal networks and gauge response. This differs from approaching friends and family who will always want to be nice to you.” 

You can contact your network via email, social media, and many online communities. Done right, you can get free and unbiased advice that’ll help you iterate on your business idea quickly.

The lean start-up methodology also provides a comprehensive approach to testing business ideas. To learn more about the lean start-up, read this book by entrepreneur Eric Ries .

Stage 2: Planning

Just as architects need building plans to construct a new building, entrepreneurs need business plans to create successful businesses.

Developing a business plan helps you estimate costs, identify risks, and set up risk mitigation measures. A written business plan is even more essential if you’re seeking investors in your company. Potential investors want to see the extent to which you envisioned your business. 

For this reason, put lots of thought into your plan, create a document that’s thorough, and consider your long-term goals. 

Note that you don’t need to write a 37-page business plan or have a 15-year forecast before you begin building your business. As Mark Zuckerberg said , “Ideas don’t come out fully formed. They only become clearer as you work on them. You just have to get started.” 

So if you don’t have a five-year vision of your business yet, don’t let that stop you from taking the first few steps while you flesh out the big picture.

Stage 3: Execution

Like a plane stuck on a runway, many budding entrepreneurs often generate some momentum, but they never lift off. As a result, many innovative ideas never become a reality. 

The fact is, ideas are a dime a dozen, but execution is rare. To succeed, you’ll need to become adept at putting a plan into action.

At least once per day, I hear a great business idea (often web3). But then I tell people -- Excellent, you have a great idea... now you have to execute on it! Most people fail at this stage, and can't turn a great idea into great execution -- which is what really matters — Brian D. Evans (@BrianDEvans) May 16, 2022

Starting a business is risky and scary. And that feeling of uncertainty — the fear of failure and of making mistakes is one of the major reasons entrepreneurs hesitate to execute. 

If you’ve identified and planned out your big idea, you’re probably filled with the excitement of “what could be” and the fear of “what if it doesn’t work?” simultaneously. 

You’re not alone. Founders like Dmytro Okunyev had these mixed emotions, too. 

I wasn’t very certain that my idea would work, but step by step, small win by small win, I gained that confidence. Now we are in the ivy league of communication platforms. #chanty #software #marketing — Dmytro Okunyev (@dmytrookunyev) February 12, 2021

Today, Chanty is thriving because Dmytro mustered the courage to move forward with his plans despite the uncertainties. 

So, recognize that your plan isn’t foolproof. You will make mistakes. But just as you can’t paddle a boat tied to the dock, you can’t steer your business toward your vision until you launch and tackle your mistakes head-on.

As Mark Zuckerberg explains : “Don't even bother trying to avoid mistakes because you're going to make tons of mistakes… The important thing is actually LEARNING QUICKLY from whatever mistakes you make and not giving up.”

Moving too slow or too fast is dangerous. So caution is necessary either way. Develop a good sense of when to act fast, get rid of your desire for perfection, and know when to slow down.

Will Rogers, a popular American vaudeville performer, puts it more humorously: “Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”

The bottom line: business is trial and error. Make peace with the fact that you’ll make mistakes. Take small calculated bets. Learn from the resulting failures and move forward. 

If you believe in your idea, you’ve tested it, the timing feels right, and you have assembled your team , then launch!

Stage 4: Scaling

At this point, you’ve successfully launched your business, you’ve achieved product-market fit , and sales are steady — but your business hasn’t reached the heights you imagined. You desire to expand faster. 

So you face an important question: “Should you bring in external investors and give up equity or bootstrap your business, i.e. self-fund through personal savings, debt, or customer funding?”

Founders of successful companies often bootstrap in their early days, but eventually, they accept outside investment. However, outliers like Spanx bootstrapped their way to a unicorn valuation after founder Sara Blakely started the undergarment company using only $5,000 of her personal savings.

Bootstrapping relies on a lot of sweat equity. This can mean taking on more stress than an investor-funded company. Blakely, for instance, learned to write her own patent from reading books so she could save $3,000 in legal fees. 

Bootstrapping has a huge but sometimes overlooked upside. Besides giving you full control of your business, the lack of capital forces you to find smart ways to grow your company.

Heavy funding covers up problems that ought to be obvious to the founders. Paradoxically, this sometimes leads to start-up death. On the flip side, accelerated growth is one major benefit that investor-backed start-ups enjoy. GitHub , an internet hosting service for software development, is an example of a business that scaled fast , thanks to external funding. 

Tom Preston-Werner, Chris Wanstrath, and PJ Hyett founded GitHub in 2008 and funded it for four years. In 2012, they got their first VC investment of $100 million and raised another $250 million in 2015. By October 2018, their annual recurring revenue was between $200-$300 million. Microsoft bought GitHub for $7.5 billion in the same year.

Whether your bootstrap or get investor backing, three factors are crucial for scaling your business quickly:

• Building effective systems. A system is a structure that fuels the smooth running of your business without your presence or supervision. These systems clearly outline how your company operates.
• Learning to lead. Learn to sell a vision to your team. You must be able to inspire others to act. This way, you leverage other people’s talents and experience to achieve results. Alone, you can only go so far.
• Track your profitability. It’s not unheard of to find a business with $50 million in revenue but $200k in profit. That’s why you shouldn’t focus on growing sales alone. Instead, obsessively track your margins and brainstorm ways to increase them.

To learn more about how to build systems, read:

• The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It
• Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You 

Stage 5: Hypergrowth

Hypergrowth is a season of rapid and exponential growth that companies experience as they scale. Specifically, an organization experiences hypergrowth when its Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) exceeds 40% and remains so for at least a year, according to the World Economic Forum . 

For context, “normal growth” companies have a CAGR of 20%. “Rapid growth” companies have a CAGR of 20% to 40%. Some companies that have achieved hypergrowth include Amazon, Slack, Stripe, Zoom, Uber, and Bolt.

Achieving hypergrowth is desirable but challenging. One common setback is the risk of employee burnout from overwork. A prolonged period of unprofitability is another prevalent challenge. 

Amazon, for instance, was unprofitable for its first 20 years . It became profitable only in the mid-2010s. If investors had pulled out or stopped injecting cash into Amazon, its collapse would have been inevitable.

However, “Jeff had earned so much faith from his shareholders that investors [were] willing to patiently wait for the day when he decides to slow his expansion and cultivate healthy profits,” writes Brad Stone in his acclaimed book, The Everything Store.

This pattern of pursuing hypergrowth at the expense of short-term profitability is the norm with high-growth businesses. As of 2019, 64% of unicorns that IPO-ed since 2010 are unprofitable, according to TechCrunch . But investors don’t seem to care.

To enter this phase of exponential growth, focus on the following three factors.

1. Product Innovation

Hypergrowth is demand-driven. So unless you build a product that customers love, you’ll never get there. Harsh, but true. 

Customer-centricity is an obsession for (all) hypergrowth businesses, not just a “core value” they hang on the walls. They constantly leverage empathy, data, and customer feedback to build the best products. 

2. Agile and Scalable Systems

What got you to $10 million in ARR won’t get you to $900 million. The systems that run small businesses efficiently will not support your hypergrowth. 

Uber had to overhaul its driver onboarding process multiple times to support its hypergrowth. Until 2013, intending drivers had to go to a local office to complete some paperwork. Then they morphed into an online application process that allowed drivers to sign up without visiting a local office. 

And when they began international expansion , the company had to design another process to accommodate the differences in regulations across host countries.

3. A Core Team

Hypergrowth is driven by hyper-effort. That’s why long work hours are common in hypergrowth companies. It’s a hard grind. And if you don’t have a team that shares your passion and believes in your mission, you’re not going far.

Whatever you do, don’t try to achieve hypergrowth too fast. Companies attempting to scale prematurely often push their operational capabilities to the limit, increase their stress levels, and hurt their business reputation. 

To learn more about hypergrowth, read:

• Blitzscaling: The Lightning-Fast Path to Building Massively Valuable Companies

The bottom line is this: if you have an idea for a product that helps people solve a problem, don’t ignore it. Test it. Iterate until you get product-market fit. Combine that with a thoughtfully planned business strategy, a dedicated team, and a group of experienced mentors, and your business could become an enormous success story.

The process of growth will be demanding and painful. And sometimes, the people closest to you won’t share your vision. Nike’s controversial ad offers advice on what to do when people scorn you.

As Steve Jobs said, “The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.”

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Embarking on an entrepreneur’s journey is like setting sail towards a dream, full of aspirations of success, autonomy and personal fulfillment. A path that begins with brilliant optimism but often encounters unexpected challenges and complexities.

Every entrepreneur starts with a dream. This dream isn’t just about financial gain; it is the vision of creating something unique, a business that embodies your passion and values. It is the dream of creating a future that promises not only monetary rewards, but also a sense of personal fulfillment and lifestyle enrichment.

However, reality for many entrepreneurs deviates from this dream , soon turning it into a nightmare. 

Throughout this article, I will provide you with the knowledge and tools to navigate this complex landscape. 

4 Stages of an Entrepreneur Journey

The initial dream, with visions of success and personal gratification, may be in stark contrast to reality. Many entrepreneurs may be faced with personal difficulties, not least the lack of work-life balance .

One of the critical issues is the gap in  entrepreneurial education . Many entrepreneurs embark on their journey without the skills and knowledge needed to run a business effectively.

So let’s see what components need to be considered in order to be successful.

1. Strategy: The Heartbeat of Business

In the entrepreneurship field, strategy is not just a component of success; it’s the very heartbeat that keeps a business alive and thriving. Many entrepreneurs, particularly those transitioning from a specialized skill like development, often underestimate the importance of a comprehensive business strategy . It’s a common misstep that can lead to the derailment of even the most promising ventures.

Crafting a Comprehensive Strategy

A sound business strategy has many facets. You must not only set goals, but know how to create a roadmap for every decision and action within the company. The key elements:

• Long-term goals : start by asking questions like “ where do you see your company in 5, 10 or 20 years? What impact o do you want to have in your industry? It’s crucial to establish goals that are both challenging and attainable.
• Market Positioning : Market Positioning: Understanding your position in the market is critical. This involves analyzing competitors, understanding your target audience and identifying what sets your company apart.
• Unique Value Proposition (UVP) : Your UVP is what makes your business stand out in a crowded marketplace. It’s the unique commitment you offer to your customers, unmatched by anyone else. This could be an innovative product feature, exceptional customer service , or a unique brand story. Your UVP should resonate with your target audience and be reflected in every aspect of your business, from marketing to product development.

The Consequences of a Weak Strategy

Without a sound strategy, companies often find themselves adrift. They may chase short-term gains at the expense of long-term profitability, or they may become too scattered trying to please everyone. To avoid business failure, it is important to have a clear direction to avoid wasted resources and demoralization of teams.

Implementing and Evolving Your Strategy

Developing a strategy is just the beginning. The real challenge lies in its execution and evolution. Regularly review and adjust your strategy in response to market changes, customer feedback, and internal growth. Remember, a static strategy in a dynamic world is a recipe for obsolescence.

As you craft your business strategy, consider the power of AI to revolutionize your approach. Discover how AI can streamline your operations and give you a competitive edge

AI FOR SMALL BUSINESS PROGRAM

2. Marketing and Sales: The Engines of Growth

Marketing and sales go beyond being mere aspects of a business; they’re the driving forces behind growth and sustainability. In today’s digital age, the online world has revolutionized the way businesses connect and engage with their customers, making it an essential skill for entrepreneurs to master .

Understanding Online Customer Journeys

• Mapping the Customer Journey : The first step in effective online marketing is understanding the customer journey . This involves mapping out each stage a customer goes through, from becoming aware of your product to making a purchase and beyond. Each stage requires different marketing strategies and tools . For instance, social media might be effective for creating awareness, while email marketing could be better for nurturing leads.
• Creating Engaging Content : At each stage of the customer journey, content plays a crucial role. This could be educational blog posts, engaging social media updates, informative videos, or persuasive product descriptions. The key is to provide value that aligns with what the customer is seeking at that particular stage.

Identifying and Targeting Potential Customers

• Market Research : Understanding who your customers are is vital. This involves market research to identify demographics, interests, pain points, and buying behaviors. Tools like customer surveys, social media analytics, and market analysis reports can provide valuable insights.
• Segmentation and Personalization : Once you understand your market, segment your audience to tailor your marketing efforts. Tailoring your approach can greatly enhance the impact of your marketing campaigns. Use data to create personalized messages that resonate with different segments of your audience.

Effective Conversion Strategies

• Optimizing sales funnel: Think of it as mapping out a customer’s journey in the business world. From the first handshake (or click) to the final deal, every step should be smooth and clear. It’s crucial to make your business’s online presence – your website and landing pages – as welcoming and navigable as a well-organized office.
• Leveraging Digital Marketing Tools : In the business landscape, these tools are like your ambassadors. SEO helps your business get noticed in the crowded marketplace. PPC advertising is like a striking billboard on a busy street. Social media marketing opens up engaging conversations with potential clients, and email marketing keeps the dialogue going. Each tool plays a unique role at different stages of your client’s journey.
• Establishing Trust and Credibility : In business, your reputation is your currency. Build trust by showcasing customer testimonials and detailed case studies. These are your success stories, proving your business’s ability to deliver. Flaunt your industry certifications as badges of honor, reassuring clients that they’re in capable hands. It’s about demonstrating that your business isn’t just another player in the game, but a trusted and reliable partner in their journey.

Measuring and Analyzing Performance

• Analytics and Feedback : Regularly measure the performance of your marketing and sales efforts. Employ analytics tools to monitor your website’s traffic, track conversion rates, and gauge customer engagement. Feedback from customers can also provide insights into what’s working and what needs improvement.
• Continuous Improvement : Marketing and sales are dynamic fields. Keep abreast of new trends and technological advances. Continuously test and refine your strategies based on performance data and market changes.

3. Personal Development: The Entrepreneur’s Reflection

Personal development in entrepreneurship is not just about enhancing business skills; it’s a profound journey of self-reflection and growth that directly impacts every facet of your venture. Whether you’re a startup founder, a serial entrepreneur, or running a small business, personal development is the cornerstone of your success.

Embracing the Entrepreneurial Mindset

From Founder to Visionary : As a founder, your personal growth is intrinsically linked to the evolution of your startup. It’s about transitioning from an idea to a viable product or service, and eventually to a thriving business. This journey demands a mindset that embraces challenges, learns from failures, and continually seeks improvement.

The Serial Entrepreneur’s Learning Curve : For serial entrepreneurs, personal development involves leveraging past experiences, both successes and failures, to better navigate future ventures. It’s about understanding when to persevere, when to pivot, and even when to plan an exit strategy. Each venture offers unique lessons that shape your business journey .

Building Skills for Growth and Sustainability

Customer Acquisition and Revenue Growth : Understanding the nuances of customer acquisition is crucial. It’s not just about attracting customers; it’s about building relationships and creating value that translates into sustainable revenue. Personal development in this area involves honing negotiation skills, understanding market trends, and developing strategies for customer retention and loyalty.

Mastering Automation and Efficiency : this is key to efficiency. As an entrepreneur, developing skills to identify and invest in the right automation tools can significantly impact your business’s productivity and profitability.

Download Your Free E-Book perfect for entrepreneurs looking to refine their strategies and drive business growth. Transform your entrepreneur journey from vision to reality!

Expanding Your Network and Partnerships

The Power of Networking : Building a robust network is a vital personal development area for any entrepreneur. It’s about creating connections that can open doors to new opportunities, partnerships, and collaborations. Networking skills are essential for finding mentors, investors, and even potential customers.

Fostering Strategic Partnerships : Learning how to identify and cultivate partnerships can be a game-changer for your business. It’s about finding synergies with other businesses and entrepreneurs that can lead to mutual growth and success.

Investing in Yourself as the Sole Driver

The Role of a Mentor : Seeking mentorship is a crucial aspect of personal development. A mentor can provide guidance, share wisdom, and offer a different perspective that can help you navigate the complex landscape.

Continuous Learning and Investment : As the sole driver of your business, investing in your personal development is spend in your business’s future. This means staying updated with industry trends, attending workshops, and continuously seeking knowledge to enhance your skills and capabilities.

4. Human Resource Management: Building a Strong Team

Whether you are a start-up entrepreneur or a small business having a team that is strong, and aligned with company values and goals is critical.

Hiring and Team Composition

Identifying Key Roles : Understand the roles that are crucial for your business’s success. This involves analyzing your business needs and identifying skill gaps. Strategic hiring means looking for individuals who not only have the necessary skills but also fit your company culture.

Diversity and Inclusivity : Building a diverse team brings different perspectives and ideas, fostering innovation and creativity. Embrace inclusivity in your hiring practices to create a team that represents a range of experiences and backgrounds.

Developing and Nurturing Talent

Training and Development : Investing in your team’s development is crucial. This can include formal training, workshops, or continuous learning opportunities. Encourage your team to upskill and reskill, aligning their growth with your business’s evolving needs.

Mentorship and Coaching : Implement programs for mentorship within your company. Pairing less experienced team members with seasoned mentors can facilitate knowledge transfer and foster a supportive work environment.

Performance Management and Feedback

Setting Clear Objectives : Clearly defined goals and objectives help team members understand what is expected of them. Apply SMART goals – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound – to bring clarity and direction to your objectives.

• Regular feedback and reviews : To promote continuous improvement and help employees understand their strengths implement a system of regular performance reviews and feedback.

Creating a Positive Work Environment

Work-Life Balance : Promote a healthy work-life balance. This may encompass options like flexible work schedules, the ability to work remotely, or various wellness programs. A balanced team is more productive and motivated.

Recognition and Rewards : Acknowledge and celebrate the accomplishments of your team. This can be through formal recognition programs, bonuses, or simple gestures of appreciation. Recognition boosts morale and encourages high performance.

Dealing with Challenges

Conflict Resolution : Equip yourself with skills to handle conflicts effectively. A harmonious work environment is essential for productivity and team cohesion.

Adapting to Change : Be prepared to adapt your HR strategies as your business grows. The needs of a 5-person team are different from those of a 50-person team. Stay flexible and responsive to these changing needs.

To further strengthen your HRM approach, consider exploring innovative strategies like inbound recruiting

INBOUND RECRUITING PROGRAM

Conclusion: Return to the Dream

As we reach the end of our exploration into the entrepreneurial journey, it’s clear that the path is strewn with both challenges and opportunities. If you find yourself resonating with these challenges and are in search of guidance and support, know that there is a way back to the original dream that ignited your entrepreneur spirit.

The journey of an entrepreneur is not a straight line; it’s a winding path of learning, adapting, and growing. With the right approach, mindset, and tools, this journey can be incredibly fulfilling and successful. Remember, every challenge faced is an opportunity to learn and evolve. The dream you started with can still be the future you live, provided you navigate these waters with perseverance and insight.

If you’re seeking to deepen your understanding or need personalized advice to navigate your entrepreneurial path, don’t hesitate to reach out. Whether you’re grappling with strategic planning, marketing complexities, personal development, or team management, expert guidance can make a significant difference.

Are you ready to rekindle your dream and transform challenges into stepping stones for success? Contact us for more information and tailored support. Let us help you chart a course back to the essence of your vision, where passion meets practicality, and dreams converge with reality.

Together, we can turn your aspirations into tangible achievements. Reach out now to take the first step back to your dream

REQUEST MORE INFORMATION

I direct Digital Coach® , the professional training school, leader in training all professionals who work in the Digital Marketing & Sales field. As a trainer, I have trained over 35,000 business professionals from over 300 large multinational companies and over 5,000 Italian SMEs. I devised the “Digital Strategy Framework®” method , thanks to which since 2014 I have been helping companies to define and improve over time a digital strategy that maximizes the generation of turnover and online sales.

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A Roadmap for Today’s Entrepreneurs

A conversation with MIT Sloan’s Bill Aulet on how to navigate a fast-changing landscape.

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Many people aspire to entrepreneurship but we all know it’s a high-risk endeavor. Bill Aulet, the Ethernet Inventors Professor of Entrepreneurship at the MIT Sloan School of Management, has for decades studied what it takes for start-ups to succeed and advises the next generation of founders on how to do it. He discusses the key trends and changes he’s seen over the past few years, and outlines concrete steps anyone can take to get a new venture — including those within larger organizations — off the ground. Aulet is the author of the newly updated book Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to a Successful Startup.

ALISON BEARD: Welcome to the HBR IdeaCast from Harvard Business Review. I’m Alison Beard.

So many people in business today aspire to entrepreneurship. Whether you have an idea for a start-up or want to launch something new within a larger organization, it’s seen as a path to a more fulfilling career – and financial gains. At the same time, we know that entrepreneurship is really hard. We’ve all heard the stats on how many new ventures fail, and we’ve seen entrepreneurial efforts quashed by the corporate machine.

But our guest today says that we can de-risk the process and create companies that don’t just make a lot of money, but also have a positive impact on the world. He’s helped thousands of students and executives map out paths to successful businesses, and we wanted to speak with him about where he sees entrepreneurship today.

Bill Aulet is the Ethernet Inventors Professor of Entrepreneurship at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He’s managing director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, and he’s the author of Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to A Successful Startup , newly updated and expanded. Bill, thanks for being on the show.

BILL AULET: Thank you very much. It’s an honor to be here.

ALISON BEARD: So you’ve been focused on innovation-based entrepreneurship for decades. What feels new or different right now compared to previous eras?

BILL AULET: I think if you look at the highest level, entrepreneurship is now accepted in society at a level that it was not nearly when I first started. When I graduated from college, which was back in 1980, they had just invented electricity. But no one thought of entrepreneurship as a serious field of study or a career.

I – God rest my mother’s soul, she was fantastic, but she never understood the difference between entrepreneurship and unemployment. She thought I was unemployed. But today people understand entrepreneurship. It’s accepted by society. And not only is it accepted by society, it is one thing that unites us. No matter whether you’re on the far right, far left, everybody loves entrepreneurship. One of the big differences that’s often overlooked is just the acceptance of entrepreneurship as a serious career path and a positive thing from all perspectives.

When we look at the more micro level, the numbers start to show you the people who want to come out of college, 20% or more of at almost every university, see entrepreneurship as a career path that they want to pursue. Some of them want to do it for money, but what we see is most of them want to do it because they feel like it’s a way to have impact. It’s a way to control their own destiny.

And then even at a more micro level, when you look at what’s going on now, not just the acceptance of entrepreneurship, the barriers to become an entrepreneur have really gone down. Let me give you one example. Just when I wrote the initial version of this book 10 years ago, it took you millions of dollars and at least six months, if not a year, to put an e-commerce company up, to get an e-commerce website going today. You can literally do that in two hours or possibly even one hour or less using Shopify. And that’s just one example of what’s going on with AWS.

All the technology that’s come out has made it much easier to create new products to start companies, which has actually shifted the game from, “You need to make a product to be an entrepreneur,” to “How do we go to market with a product?” Because products are becoming more and more, I don’t want to say commoditized, but it’s easier to produce products. And so of course you have to have a product at the end of the day, you have to get product market fit. That’s table stakes. But the actual game has shifted to be more of a, how do you come up with a go-to-market fit that is a channel market fit? How do you sell the product?

ALISON BEARD: MIT is obviously a hub for science and tech-based startups. So is the path from high-tech research lab to business getting easier also?

BILL AULET: This is a really interesting question because I just presented to the MIT board on this, and they were very interested in how do we accelerate that pipeline of lab to market? And there’s two approaches to that. The first approach is why don’t we make our technical people, our academics… Or researchers, they don’t have to be academics, researchers, more entrepreneurial. How do we teach them the entrepreneurial process? And we do that. We have a program called the Faculty Founders Program where we teach them how to do that. That’s one way to do it.

The other way to do it is to basically flood the zone with high-quality entrepreneurs who aren’t necessarily the inventors. Because entrepreneurship has many misperceptions about it and one of them is it’s an individual sport. It is definitively not by research. Entrepreneurship is not an individual sport, it’s a team sport. And the question is, how do you build a team that can take a technology, a new invention to market? And to do that, you have to have someone who knows how to commercialize it. Those people aren’t necessarily the same as the inventor. And so if you have great inventors and they understand the process to some degree, what we want to do is produce more high-quality entrepreneurs to kind of be around them. And then they will take that technology and that new invention and bring it to market.

I mean, people believe MIT is this faunt of entrepreneurship because of the tremendous research we have here, and we do. We have enormous research, but so does Caltech, so do other places. What really makes a difference is how much of that research can you commercialize? And that’s where the entrepreneurial process comes into play. And even if you look at MIT, less than 6% of the patents that we create are actually commercialized. Let me repeat that. Of all the patents we get, less than 6% of them actually get to the market, and that includes licensing to other companies. So if we could just increase that number somewhat, the pipeline of the billions of dollars that are spent on research here at MIT to get that to market would create a lot more impact.

ALISON BEARD: You note that entrepreneurship is not limited to startups. It can come from within large organizations too, especially ones with deep pockets like an Amazon or Alphabet or Meta. Have you seen any shift in where students and executives think that they’re best positioned to be entrepreneurial?

BILL AULET: I wish I could tell you that there’s more of that, but entrepreneurship is such a complicated thing. You mentioned this at the front. It’s really hard. And still, the best way to teach entrepreneurship is to go to the blank canvas of a startup. And that’s what we do in our programs for the most part. We start off with a blank canvas and then we teach people how to come up with ideas and then how to take those ideas and then figure out what’s a product to get product market fit, channel market fit, and then come up with a scalable business model that’s profitable – economically sustaining.

But if we stay at that level of just seeing entrepreneurship in startups, we as a society are going to be really underperforming against some of the big challenges we have like climate, because startups can only get you so far. They don’t have the strong balance sheets that can think for long periods of time. They don’t have the infrastructure. And when you think about challenges like climate and energy, we need to have big companies involved. And so we really do focus a lot on how do you take those skills. We teach you in startups and apply them in large companies.

We really encourage people to not just be entrepreneurs and startups, but to do it in government, in academic institutions and large organizations and medium-sized organizations and faith-based organizations or nonprofits and even in their personal lives. And I would like to see more of that. But it’s a hard sell because you got to build up the skills first before you go into that. But we’ve had huge successes.

I’ll give one example. Andrea Ippolito went through us – she’s a Cornell undergraduate, came here and was getting her graduate degree and then going for a PhD, and she went through our entrepreneurship programs. She was doing a company called Smart Scheduling to help healthcare organizations do kind of digital innovation to make them more effective, which is huge opportunity there. Well, she decided not to continue on that startup, but learned all the lessons. She then goes back to get her PhD. She’s recruited to go into the Obama White House, and she becomes the chief innovation officer overseeing the Veterans Administration. And she starts setting policies to improve innovation and entrepreneurship in the government for our veterans out there. She didn’t start a company at that point, and she’s literally making the lives of millions of our veterans better.

So I think that’s the journey. She was an entrepreneur the whole time. And the mindset, skillset and way of operating that we taught her, benefited her in all dimensions, not just in being a startup. I sometimes am frustrated, although if we get into it, I’ll talk about metrics of measuring success. And it’s too often measured and how many startups, how much revenue do they do, how much money did they raise – whereas how do you measure the impact that Andrea Ippolito had in those various jobs?

ALISON BEARD: Yeah. I mean the criticism of entrepreneurs in general and particularly tech startups for a while has been that they’re more focused on sort of easing these small pain points for pretty well-off customers. Like I’m thinking Uber, DoorDash, Tinder even, then tackling more difficult and important and challenging problems. Is that changing?

BILL AULET: Well, I can’t say for universal, but if you look in my new book, we very much believe, and this is something I work with Tom Byers of Stanford and Jon Fjeld on is entrepreneurship as an ethical activity. If you’re in it for profit-making, you’re not going to last.

And so the first thing that we start with, excuse me, is you must have a raison d’etre. That’s French for reason for existence. And if you say that it’s to make money, we reject that because no company is just all about profits and going to last.

And then just to go to the data here, we did a 10-year longitudinal study of our students coming out of our Delta V program, our capstone program. There’s this perception that people are doing dating apps and silly things. Well, our data showed, and this was an independent study by Daniela Ruiz Massieu of ITAM University, a tenured year professor, head of their entrepreneurship down there. And she came in and looked at it. And in the 10-year study looking at almost 200 entrepreneurs, she found that 89% of the businesses they were starting 89, 8-9, were directly aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

That makes me very, very proud. And that goes directly to what you’re talking about. We believe entrepreneurship is an incredible force for good in society. And if you understand that and you build your companies based on mission, mission-driven as opposed to money-driven, they will be more successful. And going to the data on how successful they are, her study shows 69% of them are still in business five years later.

ALISON BEARD: Those statistics definitely give me hope. But I would say that still the primary successful examples of entrepreneurs and companies might cloak their businesses in laudable goals like connecting the world for Facebook or giving us information like Google, when in practice what they seem to be doing is collecting and selling our data, addicting us to their platforms, and they’re still making piles of money. So how do you reconcile that with your vision of successful entrepreneurship always being ethical?

BILL AULET: That’s a really good point. I think I’m a system dynamics person which says the incentives of the system will dictate how people behave in it, and I find those very troubling. I find by the way, the examples of using social network or the Steve Jobs movies as that’s entrepreneurship, I find those to be very unhelpful. They’re misleading. They don’t get into what the real data shows you.

So how do I reconcile those? All I can tell you is that our companies are like Biobot Analytics. Biobot Analytics is started by two of our students here. One was Mariana Matus who was a PhD here at MIT from Mexico, and she wanted to start a company to make the world a better place and make cities more livable. And she partnered with Newsha Ghaeli who was Persian, that’s Iranian by way – out of Canada. They were very into how do we create safer cities.

They looked at this and built a dashboard that looked at wastewater, epidemiology wastewater, that is what we flush out the toilet and see what diseases do we have, what other things are going on in the city. So basically we could set it up in Boston and we could know. In Jamaica Plain, everything seems healthy, but if you look at West Cambridge, there seems to be some fentanyl use there or there seems to be a Zika virus outbreak. When they were going through our program, we actually had a discussion about what they were doing, and they were very into this. And then they met with one of the top venture capitalists in the world. And the top venture, this person said, enormously successful, sat down and said, “You’re not going to make a lot of money doing this. You should pivot to help pharmaceutical companies.”

And we walked out of the meeting. I said, well, “He’s very accomplished. What do you want to do? If that’s not what you want to do, we fully support you.” They said, “That’s not what we want to do. We want to make cities safer.” They stuck to there what they were doing. And Biobot Analytics has become extremely successful. They became the gold standard during Covid for measuring whether Covid is in a place weeks before you could with testing. And they’re doing tens of millions of dollars. They’re on a path to IPO.

ALISON BEARD: Well, that’s a fabulous example. What about the criticism that startup founders are often so laser-focused on bringing their idea, maybe one that will have good social impact to fruition, that they don’t think about the potential risks or negative externalities or broader consequences I’m thinking about the concerns that people have about OpenAI, for example. I think Sam Altman is sort of heralded as a new kind of entrepreneur, a new generation of entrepreneurs, but people are now also worried that he’s sort of stepping away from his initial altruistic vision for the company.

BILL AULET: Yeah, I mean, I think that’s a real leadership question that you’re going to have. At the end of the day, all these companies come down to the talent that they can draw. I think if you have unethical activities, people today are cognizant of that. They’re not just going to work for companies they feel are unethical. And that’s my hope. I don’t have data to back that up to the level that I would like, but that’s my sincere belief, Alison.

ALISON BEARD: Yeah. And perhaps having gone through the era of social media in particular, Facebook, Instagram, X, et cetera, and all the sort of unexpected problems, whether it’s teenage girl eating disorders to election interference, there’s perhaps more scrutiny now on startups to make sure, “Are you thinking about all the potential things that could go wrong as you’re building your business plan?”

BILL AULET: I would hope so. But again, we have a capitalist system that rewards you for making money and getting customers and the like. I think there’s definitely a role for government and regulation in that regard. I differ from some of my entrepreneurial libertarian colleagues in that regard. I think we do need that. I’m not here to tell you everything, sunshine, rainbows and unicorns jumping around, that is a challenge going forward. And that’s why unfettered capitalism I just don’t think is the right answer.

ALISON BEARD: Okay, so let’s dig into the updated book, which as I said, sets out 24 steps to getting a startup off the ground, from market segmentation to developing a product plan. And we obviously can’t get to all of the steps, but what, if anything, did you change from the 1st edition to this one?

BILL AULET: Oh my God, the 1st edition, just to put a little quick historical perspective on this, when I started teaching, I think it was 17 years ago, I started looking for that book that captured what I had learned being an entrepreneur for decades, we’re going from three startups and failing in my first one and getting better at the second one to having success in the third one to say, “Who’s captured that knowledge?” And all I found were books that were point things. You’d find Lean Startup, you’d find a Blue Ocean Strategy, you’d find Crossing the Chasm, these are all great books, but they were all individual tools.

And so for my class, I built a reader and I tried not to invent new stuff. I tried to take what I know already worked and just kind of stitch it together. And that was the genesis of this reader, which then it became quite popular- and people said, “Hey, this is really great. How can I get a copy of it?” And Wiley said, “Hey, we’d like to publish this.” And so the first version was minimum viable product.

And then once it got out there, I’ll never forget a colleague of mine here at MIT, Professor Charlie Fine, said, “Now you’re really going to learn about entrepreneurship.” And I said, “What do you mean? I put everything I know into that book.” He said, “Oh no, now you’re really going to learn because everyone’s going to come and tell you everything they know and they’re going to ask you questions and you’re going to become kind of the focal point of entrepreneurship discussion.” And dang it, Charlie was right. That’s what happened. Everybody started talking to me about that.

We literally got thousands of more examples as to how to do that. And over the past 10 years, we’ve learned so much. I’ve taken that minimum viable product and updated it to a new dramatically expanded and updated version with some of the new things we were talking about. And my first rewrite of it was 700 pages, which was completely unacceptable because the key to the book is, A, that it’s open source. We try to build a and take everything that works so that Simon Sinek, Jeffrey Moore, Stefan Thomke, Michael Porter – whoever it is, we’re pulling it in and we’re saying, “This is your toolbox that you need to do.” But that toolbox has to be small enough and accessible enough to be able to be used by an entrepreneur who has finite time and resources. In the end, we got it down to 400 pages. But it’s also expanded to be able to talk about how do you use AI, the change in the past 10 years between products becoming commoditized and the emphasis now is on go-to market, how do you develop go to market.

ALISON BEARD: Yeah. And I think that efficiency and practicality point is key, particularly for people who are considering becoming intrapreneurs. So it’s not like they’re trying to find a start-up and devoting all their time to it. It’s their full time job. But people who might want to start something new within an organization, how do you think about doing that in a way that is relatively easy, still takes thought and time, but you can work through a process before you present it to the higher ups?

BILL AULET: That’s exactly right., we’ve got to say, “Here’s the simplification of it and here’s where you get started and here are the steps you go through. While we’re giving you a sequential one, you have to understand it’s not linear. You’re going to have to do a lot of cycling, but at least you know what you’re supposed to be going.” Gives you some GPS, some templates and things to help you. But it’s a never-ending process.

The day you think that you’re done with entrepreneurship… I think Bob Dylan said it best, “He who is not being born is busy dying.” You have to continually be running the entrepreneurial process and understanding who your customer is, what you can do for your customer, how they acquire the product, how you make money, how do you scale the business. All these things are a never-ending cycle.

ALISON BEARD: How are your students and executives using new technology, like I’m thinking social media and gen AI, to make this process easier or faster?

BILL AULET: Well, we actually have a terrifically interesting tool right now. We’re internally calling it Tim the Beaver, your friendly AI entrepreneurship assistant. What it does is it’s a modified version of ChatGPT-4 Plus, which you could also use Gemini or whatever we want, but it takes the structure that we have in disciplined entrepreneurship and it trains that to ask the questions and fill in templates to say, “What’s your idea? Here’s your potential customers, which ones do you like? Which ones do you not like? What would be a beachhead market?” And then it will step you through, “Here’s your potential customers. Oh, by the way, here’s how you can reduce your cost to customer acquisition.”

And so using things, as you mentioned, like… I mean at the end of the day, it comes down to getting customers, getting customers to profit. As we say, the first commandment of entrepreneurship is the single necessary and sufficient condition for a business is a paying customer. So you have to focus on getting paying customers that are in a less expensive way, in a more profitable way, and keeping them and making them happy, and then scaling the business.

So all the things you mentioned fit into this framework, like, do you use social media to acquire customers? Then that’s reducing cost of customer acquisition. Or do you use them to increase your lifetime value? That’s a different part of the equation. But do you use it to interface with them to find out their needs and wants and opportunities? this tool, we see and we’re already using it, it can dramatically shrink the entrepreneurial process of creating a new venture by as much as 90% in parts of it.

You still have to do primary market research, but a lot of the secondary market research you have to do, we can just do that in 15 minutes.

The best knowledge is not going to come from one institution, from one zip code. If we’re getting serious about pushing the field of entrepreneurship and raising the bar for it, we need to build a collaborative knowledge base that’s shared amongst all people. You’ve got to have a common body of knowledge and things that are agreed on, and those things should be agreed on based on evidence, not storytelling or who debates the best.

ALISON BEARD: Yeah. And how are you making sure that your style of disciplined entrepreneurship is spreading throughout the world, not just in Cambridge, not just in the United States?

BILL AULET: We’re not a for-profit. We have a terrible business model, Alison. It’s called, we create knowledge and give it away to the rest of the world to create positive impact. And so everything we do is open-sourced. And we need to take the long view here. And we have that, if you call it business model, to think long-term. And that’s what we should do. That is our role in society, and we should not back down from that at all.

ALISON BEARD: Once would-be startup founders have gone through all of your steps, there is still the problem of financing and finding investors. So how do you advise your students and executives you work with to go about that right now?

BILL AULET: Well, the first thing is there’s lack of confidence and knowledge about finance. I have a free book now called Finance for Entrepreneurs. We just have to break down that and demystify finance in a lot of ways first.

And then secondly, and I tell my students this all the time, and some listen and some don’t, is, “You want to get funding? Listen to what I have to say. The best way to get funding is to build a great company. The slowest way to get funding is to go try to play a game where you’re convincing the VCs you have what they want. Just go out and build a great business and they will find you. And by the way, there’s a great way to get funding. It’s called build a product that customers want and get them to pay you for it. And then guess what? You have money. And by the way, once you get that money, that’s validation that will help you raise it from other people.”

ALISON BEARD: Terrific, Bill. Well, thank you so much for joining me and definitely giving me hope that there are entrepreneurs out there who are going to make the world a better place.

BILL AULET: Thank you very much for having me on IdeaCast , and I look forward to any feedback.

ALISON BEARD: That’s Bill Aulet, professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and author of the newly updated and expanded Disciplined Entrepreneurship: 24 Steps to a Successful Startup. His colleague Paul Cheek, recently released the follow-up, Disciplined Entrepreneurship: Startup Tactics.

And we have more episodes and more podcasts to help you manage your team, your organization, and your career, find them at HBR.org/podcasts or search HBR in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

Thanks to our team, senior producer Mary Dooe, associate producer Hannah Bates, audio product manager Ian Fox, and senior production specialist Rob Eckhardt. And thanks to you for listening to the HBR IdeaCast . We’ll be back with a new episode on Tuesday. I’m Alison Beard.

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2.1: Overview of the Enterpreneurial Journey

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By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Explain the entrepreneurial journey to explore and discover entrepreneurship as a career choice
• Identify the steps, decisions, and actions involved in the entrepreneurial journey
• Recognize the rewards and risks of the steps in the entrepreneurial journey

Self-Employment as an Entrepreneurial Journey

When the economy and the job market are strong, the entrepreneur has a safety net that decreases the risks in creating a new venture , a startup company or organization that conducts business or is created to satisfy a need, and allows for a quick recovery if the venture is not successful. There are more new startups when there are high levels of confidence in both the venture’s success and the entrepreneur’s confidence in finding employment if the venture fails. People over 40 years of age account for most new startup activity, in part because of the continuing trend in which a business may choose not to hire an employee but instead hire an independent contractor , a person who provides work similar to an employee without being part of the payroll for the contracting business, and who is responsible for paying their own taxes and providing their own benefits. With previous knowledge and expertise, this group of entrepreneurs recognizes opportunities created by this move away from hiring full-time employees to more outsourcing to independent contractors. One contributor is the gig economy, which involves using temporary and often transitional positions hired on a case-by-case basis, rather than keeping a full staff of hired employees. Advantages for the employer include a decrease in cost of benefits and loyalties to specific employees. Advantages for the hired worker or independent contractor (sometimes called a freelancer) include no long-term commitment and flexibility in accepting contracts. From an entrepreneurial perspective, the creation of websites that support the gig economy offers opportunities for independent ventures. Many people today are becoming small entrepreneurs. This process goes by a variety of names, such as the sharing economy, the gig economy, the peer economy, or the collaborative economy. Maybe it means driving for a company such as Lyft, Uber, or GrubHub, or perhaps offering services through TaskRabbit, UpWork, or LivePerson. The projected numbers of independent contractors and on-demand workers are stated as 42 percent for small businesses by the year 2020, a growth of 8 percent from current figures. 1 And a projection of greater than 50 percent of the workforce will be independent contractors by 2027 if this trend continues at the current pace. 2 In the “Freelancing in America: 2019” report, the sixth annual study by UpWork and Freelancers Union, 57 million United States citizens are estimated to freelance, with income approaching 5 percent of US gross domestic product (GDP) at nearly $1 trillion and earning a median rate of $28.00 an hour, representing a hourly income greater than 70 percent of workers in the overall US economy. 3 One report found that 94 percent of net job growth from 2005 to 2015 was in alternative work categories, with 60 percent due to independent contractors and contract company workers. 4

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of self-employed Americans is growing, with 9.6 million self-employed people at the end of 2016. That number is expected to grow to 10.3 million by 2026. 5 A more recent study by FreshBooks’ second annual “Self-Employment” report predicts that 27 million US employees will leave traditional work in favor of self-employment by 2020, tripling the current population of full-time self-employed professionals to 42 million. The main driver for this change in the workforce is a greater desire for control over one’s career with the ability to have greater control over working hours and acceptance of work. 6 , 7 Of course, self-employment is a broad category that includes small-business owners as well as entrepreneurial startups and freelance gig employees. Since 2016, there has been a downward slide in the number of employees working for self-employed businesses, which results from a variety of factors, including difficulties in finding qualified employees, qualified employees having more employment options, such as employment through the gig economy, outsourcing activities, and technology actions that decrease the need for employees, with entrepreneurial activity remaining steady. 8

Entrepreneurship around the World

In a 2017 Business Insider article, “America Needs Immigrant Entrepreneurs,” David Jolley writes that immigrants constitute 15 percent of the US workforce and 25 percent of the country’s workforce of entrepreneurs. 9 Forty percent of startups include at least one immigrant. Jolley’s article cites a study that identified immigrants as twice as likely to start a business as native-born Americans. In 2016, 40.2 percent of Fortune 500 companies were founded by at least one immigrant or a child of immigrant parents. Dinah Brin, writing for Forbes , stated in a 2018 article that immigrants form 25 percent of new US businesses and that new immigrant-owned firms generated 4 to 5 million jobs. 10

These statistics and other findings have prompted countries such as Canada to revise their immigration policies to attract more entrepreneurial-minded immigrants. A World Bank report from May 2018 ranked the United States 53rd out of 190 countries for ease in starting a business, with higher scores representing greater ease. 11 The same report ranks the United States eighth for ease of doing business. The difference in these rankings indicates that once a business is established, factors such as regulations, permits, access to credit, and infrastructure support the business owner’s ability to continue the business, but actually starting the business is more challenging. For any given country, ease in starting a business and the country’s interest in supporting entrepreneurial activity are crucial in both attracting entrepreneurial people and supporting their ability to open a business. Imposing restrictive regulations and processes on new ventures significantly decreases the number of new ventures.

According to a 2018/2019 report, the highest rate of entrepreneurial activity worldwide in 2018 was in Angola at 41 percent. 12 Angola’s low-income economy meant fewer employment opportunities, creating pressures to find other ways to earn an income. Guatemala and Chile reported 28 percent and 25 percent of entrepreneurial activity, respectively, with medium- and high-income economies. These percentages are quite high, considering that these economies offer employment opportunities in existing companies. In terms of innovation, India at 47 percent, and Luxembourg and Chile at 48 percent each, take the lead in offering new products and services not previously available. This entrepreneurial activity reflects the ease of starting a business. The Netherlands, Poland, and Sweden were reported as the easiest countries in which to start a new business, in part because many people in those countries view entrepreneurship as an attractive lifestyle. As you can see, both economic opportunities and a country’s specific support for entrepreneurial behavior contribute to the number of people who enter entrepreneurial activities.

From a gender perspective, there are currently over 11 million woman-owned businesses in the United States. This number includes both small business owners and entrepreneurs. Thirty years ago, there were only 4 million woman-owned businesses. 13 The number of woman-owned businesses has increased 45 percent between 2007 and 2016, five times faster than the national average, with 78 percent of new women-owned businesses started by women of color.

Starting Your Entrepreneurial Journey

How do you fit into this entrepreneurial journey? This chapter will help you to explore and discover your potential for entrepreneurship as a career choice. Think of this exploration and discovery experience as a way to map out a strategy to reach your goals or dreams. Let’s imagine that your dream vacation is a hiking trip to Glacier National Park in the US state of Montana. Just as hikers have different levels of experience, so do entrepreneurs. Just as your plan for a wilderness hike would involve many stages, your entrepreneurial journey involves multiple levels of self-discovery, exploration, experiences, and accomplishments on your way to success. For our purposes, the term entrepreneurial venture means any type of new business, organization, project, or operation of interest that includes a level of risk in acting on an opportunity that has not previously been established. For each story of entrepreneurial success that is shared—such as that of Facebook or Airbnb—there are even more lesser-known entrepreneurial success stories such as Zipline, a company that delivers medical supplies in Rwanda and Ghana by drone. These entrepreneurs faced the same dilemmas in pursuing their passion, or opportunities, which led them to their entrepreneurial destiny. They courageously stepped out of their comfort zones to explore the possibilities that lie ahead. What is the difference between entrepreneurs and you? The main difference is taking that first step. Many people have ideas that fit into the definition of an entrepreneurial idea but never take that first step. Just as the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu suggests, every journey begins with a single step.

ARE YOU READY?

Taking the first step.

Go to Fire Nation’s website on taking the first step to learn more. Changing your mindset (your perception of yourself and your life situation) and encountering trigger events (significant external situations) can nudge you into taking the first step toward being an entrepreneur.

• Is there a venture you’ve always thought you should start but never did?
• Think about what factors are stopping you. Consider your mindset and how you might change your mindset so that your venture could become a reality.
• What are some possible trigger events that could make the difference between starting your venture and waiting to start your venture?

Opening your future to the possibility of starting your own venture brings new and exciting experiences ( Figure 2.2 ). Every entrepreneur moves through several steps in considering the entrepreneurial journey. Once you understand this journey, the steps will help you define your path toward creating and starting your new venture. Each step of this process offers another level of understanding that prepares you for long-term success. How will you achieve this success? By taking one step at a time, exploring and learning, considering new ideas and expectations, and applying these experiences to achieve your personal outcome. Think of the entrepreneurial journey as a guide to knowing what is in store for you as you start your new venture.

One benefit of outlining a step-by-step process is the opportunity to explore different paths or behaviors that may lead to an entrepreneurial venture. Think again of your dream visit to Glacier National Park. How would you get there? What equipment would you need? What kinds of experiences would you expect to have? Think of the Glacier National Park journey as your entrepreneurial journey, a metaphor intended to help you as you create your career as an entrepreneur.

What makes someone ready or willing to choose entrepreneurship over becoming an employee of an established business or a small business owner? It takes confidence, courage, determination, resilience, and some know-how to select entrepreneurship as a career as well as the recognition of the opportunity. An entrepreneur is defined as someone who not only recognizes an opportunity but who also is willing to act on that opportunity. Both actions are required. We might identify an opportunity, but many people do not act on the idea. Confidence, courage, and willingness are necessary to take that first step, as well as remembering the following:

• You are unique. Even if two similar people attempted to launch identical ventures, the results would likely not be the same. This is because each one of us has different ideas, approaches, available resources, and comfort levels, all of which influence the venture’s development and eventual success.
• Although there are no hard and fast rules or theories of the best way to launch into entrepreneurship, we can gain wisdom from the lessons learned by experienced entrepreneurs.
• Selecting an entrepreneurial career requires honesty, reflection, and a tendency to be action oriented. You will need to recognize your own strengths, limitations, and commitment as part of that honesty. Reflection is required for self-growth—seeking improvements in your own skills, interactions, and decision making—and commitment is required to maintain consistency in your willingness to make the new venture a top priority in your life. You will also need to understand that you cannot accomplish everything by yourself, and you may need to ask for help. It helps to be curious, open, and able to take calculated risks and to be resourceful and resilient when faced with challenges or obstacles.

Entrepreneurial Potential Self-Assessment

Take this quick Entrepreneurial Potential Self-Assessment to assess your potential to become an entrepreneur. After completing this self-assessment, what new information did you learn about yourself? Do you think your answers will change as you acquire more life experiences and education? Why or why not?

Optimizing Interest Areas

What are three areas that interest you? These could be hobbies, work activities, or entertainment activities. How would someone else describe your skills and interests, or what you are known for? Answering these questions provides insights into your strengths and interests. Next, what is one area that you are passionate about? What strengths could you bring to this passion to build your own business?

Keep an open mind in looking for an opportunity that fits your strengths and interests. If you decide to explore entrepreneurship, what would be your first step? What are your initial thoughts about being an entrepreneur? What would you review or search to find more information on your idea or area of interest? With whom would you first question or discuss this idea? Why?

The Entrepreneurial Journey as a Trip

The entrepreneurial journey is your exploration to discover if entrepreneurship is right for you. Every entrepreneurial journey is unique; no two individuals will experience it in the same way. Along the way, you will find opportunities and risks coupled with challenges and rewards. It’s useful to think about the entrepreneurial journey as an exciting trip or other adventure. Most of the preparations and steps involved with planning a trip are like those for starting a venture. Just as you would plan and prepare for a trip—starting with inspiration and leading up to finally traveling on the trip—you might follow similar steps to launch a venture. And just as you would prepare for any challenges that you might encounter on a trip—bad weather, lost luggage, or detours—so you should consider potential obstacles or barriers along your entrepreneurial journey ( Figure 2.3 ). Think of these difficulties as opportunities to learn more about the entrepreneurial process—and about yourself and how you manage challenges.

Developing a venture can be an exciting and active experience. It is also a lot of hard work, which can be equally rewarding and enjoyable. Here we present the entrepreneurial journey as seven specific steps, or experiences, which you will encounter along the road to becoming an entrepreneur. You’ll find more information about the entrepreneurial journey in other chapters in this book.

• Step 1: Inspiration – What is your motivation for becoming an entrepreneur?
• Step 2: Preparation – Do you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur?
• Step 3: Assessment – What is the idea you plan to offer through your venture?
• Step 4: Exploring Resources – What resources and characteristics do you need to make this venture work?
• Step 5: Business Plan – What type of business structure and business model will your venture have?
• Step 6: Navigation – In what direction will you take your venture? Where will you go for guidance?
• Step 7: Launch – When and how will you launch your venture?

As you work through each step of the entrepreneurial journey you should prepare for significant aspects of this experience. You will meet with rewards and challenges, the consequences that result from the decisions made at various points along your journey. To visualize the steps of the entrepreneurial journey, imagine your possible hiking trip to Glacier National Park ( Table 2.1 ). Just as hikers have different levels of experience, so do entrepreneurs. Compare the following aspects of preparing for a hike with aspects of your entrepreneurial journey.

Step 1: Inspiration

When you think of being an entrepreneur, what is the inspiration for your venture? Just as you might have an inspiration for a hiking trip to Glacier National Park, you will have an inspiration behind the decision to become an entrepreneur. When you’re planning a trip to a new and exciting place, one thing you might do is to imagine what you will experience along the journey and on arriving at your destination ( Figure 2.4 ). This portion of the entrepreneurial journey includes imagining yourself as an entrepreneur or as part of an entrepreneurial team. For this stage, you need a creative, open, and innovative state of mind, also known as an entrepreneurial mindset, which is discussed in more detail in The Entrepreneurial Mindset and Creativity, Innovation, and Invention . Dream big about your potential future and opportunities ( Figure 2.5 ).

Step 2: Preparation

Just as when you are preparing for a trip, you need a plan ( Figure 2.6 ) to move forward on your entrepreneurial journey. Before your dream hiking trip, you might gather information about Glacier National Park from a trusted source, such as a good friend with travel experience, or you might conduct online research. Your friend’s feedback could be just the motivation you need to try this experience yourself. Or you might use your research to determine if the trip is possible. You will need to look at maps, either online or on paper. Either way, you might also consider travel and accommodation options, such as booking a flight and finding a place to stay. You might want to create benchmarks to align your journey with your available resources, such as the amount of time and the amount of money you have to spend on the trip. Benchmarking is a method of tracking target expectations with actionable results by comparing one’s own company’s performance with an industry average, a leader within the industry, or a market segment. Benchmarking can help design the trip to meet incremental goals and timelines. From both a travel plan and an entrepreneurial perspective, although benchmarking is used as a control mechanism, we know that situations can arise that require an alteration in the plan, causing the benchmarked items to also need adjustments.

LINK TO LEARNING

Which type of benchmarking will help you the most in beginning your entrepreneurial journey? Visit the American Society for Quality’s resource page on benchmarking for help.

To plan for an entrepreneurial journey, you should first conduct some preliminary research regarding your venture idea. Your research must be honest and objective if it is to give you a clear picture of the venture. Next, you might organize and prioritize your research and thoughts. For instance, you might see an idea like yours online or on television, and feel disappointed that someone stole your great idea or beat you to the punch. This is a common occurrence in entrepreneurship, but it should not discourage you. Instead, use that knowledge and energy to find an overlooked or different aspect of your original idea. The difference might even be the focus on a different target market , a specific group of consumers for whom you envision developing a product or service. Further, it is critical to maintain a fluid focus upon expanding the scope of a product or service to uniquely differentiate provisions of benefits apart from existing benefits or those offered by competitors. A focus on a different target market is exactly how the Jitterbug smartphone was created, because it targeted senior citizens. The Jitterbug smartphone offers a larger screen, larger buttons, and simpler features that make it easier for older people to make quick calls or send texts.

Preparation also includes opening space in your life to the time and energy commitment needed to support your new venture. Are the important people in your life willing to support the interest and passion you will need to dedicate the time, energy, and other resources to this new venture? Review the questions shown in ( Figure 2.7 ) to consider your answers to these questions. Preparation through research and other activities is discussed in more detail in Identifying Entrepreneurial Opportunity .

Step 3: Assessment

Now that you have decided where to go for your trip and have gathered information to prepare for it, the next action is to create and set your schedule. This action is simple but critical, because it involves connecting and coordinating information and resources that fit your lifestyle and needs. For example, you might schedule an early-morning Uber or Lyft to the airport and electronic delivery of your plane tickets to your smartphone. For the entrepreneurial journey, this phase might also include recognizing appropriate relationships and gathering needed resources. For many entrepreneurs, the opportunity to receive guidance from trusted advisors or mentors may provide valuable insights on how to manage the process. This step allows for reflection on your idea and intentions. After you’ve done your researching and gathering knowledge about your idea through the preparation step, is the idea still viable? Is the idea still interesting to you? With a better understanding of the industry, your idea, and your own interests that you gained in Step 2, is this idea something that you still want to explore? This step is discussed more fully in Problem Solving and Need Recognition Techniques with deeper coverage on the topic of opportunity recognition ( Figure 2.8 ).

Step 4: Exploring Resources

Regardless of where you might travel, you could not complete your trip without adequate resources such as available financing. There are many ways you might fund a hiking trip: savings, loan, pay-as-you-go, sponsorship (family or friends), or any combination of these options, to name a few. No matter how you finance your trip, it might help to have a balance of available credit and cash on hand to support your day-to-day expenses and any extracurricular activities or even unforeseen emergencies. As discussed in Entrepreneurial Finance and Accounting , the US Small Business Administration (SBA) provides funding opportunities.

This scenario is mirrored in the entrepreneurial journey. Just as you wouldn’t begin a trip without adequate resources, including access to cash, you wouldn’t begin your entrepreneurial journey without the necessary resources, including cash. The options between funding a trip and funding a new venture are similar, but they have different names. For example, on a trip, you might use the cash you have on hand, from savings or a personal loan. For an entrepreneurial journey, you might address cash management —management of cash inflows and outflows to support cash needs of the venture—to include bootstrapping , a funding strategy that seeks to optimize use of personal funds and other creative strategies (such as bartering) to minimize cash outflows. (See Entrepreneurial Finance and Accounting for more information on bootstrapping.) Bootstrapping includes ideas like leasing instead of purchasing, borrowing resources, or trading unneeded resources for needed ones. Another example of cash management includes a business model that offers subscriptions rather than a payment received for an item purchased. Subscriptions provide the entrepreneur with cash up front, with the buyer receiving benefits throughout the year. Consider the example of Amazon. Amazon offers Prime with a yearly subscription service, as well as Subscribe & Save, Amazon Instant Video, Amazon Mom, and Amazon Web Services, all based on a subscription business model.

According to Entrepreneur.com, other potential subscription-based models include services or products geared to older consumers, with 8,000 people turning sixty-five every day. A similar idea offers services to college students. Both ideas would offer family members a subscription that sends monthly gifts or products to either the elderly person or college student. We also see this model offered to pet owners who pay a monthly subscription to receive treats and toys for the family dog. Looking back at Amazon, we see the company offering the ease of repeat purchases for frequently used products such as vitamins and air filters.

ENTREPRENEUR IN ACTION

Prospurly is a subscription-based company that uses Cratejoy’s subscription platform to sell small-batch artisanal products for bath, body, and home, marketing a natural lifestyle focused on the happiness of living a simple and appreciated life. Conduct your own research on Prospurly and other subscription-based businesses. Read the article, “How I Built a Subscription Business That’s Made over 50k in 6 Months,” on Cratejoy for more information about this company and Prospurly’s move from ideation to profitability.

Other ideas for finding funding include applying for grant funding. The importance of cash and cash management requires in-depth coverage, which is presented in Entrepreneurial Finance and Accounting and Business Structure Options: Legal, Tax, and Risk Issues .

The idea of exploring resources includes many other options besides how to fund a new venture. In a trial run, you would offer your product or service for sale within a limited market on a test basis to evaluate what additional resources are needed to support the success of the venture ( Figure 2.9 ). Examples of places where a trial run fits well, depending on your product, include farmers markets, in-home sales, or through friends and family. The idea is to track the feedback you receive about your product or service. How do people react to the price, the quality of the product, the packaging? You can experiment by selecting one variable to adjust—changing the price, the packaging, the sales pitch, the presentation, or the quantity—to track reactions and make improvements based on this feedback. You may then decide to adjust other variables to gather more information, as well as considering what other resources are needed for the success of the new venture. Financing and ideas to preserve your financial stability are discussed more fully in Entrepreneurial Finance and Accounting .

Step 5: Business Plan

The ability to travel and visit new locations is a privilege and a great opportunity to gain exposure to new experiences and opportunities. In addition to the work involved in preparing for a trip, the act and process of traveling involves constant decision making to achieve your desired goals and outcomes. For instance, should you travel to one location in Glacier National Park and explore that area in depth? Or should you attempt to visit as many areas of the park as possible with your given resources and abilities?

The challenge at this step of your entrepreneurial journey is to remain focused on managing your resources to meet your goals and outcomes as you write your business plan for your new venture. You will need to focus on the skills, experience, and resources necessary for your venture, and the management and decision making required to ensure success and adjust your plan based on changes and new information. Just as you might find a location in Glacier National Park where you want to stay for a couple of nights, a deviation from your original business plan (discussed in Business Model and Plan ) will also require adjustments and changes based on new information and insights.

Be honest with yourself by running a reality check about your ability to manage a venture, especially from a personal-capacity perspective. For example, if you start a business, will it be a part-time or full-time venture? Will you start while in school? Or will you wait until after graduation? The timing of opening the venture can be the difference between success and failure. Consider the difference between hiking in Glacier National Park in the middle of winter, when the daytime temperature is thirteen degrees below zero, and hiking in the middle of summer, when the daytime temperature is seventy-nine degrees. The timing of your visit to the park is an important part of your enjoyment and success in reaching your destination. In planning for your trip, you would pay attention to your departure time to ensure enjoyment and success in your adventure. Similarly, as part of your business plan, you would also research the best time to open your venture.

Finally, during your travels, getting lost, overwhelmed, or sidetracked is always possible. If you get lost when traveling, you might refer to social navigation apps such as Google Maps, Waze, or HERE WeGo, to find turn-by-turn directions and information. Or you might refer to a weblink, a printed map, or a local expert or guide familiar with the area. The business plan is your map. You should identify decision points and milestones , significant key accomplishments, in your plan. Milestones could include points such as hitting your breakeven point , the point at which income from operations results in exactly enough revenue to cover costs. If the financial projections in your business plan are unattainable, what is your next move within the plan? If you don’t reach the milestones identified in your business plan, what alternative choices can you make to redirect your venture? The business plan, in its first draft, should inform you whether your venture has a chance at success. If there are negative areas, what can you change? Building this plan before starting the business provides you with knowledge and insights about your idea. Make any necessary changes to the plan to strengthen the possibility of success. Then when you open the venture, track whether the reality of the venture aligns with your business plan’s projections and expectations. The business plan functions as both a road map to help you see where you are going next in building your venture and as a checklist to track whether you are on course or need to make adjustments. When entrepreneurs get off track, they can check out self-help websites, speak with a business coach or counselor, or contact local agencies or organizations, including those affiliated with the federal SBA. Organizations that offer free (or low-cost) small business counseling, mentoring, and training, include:

• SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives): https://www.score.org/
• Small Business Development Center (SBDC): https://www.sba.gov/offices/headquar...sbdc/resources
• Women’s Business Center (WBC): https://www.sba.gov/local-assistance...r&pageNumber=1
• US Export Assistance Center: https://www.export.gov/welcome
• Veterans Business Outreach Center (VBOC): https://veteransoutreachcenter.org/
• Other organizations include locally organized support such as pop-up entrepreneurial schools like PopUp Business School ( https://www.popupbusinessschool.co.uk/ ) and https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/th...t-without-debt

These and other resources will be discussed in more depth in Building Networks and Foundations . Look at the review questions and the discussion questions at the end of this section to prepare for creating your business plan. Business plans ( Figure 2.10 ) are discussed more fully in Business Model and Plan .

Step 6: Navigation

Once you’ve completed your trip, reflect on the experiences you had. No matter how well you feel you have planned, there is no way you can prepare for all of the potential challenges, changes, and obstacles that may occur: missed or changed flights, poor weather, an unexpected illness, a trail or road closed for repairs, or sudden good fortune. What parts of the trip went well? If you ran into a problem, how did you handle it? Was the problem something you could have anticipated and planned for? Or was it unexpected? What did you learn from the experience? If you were planning a trip to another national park, what would you do differently in your planning stage? Just as seasoned travelers adjust to their circumstances and learn from their experiences, so should you, as an entrepreneur, learn to adjust by meeting and managing challenges head on.

After completing your business plan, you will probably need to adjust your plan ( Figure 2.11 ). You might decide that you will not have enough resources to survive the time until your venture reaches the breakeven point, or you might determine that the location you selected is no longer available. There are multiple variables that require further exploration and research.

By nurturing an entrepreneurial mindset, you will be better prepared when opportunities, challenges, or obstacles surface. Although you won’t be able to predict or plan for every potential scenario along the entrepreneurial journey, an entrepreneurial mindset helps you to be resourceful when opportunities, challenges, or disappointments occur. By unpacking, or by taking an inventory of your available resources, you can also get a better picture of what you may need to unload, retain, or discard, or even if a new direction is the best course of action. On your entrepreneurial journey, evaluating the experience or situation is a perfect opportunity for you to determine how realistic, overambitious, or shortsighted your dreams and goals for your venture may be. This chapter will explore your vision for your future and your venture. Does your vision include a level of flexibility when you discover new information that supports exploring a new area?

Step 7: Launch

The actual launch is the exciting event when you open your business. By this point, you have made improvements to your product through feedback received in your trial run; you’ve identified the value or benefits provided by your product; you’ve identified your target market; and you’ve identified the location of your launch, whether it is a geographical location or an Internet location.

Inc . magazine provides an analysis of the best locations to launch a new venture, with Austin, Texas, taking the lead (see “Surge Cities: These Are the 50 Best Places in America for Starting a Business,” in Suggested Resources ). Consider your target market and the resources necessary to support your venture when choosing the location for your launch. Advice from within the entrepreneurial world suggests that sometimes the launch should take place “under the radar,” meaning in a location where you can make mistakes, fine-tune your business model and offerings, and even become successful without competitors noticing that you have created a disruption within the industry. (You will learn more about this in Launch for Growth to Success ).

Even as you are launching your venture, many variables will require your attention, just as we covered in Step 7. Navigating through these variables as your venture grows requires constant attention as new potential opportunities arise.

Sixto Cancel and Think of Us

Sixto Cancel successfully faced the harsh challenges of aging out of the foster-care system without adult support or guidance. He imagined a better foster-care system for young people then cofounded the firm Think of Us. Think of Us is a platform that helps young people in foster care build their own personalized digital advisory board of supportive adults who act as a virtual life-coaching group. The adults guide the young people through the foster-care system and ensure that they are able to become independent when they leave the system at age eighteen. For more information about this venture, visit www.thinkof-us.org.

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Not Having a Phenomenal Entrepreneurial Journey? Here's What's Missing. It's easy to get lost in the hype. Stay focused on the crucial elements that distinguish an entrepreneur who is on fire.

By Tim Denning • Jan 21, 2017

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

So you've left that job you hate, or you've come straight out of college and into the big bad world of entrepreneurship. Congratulations, I'll send you a gold medal in the mail for your bravery. You've been on the journey a short time, and it's not phenomenal. "That's right, Mr. Tim, something is missing." Well, Mr. Tim (that's me) is no guru, but I reckon I can solve some of your issues. Not because I'm so smart but because I've racked up a few hours and suffered many heartaches that caused heart-attack-like health problems.

There's no rah-rah, wham-bam, standing ovation, high-five-your-partner in this article. Moreover, the advice is also counter-intuitive in some ways. You want to be a better entrepreneur and most assume that means the advice will be 99 percent business related. It's not.

Sorry to say but success is usually the other way round. I can give you the world's best product with the world's best sales team, and you will probably still fail. The cause will be a combination of greed, ego, mindset and a few other ingredients that you'll probably never even realize are present. Why? This whole entrepreneur journey thing is about the world that happens in your flipping head not the one's and zero's that appear on your spreadsheet, nor the product you think people will care about with all its bells and whistles.

Let's get into the advice. Here are the four things that are missing from your entrepreneurial journey:

1. Your personal life sucks.

You can start to build the world's greatest company but let me tell you firsthand that if your personal life sucks, your business will too. You'll take your frustrations from your personal life into the office with you and take them out on any human being that enters your field of vision. You'll have no idea why you're doing this or even that you are doing this. People will just assume you're a jerk, which is, unfortunately, bad for business -- really bad for business.

Face up to the fact that you may be fat, lonely and single. Do something about it with one of those dating sites if you need to. It's not hard, and you can't escape the necessity. Our poor little human brains are programmed to survive, love and reproduce. The moment you forget these three facts human existence is the moment your entrepreneurial journey starts to go on a downward spiral toward bankruptcy and failure.

Related: 6 Mistakes People Make When They Go From Idea to Reality

I've lived this tip first hand, so I'm living proof. I thought I could just waltz around in my stupidly fast, luxury car and think that I was the god of entrepreneurship. When I realized I was wrong it was too late, the failure started, and I hit rock bottom. The great thing for everyone reading this is that I took all that negativity and failure and funneled it back into preaching to ya'll about how to stop yourself from failing at your own entrepreneurial journey. On the other hand, I kind of feel like massive failure is a must, and it's best to get it out of the way as early on as possible.

2. Focusing on revenue talk rather than momentum.

Working in the corporate world, I hear revenue talk multiple times a day. The thing about numbers is that they are boring and humans fundamentally don't care or get drawn in by them. If you tell me your business grew 300 percent last month, you have my attention for a fraction of a second, then I don't care. If you tell me you created a product that saved five people last month from dying of cancer, you have my attention and probably my wallet pretty quickly.

Yes, you need to make revenue to keep the lights on, but what's missing in your entrepreneurial journey is talk about momentum. You want to be talking about things that the people on your team (even if they are all freelancers) care about. Fundamentally, people have joined your vision to change the world in some unique way, and what you want to be doing is communicating momentum you are creating towards that goal. Assuming you are not smoking crack, the numbers and the momentum towards your goal should align perfectly. Stop talking revenue 100 percent of the time because it makes you sound like you're a purposeless loser and you're not, deep down.

3. Not enough action and too much strategy.

I've sat in my fair share of strategy meetings, and they bore me to tears. By the time you have finished paying the designer to attach the fancy graphics to your PowerPoint deck, the market has probably already shifted. There isn't time in today's fast-paced world to sit around dreaming about some blue horizon that your product might create. Instead of strategizing, what's missing is you must talk to customers and attract these scarce human being to your business.

The success you have in doing this will determine whether your ideas are any good. Leave the long-tailed strategy side to the large corporates who will most likely not be around in the long-term or who will be forced to take a backseat in the form of wholesaling.

Related: Here's a Strategy for This Year: Be Afraid

You've got to act quickly and with some urgency. Pretend the world is going to end in five years if that image helps get you off your butt and into action. Just do something today towards your business's vision, for crying out loud!

4. Did someone say people?

The major thing you're missing is people. If your entrepreneurial journey is not freaking fabulous, it's because you've got the wrong people on your side. Whether it's your advisors, freelancers, co-founders or employees, there is a chance that if you are not full of jubilation, then your team sucks. Unfortunately, you are to blame for this.

The good news is that you can quickly fix it. Don't worry about the number of people you have and focus on bringing on winners. By winners, I mean the guys and girls who can take a fly kick to the head and still get back up again with a smile on their face. You are searching for positivity and determination.

Related: 5 Simple Mindsets Powerful Enough to Assure Your Success

You're looking for the leaders that stand up and get others to take action. You want to ideally feel chills down your spine when you interview someone. How the people you bring on your team make you feel is just as important as to the value they can create. Take the prior job experience, plaques, number of degrees and salesman of the year awards with a grain of salt. Business is not that shallow, nor can it be faked.

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2024 April - Bob Amin - Entrepreneur FSU PC College of Entrepreneurship

• Entrepreneurship

For more information about the FSU PC Entrepreneurship Program: https://pc.fsu.edu/entrepreneurship Join us for an Entrepreneurship Lunch and Learn at FSU PC, where I have the privilege of interviewing Bob Amin. This session promises to be an insightful exploration of Bob's journey from managing a single convenience store to becoming a multi-faceted entrepreneur, along with the lessons he has learned and the wisdom he has to share. Bob Amin is a distinguished entrepreneur with a rich background in business. A graduate of Georgia State University with a degree in Computer Science, Bob's career trajectory took a pivotal turn when he ventured into the convenience store industry.  This experience laid the groundwork for his entrepreneurial journey, leading him to acquire his first convenience store in late 2003. Over the years, Bob's dedication and business acumen have enabled him to expand his portfolio to an impressive 17 convenience stores. Bob's entrepreneurial spirit didn't stop with convenience stores. He has diversified his business interests into the restaurant industry as a franchisee owner of well-known brands such as Tijuana Flats, Fazoli's, Subway, Marco's Pizza, and Checkers.  In addition to his ventures in the retail and food service sectors, Bob has also built a portfolio residential homes. Despite the demands of being self-employed, Bob places a high value on family time and maintains a strong family orientation. He enjoys being around people and has a passion for cricket—an homage to his Indian heritage—as well as follows the NFL whenever possible. Bob's entire career has been underpinned by a commitment to customer service, a field he has been involved in since his first job. With only three jobs over his lifetime, Bob's story is one of steadfast dedication and entrepreneurial growth.

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Women entrepreneurs

The Ministry of Entrepreneur Development and Cooperatives and the International Labour Organization have launched a new collaboration to organize a series of virtual events to enhance women entrepreneurs’ access to finance.

17 May 2022

• 19 May (2:00 – 4:00pm KL): ‘Financing Your Business with a Bank Loan’ ( Register here )
• 23 June (2:00 – 4:00pm KL): ‘Attracting the Crowds: Financing with ECF’ ( Register here )
• 21 July (2:00 – 4:00pm KL): ‘Pitching for Angels’ ( Register here )
• 25 August (Time TBC): ‘Taking Action: Developing a Financial Plan’ ( Register here )

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2.1 Overview of the Entrepreneurial Journey

Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Explain the entrepreneurial journey to explore and discover entrepreneurship as a career choice
• Identify the steps, decisions, and actions involved in the entrepreneurial journey
• Recognize the rewards and risks of the steps in the entrepreneurial journey

Self-Employment as an Entrepreneurial Journey

When the economy and the job market are strong, the entrepreneur has a safety net that decreases the risks in creating a new venture, a startup company or organization that conducts business or is created to satisfy a need, and allows for a quick recovery if the venture is not successful. There are more new startups when there are high levels of confidence in both the venture’s success and the entrepreneur’s confidence in finding employment if the venture fails. People over 40 years of age account for most new startup activity, in part because of the continuing trend in which a business may choose not to hire an employee but instead hire an independent contractor, a person who provides work similar to an employee without being part of the payroll for the contracting business, and who is responsible for paying their own taxes and providing their own benefits. With previous knowledge and expertise, this group of entrepreneurs recognizes opportunities created by this move away from hiring full-time employees to more outsourcing to independent contractors.

One contributor is the gig economy, which involves using temporary and often transitional positions hired on a case-by-case basis, rather than keeping a full staff of hired employees. Advantages for the employer include a decrease in cost of benefits and loyalties to specific employees. Advantages for the hired worker or independent contractor (sometimes called a freelancer) include no long-term commitment and flexibility in accepting contracts. From an entrepreneurial perspective, the creation of websites that support the gig economy offers opportunities for independent ventures. Many people today are becoming small entrepreneurs. This process goes by a variety of names, such as the sharing economy, the gig economy, the peer economy, or the collaborative economy. Maybe it means driving for a company such as Lyft, Uber, or GrubHub, or perhaps offering services through TaskRabbit, UpWork, or LivePerson.

The projected numbers of independent contractors and on-demand workers are stated as 42 percent for small businesses by the year 2020, a growth of 8 percent from current figures. [1] And a projection of greater than 50 percent of the workforce will be independent contractors by 2027 if this trend continues at the current pace. [2] In the “Freelancing in America: 2019” report, the sixth annual study by UpWork and Freelancers Union, 57 million United States citizens are estimated to freelance, with income approaching 5 percent of US gross domestic product (GDP) at nearly $1 trillion and earning a median rate of $28.00 an hour, representing an hourly income greater than 70 percent of workers in the overall US economy. [3] One report found that 94 percent of net job growth from 2005 to 2015 was in alternative work categories, with 60 percent due to independent contractors and contract company workers. [4]

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the number of self-employed Americans is growing, with 9.6 million self-employed people at the end of 2016. That number is expected to grow to 10.3 million by 2026. [5] A more recent study by FreshBooks’ second annual “Self-Employment” report predicts that 27 million US employees will leave traditional work in favor of self-employment by 2020, tripling the current population of full-time self-employed professionals to 42 million. The main driver for this change in the workforce is a greater desire for control over one’s career with the ability to have greater control over working hours and acceptance of work. [6] [7]

Of course, self-employment is a broad category that includes small-business owners as well as entrepreneurial startups and freelance gig employees. Since 2016, there has been a downward slide in the number of employees working for self-employed businesses, which results from a variety of factors, including difficulties in finding qualified employees, qualified employees having more employment options, such as employment through the gig economy, outsourcing activities, and technology actions that decrease the need for employees, with entrepreneurial activity remaining steady. [8]

Entrepreneurship around the World

In a 2017 Business Insider article, “America Needs Immigrant Entrepreneurs,” David Jolley writes that immigrants constitute 15 percent of the US workforce and 25 percent of the country’s workforce of entrepreneurs. [9] Forty percent of startups include at least one immigrant. Jolley’s article cites a study that identified immigrants as twice as likely to start a business as people born in the United States. In 2016, 40.2 percent of Fortune 500 companies were founded by at least one immigrant or a child of immigrant parents. Dinah Brin, writing for Forbes, stated in a 2018 article that immigrants form 25 percent of new US businesses and that new immigrant-owned firms generated 4 to 5 million jobs. [10]

These statistics and other findings have prompted countries such as Canada to revise their immigration policies to attract more entrepreneurial-minded immigrants. A World Bank report from May 2018 ranked the United States 53rd out of 190 countries for ease in starting a business, with higher scores representing greater ease. [11] The same report ranks the United States eighth for ease of doing business. The difference in these rankings indicates that once a business is established, factors such as regulations, permits, access to credit, and infrastructure support the business owner’s ability to continue the business, but actually starting the business is more challenging. For any given country, ease in starting a business and the country’s interest in supporting entrepreneurial activity are crucial in both attracting entrepreneurial people and supporting their ability to open a business. Imposing restrictive regulations and processes on new ventures significantly decreases the number of new ventures.

According to a 2018/2019 report, the highest rate of entrepreneurial activity worldwide in 2018 was in Angola at 41 percent. [12] Angola’s low-income economy meant fewer employment opportunities, creating pressures to find other ways to earn an income. Guatemala and Chile reported 28 percent and 25 percent of entrepreneurial activity, respectively, with medium- and high-income economies. These percentages are quite high, considering that these economies offer employment opportunities in existing companies. In terms of innovation, India at 47 percent, and Luxembourg and Chile at 48 percent each, take the lead in offering new products and services not previously available. This entrepreneurial activity reflects the ease of starting a business. The Netherlands, Poland, and Sweden were reported as the easiest countries in which to start a new business, in part because many people in those countries view entrepreneurship as an attractive lifestyle. As you can see, both economic opportunities and a country’s specific support for entrepreneurial behavior contribute to the number of people who enter entrepreneurial activities.

From a gender perspective, there are currently over 11 million woman-owned businesses in the United States. This number includes both small business owners and entrepreneurs. Thirty years ago, there were only 4 million woman-owned businesses. [13] The number of woman-owned businesses has increased 45 percent between 2007 and 2016, five times faster than the national average, with 78 percent of new women-owned businesses started by women of color.

Starting Your Entrepreneurial Journey

How do you fit into this entrepreneurial journey? This chapter will help you to explore and discover your potential for entrepreneurship as a career choice. Think of this exploration and discovery experience as a way to map out a strategy to reach your goals or dreams. Let’s imagine that your dream vacation is a hiking trip to Glacier National Park in the US state of Montana. Just as hikers have different levels of experience, so do entrepreneurs. Just as your plan for a wilderness hike would involve many stages, your entrepreneurial journey involves multiple levels of self-discovery, exploration, experiences, and accomplishments on your way to success. For our purposes, the term entrepreneurial venture means any type of new business, organization, project, or operation of interest that includes a level of risk in acting on an opportunity that has not previously been established. For each story of entrepreneurial success that is shared—such as that of Facebook or Airbnb—there are even more lesser-known entrepreneurial success stories such as Zipline, a company that delivers medical supplies in Rwanda and Ghana by drone. These entrepreneurs faced the same dilemmas in pursuing their passion, or opportunities, which led them to their entrepreneurial destiny. They courageously stepped out of their comfort zones to explore the possibilities that lie ahead. What is the difference between entrepreneurs and you? The main difference is taking that first step. Many people have ideas that fit into the definition of an entrepreneurial idea but never take that first step. Just as the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu suggests, every journey begins with a single step.

Exercise – Taking the First Step

Go to Fire Nation’s website on taking the first step to learn more. Changing your mindset (your perception of yourself and your life situation) and encountering trigger events (significant external situations) can nudge you into taking the first step toward being an entrepreneur.

• Is there a venture you’ve always thought you should start but never did?
• Think about what factors are stopping you. Consider your mindset and how you might change your mindset so that your venture could become a reality.
• What are some possible trigger events that could make the difference between starting your venture and waiting to start your venture?

Opening your future to the possibility of starting your own venture brings new and exciting experiences (Figure 2.2). Every entrepreneur moves through several steps in considering the entrepreneurial journey. Once you understand this journey, the steps will help you define your path toward creating and starting your new venture. Each step of this process offers another level of understanding that prepares you for long-term success. How will you achieve this success? By taking one step at a time, exploring and learning, considering new ideas and expectations, and applying these experiences to achieve your personal outcome. Think of the entrepreneurial journey as a guide to knowing what is in store for you as you start your new venture.

One benefit of outlining a step-by-step process is the opportunity to explore different paths or behaviors that may lead to an entrepreneurial venture. Think again of your dream visit to Glacier National Park. How would you get there? What equipment would you need? What kinds of experiences would you expect to have? Think of the Glacier National Park journey as your entrepreneurial journey, a metaphor intended to help you as you create your career as an entrepreneur.

What makes someone ready or willing to choose entrepreneurship over becoming an employee of an established business or a small business owner? It takes confidence, courage, determination, resilience, and some know-how to select entrepreneurship as a career as well as the recognition of the opportunity. An entrepreneur is defined as someone who not only recognizes an opportunity but who also is willing to act on that opportunity. Both actions are required. We might identify an opportunity, but many people do not act on the idea. Confidence, courage, and willingness are necessary to take that first step, as well as remembering the following:

You are unique. Even if two similar people attempted to launch identical ventures, the results would likely not be the same. This is because each one of us has different ideas, approaches, available resources, and comfort levels, all of which influence the venture’s development and eventual success.

Although there are no hard and fast rules or theories of the best way to launch into entrepreneurship, we can gain wisdom from the lessons learned by experienced entrepreneurs.

Selecting an entrepreneurial career requires honesty, reflection, and a tendency to be action oriented. You will need to recognize your own strengths, limitations, and commitment as part of that honesty. Reflection is required for self-growth—seeking improvements in your own skills, interactions, and decision making—and commitment is required to maintain consistency in your willingness to make the new venture a top priority in your life. You will also need to understand that you cannot accomplish everything by yourself, and you may need to ask for help. It helps to be curious, open, and able to take calculated risks and to be resourceful and resilient when faced with challenges or obstacles.

Exercise – Entrepreneurial Potential Self-Assessment

Take this quick Entrepreneurial Potential Self-Assessment to assess your potential to become an entrepreneur. After completing this self-assessment, what new information did you learn about yourself? Do you think your answers will change as you acquire more life experiences and education? Why or why not?

Exercise – Optimizing Interest Areas

• What are three areas that interest you? These could be hobbies, work activities, or entertainment activities.
• How would someone else describe your skills and interests, or what you are known for?

Answering these questions provides insights into your strengths and interests.

• Next, what is one area that you are passionate about?
• What strengths could you bring to this passion to build your own business?

Keep an open mind in looking for an opportunity that fits your strengths and interests.

• If you decide to explore entrepreneurship, what would be your first step?
• What are your initial thoughts about being an entrepreneur?
• What would you review or search to find more information on your idea or area of interest?
• With whom would you first question or discuss this idea? Why?

The Entrepreneurial Journey as a Trip

The entrepreneurial journey is your exploration to discover if entrepreneurship is right for you. Every entrepreneurial journey is unique; no two individuals will experience it in the same way. Along the way, you will find opportunities and risks coupled with challenges and rewards. It’s useful to think about the entrepreneurial journey as an exciting trip or other adventure. Most of the preparations and steps involved with planning a trip are like those for starting a venture. Just as you would plan and prepare for a trip—starting with inspiration and leading up to finally traveling on the trip—you might follow similar steps to launch a venture. And just as you would prepare for any challenges that you might encounter on a trip—bad weather, lost luggage, or detours—so you should consider potential obstacles or barriers along your entrepreneurial journey (Figure 2.3). Think of these difficulties as opportunities to learn more about the entrepreneurial process—and about yourself and how you manage challenges.

Developing a venture can be an exciting and active experience. It is also a lot of hard work, which can be equally rewarding and enjoyable. Here we present the entrepreneurial journey as seven specific steps, or experiences, which you will encounter along the road to becoming an entrepreneur. You’ll find more information about the entrepreneurial journey in other chapters in this book.

• Step 1: Inspiration – What is your motivation for becoming an entrepreneur?
• Step 2: Preparation – Do you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur?
• Step 3: Assessment – What is the idea you plan to offer through your venture?
• Step 4: Exploring Resources – What resources and characteristics do you need to make this venture work?
• Step 5: Business Plan – What type of business structure and business model will your venture have?
• Step 6: Navigation – In what direction will you take your venture? Where will you go for guidance?
• Step 7: Launch – When and how will you launch your venture?

As you work through each step of the entrepreneurial journey you should prepare for significant aspects of this experience. You will meet with rewards and challenges, the consequences that result from the decisions made at various points along your journey. To visualize the steps of the entrepreneurial journey, imagine your possible hiking trip to Glacier National Park (Table 2.1). Just as hikers have different levels of experience, so do entrepreneurs. Compare the following aspects of preparing for a hike with aspects of your entrepreneurial journey.

Hiking and Entrepreneurial Journey Metaphor

Step 1: inspiration.

When you think of being an entrepreneur, what is the inspiration for your venture? Just as you might have an inspiration for a hiking trip to Glacier National Park, you will have an inspiration behind the decision to become an entrepreneur. When you’re planning a trip to a new and exciting place, one thing you might do is to imagine what you will experience along the journey and on arriving at your destination (Figure 2.4). This portion of the entrepreneurial journey includes imagining yourself as an entrepreneur or as part of an entrepreneurial team. For this stage, you need a creative, open, and innovative state of mind, also known as an entrepreneurial mindset, which is discussed in more detail in The Entrepreneurial Mindset and Creativity, Innovation, and Invention. Dream big about your potential future and opportunities (Figure 2.5).

Step 2: Preparation

Just as when you are preparing for a trip, you need a plan (Figure 2.6) to move forward on your entrepreneurial journey. Before your dream hiking trip, you might gather information about Glacier National Park from a trusted source, such as a good friend with travel experience, or you might conduct online research. Your friend’s feedback could be just the motivation you need to try this experience yourself. Or you might use your research to determine if the trip is possible. You will need to look at maps, either online or on paper. Either way, you might also consider travel and accommodation options, such as booking a flight and finding a place to stay. You might want to create benchmarks to align your journey with your available resources, such as the amount of time and the amount of money you have to spend on the trip. Benchmarking is a method of tracking target expectations with actionable results by comparing one’s own company’s performance with an industry average, a leader within the industry, or a market segment. Benchmarking can help design the trip to meet incremental goals and timelines. From both a travel plan and an entrepreneurial perspective, although benchmarking is used as a control mechanism, we know that situations can arise that require an alteration in the plan, causing the benchmarked items to also need adjustments.

Link to Learning

Which type of benchmarking will help you the most in beginning your entrepreneurial journey? Visit the American Society for Quality’s resource page on benchmarking for help.

To plan for an entrepreneurial journey, you should first conduct some preliminary research regarding your venture idea. Your research must be honest and objective if it is to give you a clear picture of the venture. Next, you might organize and prioritize your research and thoughts. For instance, you might see an idea like yours online or on television, and feel disappointed that someone stole your great idea or beat you to the punch. This is a common occurrence in entrepreneurship, but it should not discourage you. Instead, use that knowledge and energy to find an overlooked or different aspect of your original idea. The difference might even be the focus on a different target market, a specific group of consumers for whom you envision developing a product or service. Further, it is critical to maintain a fluid focus upon expanding the scope of a product or service to uniquely differentiate provisions of benefits apart from existing benefits or those offered by competitors. A focus on a different target market is exactly how the Jitterbug smartphone was created, because it targeted senior citizens. The Jitterbug smartphone offers a larger screen, larger buttons, and simpler features that make it easier for older people to make quick calls or send texts.

Preparation also includes opening space in your life to the time and energy commitment needed to support your new venture. Are the important people in your life willing to support the interest and passion you will need to dedicate the time, energy, and other resources to this new venture? Review the questions shown in (Figure 2.7) to consider your answers to these questions.

Step 3: Assessment

Now that you have decided where to go for your trip and have gathered information to prepare for it, the next action is to create and set your schedule. This action is simple but critical, because it involves connecting and coordinating information and resources that fit your lifestyle and needs. For example, you might schedule an early-morning Uber or Lyft to the airport and electronic delivery of your plane tickets to your smartphone. For the entrepreneurial journey, this phase might also include recognizing appropriate relationships and gathering needed resources. For many entrepreneurs, the opportunity to receive guidance from trusted advisors or mentors may provide valuable insights on how to manage the process. This step allows for reflection on your idea and intentions. After you’ve done your researching and gathering knowledge about your idea through the preparation step, is the idea still viable? Is the idea still interesting to you? With a better understanding of the industry, your idea, and your own interests that you gained in Step 2, is this idea something that you still want to explore?

Step 4: Exploring Resources

Regardless of where you might travel, you could not complete your trip without adequate resources such as available financing. There are many ways you might fund a hiking trip: savings, loan, pay-as-you-go, sponsorship (family or friends), or any combination of these options, to name a few. No matter how you finance your trip, it might help to have a balance of available credit and cash on hand to support your day-to-day expenses and any extracurricular activities or even unforeseen emergencies. As discussed in Entrepreneurial Finance and Accounting, the US Small Business Administration (SBA) provides funding opportunities.

This scenario is mirrored in the entrepreneurial journey. Just as you wouldn’t begin a trip without adequate resources, including access to cash, you wouldn’t begin your entrepreneurial journey without the necessary resources, including cash. The options between funding a trip and funding a new venture are similar, but they have different names. For example, on a trip, you might use the cash you have on hand, from savings or a personal loan. For an entrepreneurial journey, you might address cash management—management of cash inflows and outflows to support cash needs of the venture—to include bootstrapping, a funding strategy that seeks to optimize use of personal funds and other creative strategies (such as bartering) to minimize cash outflows. (See Entrepreneurial Finance and Accounting for more information on bootstrapping.) Bootstrapping includes ideas like leasing instead of purchasing, borrowing resources, or trading unneeded resources for needed ones. Another example of cash management includes a business model that offers subscriptions rather than a payment received for an item purchased. Subscriptions provide the entrepreneur with cash up front, with the buyer receiving benefits throughout the year. Consider the example of Amazon. Amazon offers Prime with a yearly subscription service, as well as Subscribe & Save, Amazon Instant Video, Amazon Mom, and Amazon Web Services, all based on a subscription business model.

According to Entrepreneur.com, other potential subscription-based models include services or products geared to older consumers, with 8,000 people turning sixty-five every day. A similar idea offers services to college students. Both ideas would offer family members a subscription that sends monthly gifts or products to either the elderly person or college student. We also see this model offered to pet owners who pay a monthly subscription to receive treats and toys for the family dog. Looking back at Amazon, we see the company offering the ease of repeat purchases for frequently used products such as vitamins and air filters.

Entrepreneur In Action

Prospurly is a subscription-based company that uses Cratejoy’s subscription platform to sell small-batch artisanal products for bath, body, and home, marketing a natural lifestyle focused on the happiness of living a simple and appreciated life. Conduct your own research on Prospurly and other subscription-based businesses. Read the article, “How I Built a Subscription Business That’s Made over 50k in 6 Months,” on Cratejoy for more information about this company and Prospurly’s move from ideation to profitability.

Other ideas for finding funding include applying for grant funding.

The idea of exploring resources includes many other options besides how to fund a new venture. In a trial run, you would offer your product or service for sale within a limited market on a test basis to evaluate what additional resources are needed to support the success of the venture (Figure 2.9). Examples of places where a trial run fits well, depending on your product, include farmers markets, in-home sales, or through friends and family. The idea is to track the feedback you receive about your product or service. How do people react to the price, the quality of the product, the packaging? You can experiment by selecting one variable to adjust—changing the price, the packaging, the sales pitch, the presentation, or the quantity—to track reactions and make improvements based on this feedback. You may then decide to adjust other variables to gather more information, as well as considering what other resources are needed for the success of the new venture.

Step 5: Business Plan

The ability to travel and visit new locations is a privilege and a great opportunity to gain exposure to new experiences and opportunities. In addition to the work involved in preparing for a trip, the act and process of traveling involves constant decision making to achieve your desired goals and outcomes. For instance, should you travel to one location in Glacier National Park and explore that area in depth? Or should you attempt to visit as many areas of the park as possible with your given resources and abilities?

The challenge at this step of your entrepreneurial journey is to remain focused on managing your resources to meet your goals and outcomes as you write your business plan for your new venture. You will need to focus on the skills, experience, and resources necessary for your venture, and the management and decision making required to ensure success and adjust your plan based on changes and new information. Just as you might find a location in Glacier National Park where you want to stay for a couple of nights, a deviation from your original business plan (discussed in Business Model and Plan) will also require adjustments and changes based on new information and insights.

Be honest with yourself by running a reality check about your ability to manage a venture, especially from a personal-capacity perspective. For example, if you start a business, will it be a part-time or full-time venture? Will you start while in school? Or will you wait until after graduation? The timing of opening the venture can be the difference between success and failure. Consider the difference between hiking in Glacier National Park in the middle of winter, when the daytime temperature is thirteen degrees below zero, and hiking in the middle of summer, when the daytime temperature is seventy-nine degrees. The timing of your visit to the park is an important part of your enjoyment and success in reaching your destination. In planning for your trip, you would pay attention to your departure time to ensure enjoyment and success in your adventure. Similarly, as part of your business plan, you would also research the best time to open your venture.

Finally, during your travels, getting lost, overwhelmed, or sidetracked is always possible. If you get lost when traveling, you might refer to social navigation apps such as Google Maps, Waze, or HERE WeGo, to find turn-by-turn directions and information. Or you might refer to a weblink, a printed map, or a local expert or guide familiar with the area. The business plan is your map. You should identify decision points and milestones, significant key accomplishments, in your plan. Milestones could include points such as hitting your breakeven point, the point at which income from operations results in exactly enough revenue to cover costs. If the financial projections in your business plan are unattainable, what is your next move within the plan? If you don’t reach the milestones identified in your business plan, what alternative choices can you make to redirect your venture? The business plan, in its first draft, should inform you whether your venture has a chance at success. If there are negative areas, what can you change? Building this plan before starting the business provides you with knowledge and insights about your idea. Make any necessary changes to the plan to strengthen the possibility of success. Then when you open the venture, track whether the reality of the venture aligns with your business plan’s projections and expectations. The business plan functions as both a road map to help you see where you are going next in building your venture and as a checklist to track whether you are on course or need to make adjustments. When entrepreneurs get off track, they can check out self-help websites, speak with a business coach or counselor, or contact local agencies or organizations, including those affiliated with the federal SBA. Organizations that offer free (or low-cost) small business counseling, mentoring, and training, include:

• SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives)
• Small Business Development Center (SBDC)
• Women’s Business Center (WBC)
• US Export Assistance Center
• Veterans Business Outreach Center (VBOC)
• Other organizations include locally organized support such as pop-up entrepreneurial schools like PopUp Business School.

These and other resources will be discussed in more depth in Building Networks and Foundations. Look at the review questions and the discussion questions at the end of this section to prepare for creating your business plan.

Step 6: Navigation

Once you’ve completed your trip, reflect on the experiences you had. No matter how well you feel you have planned, there is no way you can prepare for all of the potential challenges, changes, and obstacles that may occur: missed or changed flights, poor weather, an unexpected illness, a trail or road closed for repairs, or sudden good fortune. What parts of the trip went well? If you ran into a problem, how did you handle it? Was the problem something you could have anticipated and planned for? Or was it unexpected? What did you learn from the experience? If you were planning a trip to another national park, what would you do differently in your planning stage? Just as seasoned travelers adjust to their circumstances and learn from their experiences, so should you, as an entrepreneur, learn to adjust by meeting and managing challenges head on.

After completing your business plan, you will probably need to adjust your plan (Figure 2.11). You might decide that you will not have enough resources to survive the time until your venture reaches the breakeven point, or you might determine that the location you selected is no longer available. There are multiple variables that require further exploration and research.

By nurturing an entrepreneurial mindset, you will be better prepared when opportunities, challenges, or obstacles surface. Although you won’t be able to predict or plan for every potential scenario along the entrepreneurial journey, an entrepreneurial mindset helps you to be resourceful when opportunities, challenges, or disappointments occur. By unpacking, or by taking an inventory of your available resources, you can also get a better picture of what you may need to unload, retain, or discard, or even if a new direction is the best course of action. On your entrepreneurial journey, evaluating the experience or situation is a perfect opportunity for you to determine how realistic, overambitious, or shortsighted your dreams and goals for your venture may be. This chapter will explore your vision for your future and your venture. Does your vision include a level of flexibility when you discover new information that supports exploring a new area?

Step 7: Launch

The actual launch is the exciting event when you open your business. By this point, you have made improvements to your product through feedback received in your trial run; you’ve identified the value or benefits provided by your product; you’ve identified your target market; and you’ve identified the location of your launch, whether it is a geographical location or an Internet location.

Inc. magazine provides an analysis of the best locations to launch a new venture, with Austin, Texas, taking the lead (see “Surge Cities: These Are the 50 Best Places in America for Starting a Business,” in Suggested Resources). Consider your target market and the resources necessary to support your venture when choosing the location for your launch. Advice from within the entrepreneurial world suggests that sometimes the launch should take place “under the radar,” meaning in a location where you can make mistakes, fine-tune your business model and offerings, and even become successful without competitors noticing that you have created a disruption within the industry.

Even as you are launching your venture, many variables will require your attention, just as we covered in Step 7. Navigating through these variables as your venture grows requires constant attention as new potential opportunities arise.

Sixto Cancel and Think of Us

Sixto Cancel successfully faced the harsh challenges of aging out of the foster-care system without adult support or guidance. He imagined a better foster-care system for young people then cofounded the firm Think of Us. Think of Us is a platform that helps young people in foster care build their own personalized digital advisory board of supportive adults who act as a virtual life-coaching group. The adults guide the young people through the foster-care system and ensure that they are able to become independent when they leave the system at age eighteen. For more information about this venture, visit www.thinkof-us.org.

• David Pridham. “Entrepreneurs: Here’s Good News for 2018.” Forbes. 2018. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidpridham/2018/01/10/entrepreneurs-heres-good-news-for-2018/#660f5ebd6659 ↵
• UpWork and Freelancers Union. “Freelancers Predicted to Become the U.S. Workforce Majority within a Decade, with Nearly 50% of Millennial Workers Already Freelancing, annual ‘Freelancing in America’ Study Finds.” UpWork. October 17, 2017. https://www.upwork.com/press/2017/10/17/freelancing-in-america-2017/ ↵
• UpWork. “Sixth Annual ‘Freelancing in America’ Study Finds That More People Than Ever See Freelancing as a Long-Term Career Path.” UpWork. October 3, 2019. https://www.upwork.com/press/2019/10/03/freelancing-in-america-2019/ ↵
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Real world problem solving: An entrepreneurial perspective Copyright © 2022 by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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