An Entrepreneurial Primer

Presentation

Objectives:

• Understand entrepreneurship
• Understand how an effective group operates and create bylaws to ensure productivity and conflict resolution
• Understand ideation, brainstorm preliminary startup idea, and pitch this idea

Instruction for speakers:

Speaker should give talk consisting mostly of illuminating anecdotes and stories. After the talk, the class will discuss the concepts and ideas mentioned in the talk during the group discussion.

General structure of talk: Speaker talks about early days of startup. Speaker describes ideation process. Speaker discusses the motivation behind creating the startup. Speaker should also discuss the importance of the founding team and methods used to maintain productivity and creativity. Speaker should discuss Lean Startup and its use in the startup. Speaker should cover the general structure of a pitch. Speaker should then go over what a typical day in the life is like for an entrepreneur.

Questions and points to cover during the talk:

• What does entrepreneurship mean to you?
• When and why did you become an entrepreneur?
  • If you held a job prior to becoming to an entrepreneur, what was the transition like from an office job to a job as an entrepreneur?
• What is the most important trait that an entrepreneur should possess?
• What role does passion play in entrepreneurship?
• How did you get your idea for your business?
  • Did you go through a formal ideation process (drafting/board meeting) or did you have a sudden epiphany?
  • Did you come up with this idea alone or with a co-founder?
  • How does working with a teammate or alone affect the venture?
• How did you know that your idea was a good idea?
• Initially, what was the mission of your venture?
  • Did the mission of your startup change over time?
• How did translate your idea into a product or service?
  • Did you use prototypes or surveys?
• Did you use the Lean Startup Methodology? If you did, please describe how you utilized it in your startup.
• What channels did you use initially to expand your clientele?
  • Word of Mouth? Social Media?
• How did you get your first customer?
• How did you compete with pre-existing startups and larger corporations?
  • What made your venture unique in its offerings?
• How did you resolve disputes among team members? Please use an anecdote of how you resolved a conflict.
• How does your team make important decisions such as a change in product development?
• How does your team stay productive?
• How does your startup promote creativity and innovation on a daily basis?
  • Brainstorming sessions?
• Does your startup have a unique culture? Please describe one quirk that your startup team has. What does your team do to strengthen its bond with one another?
  • Startup team outings? Team building activities?
• If you could return to the early stages of your venture, would you change anything about how you approached entrepreneurship?
• What is a day like for you as an entrepreneur? Describe an ordinary day in the life.
• What kind of hardship did you encounter early on?
  • How did you overcome this obstacle?

Group Discussion:

Group of students will discuss any questions they have after the talk with their teammates and mentors. The mentor is there to facilitate, not lead the discussion. Mentors can also refer to the aforementioned guiding questions for topics to discuss in groups. The main points to discuss with groups are contained in the powerpoint. Mentors, please go over all points in the powerpoint with students.

The contents of the powerpoint are summarized below. Make sure that the students understand the bullets below:

• Entrepreneurship is a broad category that isn’t necessarily confined to tech although technology is popular among new startups.
• Entrepreneurship should be driven by passion.
  • Entrepreneurs don’t create startups for the sole purpose of making money although it is not uncommon for entrepreneurs to make a comfortable living off of their startup.
  • Entrepreneurs should create a startup that is passion driven and provides value to the customer.
  • Starting a startup this way is both fulfilling and rewarding monetary wise.

For the ideation activity, students will have already come up with several ideas of their own. During this session, groups will ideally choose one idea to pursue.

First, mentors will ask each member of the group to explain their best idea. After each person has gone and “pitched” their idea, discuss as a group which idea is the best to pursue as a group. Mentors should remind students that regardless of which idea is chosen, each group member has an equal stake in the startup. Collaboration and cooperation are key to the success of the startup.

Have the groups discuss the passions that they have and let find some common interests to create a startup around, whether it be tech related or not. Mentors, remember not to blatantly veto ideas, but try to guide teams towards pursuing the most viable and feasible startup. (Sometimes students can be too ambitious in their startup ideas). Teams should also choose a startup idea where the students can make a prototype (MVP) of the product or service. Use the points below to guide the conversation:

• Think about the ideas that each group members has explained. Are there any overlapping trends that apply to multiple ideas? Trends could include categories such as apps or a similar purpose.
• Discuss the motivation or story behind each idea. Do any of the stories or motivations overlap?
• Is there any way to combine two ideas into a larger idea?
• Which idea is most feasible? (Mentors should provide advice for this question.)
• Are all members interested in pursuing the idea? If not, try making fine adjustments to the ideas until a consensus is reached. Students should remember that the ideas coming from this session are final and tend to change over the course of SecondGen.

Points about ideation to talk about:

• A startup idea should demonstrate convergence
  • Convergence is the overlap between your passion and other people's’ interests.
  • Convergence presents a win-win situation in that one can pursue his or her passion and get paid for it.
    • For instance, one pizza expert makes a living judging pizza contests and giving tours of famous pizzerias in New York. The pizza experts likes pizza and knows a lot about it. People want to know what the best pizza is. This convergence enables this guy to make a comfortable living doing what he likes to do.
    • Try to apply this mentality to the startup you pursue.
• Think about your skills and “hidden” skills and build a startup around them
  • People have obvious skills associated with their jobs
    • Students are good at studying
    • Teachers are good at teaching
• People also have related skills that are somewhat “hidden”
  • Students may be good at time management, which helps them with studying
  • Teachers possess good communications skills, which help them teach
• When thinking of skills that you can use to build a startup, expand your thinking and think of those “hidden skills”
  • e.g. A former waitress realized that she had strong communication skills that she used when serving customers. She leveraged this communication skills to create a PR firm.
• It all boils down to this: Passion/skill + helpfulness = success (in entrepreneurship)
• Common sources of inspiration for startup ideas (This is also on the ideation worksheets):
  • Problem or inefficiency in the market place
    • Is there a product or service that you wished existed?
    • Is there a way to improve an existing service?
  • e.g. Uber offered a better alternative for transportation.
• New opportunities and technology
• You don’t need to invent something completely new
• For instance, many other startups have adapted Uber’s on demand business model to other sectors like grocery shopping or ordering food and have been very successful.
• When laptops were introduced, companies producing accessory goods like laptop bags and fans emerged.
• A side project
• Think of any current projects you are working on.
• Is there one aspect of the project that can be isolated and refined into a product or service?
• Many business ideas arise as an offshoot of a previous project.
• For instance, one frequent traveller’s diary turned into a travel guide that became a best-seller
• Three overarching questions to think about when evaluating business ideas:
• Through what channels would I get paid for this idea?
• How much would this idea earn me? Does the idea provide a sustainable source of revenue?

Group bylaws: Refer to the questions below to help guide the process

• What baseline rules does your group want?
  • Respect one another?
  • Respect and encourage differing opinions?
• How will the group maintain productivity?
  • Specialized roles/assignments?
  • Talking stick during discussions?
  • Stretching breaks?
• How will the group hold each member accountable for his or her assignment?
  • Weekly meetings and check-ins?
  • Communicating through social media?
  • Accountability partners?
• What words would you use to describe your team culture? Feel free to use the example mentioned by the speaker.
  • Relaxed environment?
  • Focused?
  • Passionate?
  • Quirky and fun?
• How will the group resolve conflicts?
  • Voting?
  • Third-party arbitrator? (mentor)
  • Group discussions?
• How will your group try to strengthen team chemistry?
  • Spending time outside of work together?
  • Chatting?
  • Outings?
• What kind of disciplinary actions will your group take if one member is not doing his or her share of the work?
• What will your team’s decision making process be?
  • Group discussion and voting?
  • Person specializing in that area makes decision independently of other group members?