Characteristics of Value-Creating Venture Ideas

Discuss about the Social Entrepreneurship Business Research.

Currently, I am doing my Masters program in strategic entrepreneurship (2 year program) from Jonkoping University, Sweden. In future, I want to grow up my family business and will try to create new ventures in the existing business. I had personal interest to study entrepreneurship master than any other course as my motto was to look after the family business in future. In order to do so, I should have proper understanding of this subject theoretically so that I can apply my learning in future practically. I do not have any prior experience in entrepreneurship till now. I personally believe that entrepreneurship is an activity where individual desire to set up a business by taking on financial risks and hoping that they will be able to generate profits in the near future. The definitions of entrepreneurship that had been taught in class are all theoretical and relate properly with the definition that I believe in. only knowing the definition and its advantages cannot help any individual to become an entrepreneur. Being an entrepreneur needs lot of patience and ability to make decisions wisely (Baron, 2006). I have lot of expectation from this Master program on entrepreneurship where I would gain knowledge on the subject entrepreneurship people and process. I want to be an entrepreneur and for starting I would like to join my family business and help my parents with the knowledge I gained from this course. By seeing my parents, I felt that I could also go for entrepreneurship in future. But, that cannot be sole reason to become successful entrepreneur. I always wanted to do something by my own where I can generate own ideas and start working for it from scratch. I am a risk taker and that is the most important traits needed to start a business in the most appropriate way. Our lecturer are so interesting where they teach us every aspect in detail and with providing real-life instances that helped each of us as a student to gain and relate those examples to our daily lives. We are always guided by our lecturer constantly where we can ask any questions at any point of time to resolve query that we get in the subjects.

What characterizes a value-creating venture idea and what does it take to communicate it? Where do opportunities come from and what characterizes the entrepreneurial process?

Sources of Getting Entrepreneurial Ideas

We were taught in class that entrepreneurial process starts with first generation of idea, then the feasibility study and lastly the business plan. Idea generation of value-creating venture is the most vital part that needs to be decided by the entrepreneur at initial stages or phases (Barton Cunningham & Lischeron, 1991).

Characteristics of good value-creating venture ideas should be market-driven that can solve a problem, find a market need as well as is customer-focused and not product driven. The idea should effectively target an identified sizeable market segment (Davidsson, 2004). The value-creating idea should be feasible by nature. The idea should be attractive by understanding whether there is demand for that product or services. The idea should be achievable and durable. The idea should be safe as well as affordable. The idea should be unique and this means faster, better and cheaper.

Sources of getting good entrepreneurial ideas will be talking to friends, family as well as other important contacts. Networking is important to get proper idea for business. I would suggest individual to consider their hobbies and interest that they can generate it as an idea.

We were even taught in class that some of the business-venture ideas should be avoided such as unfavorable industries, crusades, unsafe or illegal products or services as well as unfavorable markets. According to me, business venture idea should be addressed to an investor as well as must be formulated from the perspective of investors. The business idea should be innovative and benefits the customers at first place (Slotte-Kock & Coviello, 2010). It is always needed to start with a compelling business venture idea as it is considered as first milestone in the process of founding a company. There are few important features of promising business and these are innovative, uniqueness as well as fulfilling need of customers and profitable in long run. Constant check or evaluation of business idea is needed as plausibility check help in getting access to information about feasibility as well as innovative content (Johannisson, 2011).

What characterizes entrepreneurial context and why is it relevant for entrepreneurial process? Which aspects of context do you find most interesting or important?

I find each aspect of entrepreneurship process interesting starting from the initial phase of business-venture idea generation. By becoming entrepreneur, one can easily work on their own idea (Kim & Mauborgne, 2000). Though becoming an entrepreneur is difficult in real life but still it is interesting to work for own dream and start from the scratch. All big known companies started out small where may be one man or women had come out with good idea and willingness to risk everything. There are so many instances where we can see that new business fail but the business that succeed actually contribute a great deal to the creation of new ventures as it leads to whole dynamic national economy. Currently, it is noted that the economists as well as business researchers are of the opinion about entrepreneurship that it is a main key component of future economic growth in and across the world. Entrepreneurship had looked as the catalyst that transfers a segment of new generation people into self-employed business owners who can provide jobs to others. Entrepreneurship is a necessary component that leads to wealth creation as well as represents the individuals who uses innovative management techniques for the design, manufacture as well as marketing of products that has the ability to compete in and across the world. It is believed by many people that entrepreneurs are different as compared to normal people. A successful entrepreneur has proper knowledge about business planning as well as marketing strategies and asset management. There is different process or context of entrepreneurship where each step is different and unique to each other. The first step in entrepreneurship context is concept formation where the entrepreneurs will be determining the potential market existence for the business as well as forming a rough idea on how to penetrate the existing market. The next entrepreneurship context is resource gathering (Rindova, Barrey & Ketchen, 2009). Then, the entrepreneurship context or process of organization creation as well as development

Entrepreneurial Context

Drawing on a guest lecture on your interview with an entrepreneur and reflect as how this person’s entrepreneurial approach can be related to Sarasvathy’s theoretical perspective of effectuation and causation

Moritz Witter visited our campus and came to our class as guest lecture where we had an opportunity to meet such a successful Founder and CEO who is currently working at Nordic Adventurous. His class was so interesting where he was citing real-life instances on how difficult it is to become an entrepreneur and sharing some important mantras that need to be taken into consideration. His entrepreneurial approach is directly related to that of Sarasvathy’s theoretical perspective of effectuation and causation (Sarasvathy, 2001). This relation helped me to understand and link various aspects of similarity and I was quite confident on what to do and what to avoid while starting any business in the near future. The theoretical perspective of Sarasvathy’s defines an approach of making decisions as well as performing actions in the entrepreneurial process where individual can identify next and decide the best step after assessing the available resources for achieving goals while constantly balancing these goals with the resources and actions. This particular approach was explained by our guest lecture by citing examples from his experience. Effectuation in actually differs hugely from causal logic where there is predetermined goals set as well as process defined for achieving the future plan based on set of resources. Sarasvathy is of the opinion that causal logic is not properly suited for entrepreneurship process as it is inherently featured by uncertainties as well as risk. however, the fundamental world view for effectuation actually means Pilot in the Plane that explain future as something where individual can get influenced by the actions at the time of creating own opportunities. The lecture was quite interesting and we learned a lot from that. We asked so many questions from the guest lecture. To that, the answers were given to each question asked in a positive way (Mair & Martí, 2006). This lecture session was the best part and I would desire or dream to become a successful entrepreneur like him in the near future.

After looking at the entrepreneurial process, how do you characterize your entrepreneurial decision-making style?

Yes, there is lot of changes in me and that can be easily felt as initially my thinking process was different but now I think more practically. In the first entry, I mentioned that I am a risk taker and that makes me confident that I will be able to take up my family business and expand in the near future. Looking back, now I feel that the process of entrepreneurship was quite a difficult task and I now understand the theoretical as well as practical aspect that made me more focused and determined. The entrepreneurship decision-making style that characterizes me is data driven approach. I would like to base my individual decisions in terms of data collection, information gathered, facts and statistics. This process is time-taking but I would like to have my facts clear and then take decision based on that. I feel so confident in this phase that was fully missing during the starting course or program. I am now feeling relaxed that it was my wise decision that I took up this program on entrepreneurship where I developed sense of understanding about entrepreneurship people and process. The most interesting part was the guest lecture where we could get to hear real-life instances and start linking it with our personal lives. It is very important for an entrepreneur to remain focused in life. Lack of focus can harm an entrepreneur to a large extent. I am now ready to fulfill my dream of continuing with my family business and expand it globally. I would like to take help from friends, family and known contacts before taking any decisions for my own business. Each suggestion counts and I will take into account their viewpoint as customers. Market research will help me in getting to know whether there is demand for that products or services.

References and Bibliography

Baron, R.A. (2006): Opportunity recognition as pattern recognition: How entrepreneurs ‘connect the dots’ to identify new business opportunities, Academy of Management Perspectives, February, 104-119.

Barton Cunningham, J. & Lischeron, J. (1991): Defining entrepreneurship, Journal of Small Business Management, 29, 1, 45-61.

Davidsson, P. (2004): Researching Entrepreneurship, Chapter 1: What is entrepreneurship, Springer (on Pingpong)

Johannisson, B (2011) Towards a practice theory of entrepreneuring. Small Business Economics, 36(2): 135-150.

Kim, W.C. & Mauborgne, R. (2000): Knowing a winning business idea when you see one, Harvard Business Review, Sept.-Oct., 129-138.

Mair, J. & Martí, J. (2006): Social entrepreneurship research: A source of explanation, prediction, and delight, Journal of World Business, 41, 36-44.

Rindova, V.,Barrey, D., &Ketchen, D.J. jr. (2009). Entrepreneuring as emancipation, Academy of Management Review, 34(3), 477-491.

Sarasvathy, S. (2001): Causation and Effectuation: Toward a Theoretical Shift from Economic Inevitability to Entrepreneurial Contingency, Academy of Management Review, 26, 2, 243-263.

Slotte-Kock, S. & Coviello, N. (2010). Entrepreneurship research on network processes: A review and ways forward, Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, January, 31-57.