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Starting Your Venture
Dave Jarman. Head of Enterprise & Employability
In this session
• Why start something?
• Entrepreneurial success
• What should you start?
• Brainstorming for ideas
• Evaluating Ideas
• Facing Failure
Why start something?
• Why people start businesses:– Because they need to:
• Nature of their industry• Personal circumstances
– Because they want to:• To act on an idea• To be their own boss –
autonomy• To change the world• To do something better• Lifestyle choice
• What would motivate YOU to start something?
“The best plan (for would-be entrepreneurs) is always to choose a business idea in an area where
they have a genuine passion, rather than something they suspect could make money, but where they have no personal expertise or track
record.”
Mike Southon – The Beermat Entrepreneur
“Entrepreneur n. a person who undertakes a commercial venture.”
Oxford English Dictionary
Entrepreneurial Success
• What are the characteristics and abilities of a successful entrepreneur?
• ‘Knowledge’, ‘skills’, or ‘attitudes’?– Things we know– Things we can do– Ways we approach things
• What does this tell us about being an entrepreneur?
Entrepreneurial Success
• No single model
• No cast-iron factors in determining intra- or entrepreneurialism
• Happens at different points to different people in different ways
• Bottom line: Good at spotting opportunities and taking them (networking, self-awareness, self-efficacy)
Innovation & Enterprise Skills
• Associated skills/aptitudes– Opportunity recognition
(Commercial Awareness)– Autonomy & Initiative
(Self-Awareness & Self-Efficacy)
– Decision-making capability (with limited information)
– Creative problem-solving– Networking capacity– Strategic thinking– Persuasive capacity
The Entrepreneurial Team
• Not everyone is ‘the’ entrepreneur
• Quite frankly entrepreneurs by themselves would fail
• An entrepreneurial start-up needs a TEAM:– The Entrepreneur – ideas, confidence, ambition, energy
– The Cornerstones – professional skills, passion, courage, action• (Technical) Innovator
• Delivery Specialist
• Sales Specialist
• Finance Specialist
– The ‘Dream Team’ – specialist knowledge/ability
What should you start up?
• Solve a problem
• Fill a gap in the market
• 2 principles:
– The Customer is always right
– “If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have asked for a faster horse.” (Henry Ford)
Brainstorming for ideas
Creativity exercises #1 & #2
• Individual exercise– 1 minute to identify as
many different ways of using the object as you can
• Group exercise– 2 minutes to identify as
many different ways of using the object as you can
“It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong, than to
always be right by having no ideas at all.”
Edward De Bono
The PMI (+C)
• P is for Plus
• M is for Minus
• I is for Interesting!
• (C is for Commercial Opportunities)
PMI (C) these:– Marriage as a 5-year renewable contract
– Paint all cars yellow
Ask the right question
• “How do I build a better mousetrap?”
• Or.. “How do I get rid of the mice?”
Evaluating Ideas
For an idea to be valuable it has to:
• Have impact– Right customer
– Creates value
• Be feasible– Good product/service
– Good team
• Knowing you have a good idea
Your challenge…
Near-field communications:• Chips in smartphones
that react when close to emitters
• Enables messages and content to be distributed by geography and proximity
• What could you do with this technology?
• Map your post it notes onto the map
Expect to Fail
Facing Failure
• 90% of start-ups fail: Top 4 reasons
– Made something that no-one wants
– Ran out of cash
– Didn’t have the right team
– Couldn’t compete
• The trick is persistence; most successful entrepreneurs have failed multiple times
Facing Failure
• The more ideas you have the more likely you are to find one that works
• Test it early and test it often (with customers)
• Involve others in the design and development
• Get ready to pivot
• Think big, act small, fail fast.
Create it Challenge
• 60 second video + 600 characters
• Test your idea, get feedback!
• £100 to be won by the most popular and creative ideas
• Deadline 16th
November
https://bathsparks.wazoku.com
In this session
• Why start something?
• Entrepreneurial success
• What should you start?
• Brainstorming for ideas
• Evaluating Ideas
• Facing Failure
