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LOWERSIXTH ENTREPRENEURS Notes
LOWERSIXTH ENTREPRENEURS Notes
LOWERSIXTH ENTREPRENEURS Notes
Entrepreneurial process
The entrepreneurial process can be defined as the steps taken in order to establish a new
enterprise. It is a step-by-step method, one has to follow to set up an enterprise.
1. Idea Generation: This is the first step in the entrepreneurial process since every new
venture begins with an idea. The entrepreneur starts by identifying a business idea or
opportunity which can be a market need or a business problem coupled with a
possible solution.
2. Opportunity evaluation: Here the entrepreneur evaluates the business ideas and
opportunities. The entrepreneur must conduct a feasibility study and take information
from other people to find out whether the opportunity is worth investing in, is
sufficiently attractive, is feasible, has any competitive advantage and the risk
associated with it.
3. Developing a Plan: Once you have decided that an opportunity is worth investing in,
you need to develop a plan to help realize it and launch the company. This is a crucial
step in the entrepreneurial process. The plan will provide details on business
objectives, goals, mission statement, and details of products or services, business
strategy and operating structures.
4. Resource Gathering: The next step in the entrepreneurial process is resourcing, where
the entrepreneur identifies the sources from where the finance, human labour,
technology, machines, materials and other resources can be arranged. Here, the
entrepreneur finds the investors for its new venture and the personnel to carry out the
business activities.
5. Company formation/launch: Once the entrepreneur secures the funds and resources,
they will launch the company and form a legal entity. The entrepreneur will go
through the process of choosing the right form of corporate entity depending on its
requirements and actually creating the venture as a legal entity.
6. Managing the Business: After launching the company, it will start producing products
or offering services, generating revenue and moving toward sustainable performance.
The entrepreneur will ensure that the business is running smoothly and growing.
B) To the Society
1. Creation of employment/jobs by absorbing people who would otherwise be jobless
hence providing an opportunity for people to improve their financial situation.
2. Raising standards of living through receipt of salaries as well as availing a variety of
quality goods and services
3. Entrepreneurship promotes community development by improving infrastructures and
social amenities for the community where the businesses are located.
4. Promotes healthy competition as more businesses are created, hence production of
high quality goods and lower prices.
5. By creating businesses and providing jobs, entrepreneurship encourages capital
formation by the accumulation of savings and investments which can be used for
further investments.
6. Reducing rural-urban migration as businesses in rural area offer employment
opportunities
C) Social Factors
1. Population growth: Entrepreneurship can be primarily fueled by population growth.
There is a need for new businesses to provide goods and services and create jobs due
to the large and expanding population.
2. Demographic changes: A country‟s shifting demographics, including a growing
middle class, provides entrepreneurs with new opportunities to innovate and cater to
the shifting requirements of customers.
3. Urbanization and migration patterns: New consumer needs will emerge as a result of
rapid urbanization and migration patterns, offering entrepreneurs opportunities to
capitalize.
4. Entrepreneurial Education: Educational and training programs that are
entrepreneurship-focused can equip individuals with the knowledge and abilities they
need to start and run their own businesses, resulting in increased entrepreneurial
activity and economic expansion in the nation.
5. Cultural attitudes towards entrepreneurship: The acceptance and recognition of the
potential of entrepreneurship to bring about social change and economic expansion
can prompt the development of a number of fruitful business ventures.
D) Environmental Factors
1. Availability of natural resources: Entrepreneurship is greatly facilitated by abundance
of natural resources, such as agricultural land, minerals, and renewable energy sources
that are needed as raw materials for companies.
2. Climate and weather conditions: Entrepreneurs in the fields of agriculture, renewable
energy, and disaster management can take advantage of a country‟s diverse climate
and weather conditions as opportunities to develop solutions.
3. Improved Infrastructure: Reliable electricity, transport network and internet are
examples of improved infrastructure that can lower transaction costs and expand
market access, making it easier for entrepreneurs to start and expand their businesses.
4. Access to energy and water resources: Providing businesses with access to energy
and water resources can encourage the growth of entrepreneurship in a country.
Forms of entrepreneurship
1. The Innovator: This is an entrepreneur who seeks to create new ideas, methods and
products. They scan the world around them and seek for ways to improve it therefore
innovation motivates them strongly. They are creative and are not afraid of taking the
risk.
2. The Imitator: This entrepreneur tries to play safe by copying a successful business
model. They use other people‟s business ideas, but work to improve them so that they
can have a competitive edge over the current market.
3. Small Business Entrepreneurs: These entrepreneurs create business ventures that
provide services for a small range of people or local community. Examples of small
business entrepreneurship businesses are local restaurants and neighborhood grocery
stores.
4. Large Company Entrepreneurs: Large-scale entrepreneurs are those who have a
higher capacity to bear risks, and make use of capital, technology, techniques and
management skills, on large scale and also perform the function of innovations.
5. International entrepreneurs: These are entrepreneurs who conduct business
activities across their national boundaries. This could either be opening a sales office
in another country or exporting goods to a foreign country or opening a
manufacturing plant in the foreign country.
6. Social Entrepreneur: These are entrepreneurs who recognise a social problem and
tailor their activities to develop solutions to solve them and bring about social change
such as environment conservation, philanthropic activities etc.
7. Commercial entrepreneurs: These are entrepreneurs who create and manage a
business or organization with the primary goal of generating profit. Commercial
entrepreneurs aim to create a product or service that meets market demand, and their
primary focus is on financial success.
8. Public entrepreneurs: These are individuals within government institutions that can
identify opportunities, leading to the development of new business ideas that could
help achieve the objectives of the government. Thus, they act as both public servants
and entrepreneurs. Thus, it can be said that those initiatives undertaken by public
servants, to create value within government institutions in an innovative way is public
entrepreneurship.
9. Autocreational entrepreneurs: This are entrepreneurs who are self-created from
artistic and philosophical concepts such that the work and the creator evolve jointly.
Their creation is not just a one-off act, but a continuous process of learning and
development. As such the artist can adapt, question himself and innovate throughout
the creative process. Auto-creation can concern different forms of art (painting,
writing, music, etc.).
10. Political entrepreneurs: These are individuals usually active in the fields of either
politics or business who founds a new political project, group, or political party. They
create ideas and innovations, and act as new leaders in the field of politics. They use
the political field to make profit, gain influence or seek to improve the politics of a
nation or region.
CHAPTER TWO
THE ENTREPRENEUR
Who is an Entrepreneur?
An entrepreneur is a person who sets up a business with the aim to make a profit. The
entrepreneur is defined as someone who has the ability and desire to establish, administer
and succeed in a startup venture along with risk entitled to it, to make profits.
Entrepreneurs are some of the world‟s most powerful transformers. From Elon Musk
sending people to Mars to Bill Gates and Steve Jobs making computers part of every
household, entrepreneurs imagine the world differently. Entrepreneurs see possibilities
and solutions where the average person sees only annoyances and problems.
Entrepreneurial Traits
In order to organize and run a business successfully, an entrepreneur must possess certain
traits important for driving success. Some of them are:
1. Self-confidence: Every entrepreneur must be able to trust themselves, what they do
and the decisions they take. Others will trust you only when you trust yourself.
2. Risk-taking: Business is all about taking risks and trying it out. Entrepreneurs need to
have risk-taking ability to be able to venture into business.
3. Competitiveness: Entrepreneurs should always be ready to give and face competition.
They must always strive to be best in a pool of entrepreneurs to keep the business
alive.
4. Intelligence: Entrepreneurs always need to keep their mind active and increase their
IQ and knowledge. They should be able to understand why and how things happen.
5. Vision: Entrepreneurs should have the ability to see things from different point of
views and have a direction for their business.
6. Patience: This is another virtue which is very important for entrepreneurship as the
path to success is often very challenging and it requires a lot of patience for
sustenance.
7. Emotional tolerance: The ability to balance professional and personal life and not
mixing the two is another important trait of an entrepreneur.
8. Ambition: Succeeding in business requires a strong drive. This keeps the desire to
realize the vision burning.
9. Enthusiasm: The interest and eagerness for the business must be ever present if the
entrepreneur intend to do well.
10. Resilience: Every business will at one point face the storm and only entrepreneurs
who are able overcome the shocks and still stand in business will be considered
successful.
11. Passion: This is an irrational but irresistible desire to create and manage the business.
It shows how much you love what you do.
12. Flexibility: Entrepreneurs who want to succeed must be able to change with times
and conditions. This helps to avoid a situation where they or their business become
outdated.
Entrepreneurial Skills
1. Decision-making skill: Entrepreneurs should have the willingness and capability to
take decisions in favor of the organization all the time.
2. Leadership skill: Entrepreneurs should be able to lead, control and motivate others to
follow them.
3. Technical skill: To be in stride with the recent times, entrepreneurs should at least
have a basic knowledge about the technologies that are to be used.
4. Managerial skill: Entrepreneurs should have the required skill to manage different
people such as clients, employees, co-workers, competitors, etc.
5. Conflict resolution skill: Entrepreneurs should be able to resolve any type of dispute.
6. Organizing skill: They should be highly organized and should be able to maintain
everything in a format and style.
7. Motivational skills: Entrepreneurs should have high level of motivation. They should
be able to encourage everyone to give their level best.
8. Creative skills: They should be innovative and invite new creative ideas from others
as well.
9. Communication skill: They should be able to gather and disseminate the needed
information within and outside their business on time and in the right way.
Entrepreneurial Motivation
There are several reasons why different persons engage into business ventures. In general
the factors that motivate business formation can be divided between "Pull" and" Push"
influences.
a) Pull Influencers: Some individuals are attracted towards business ownership by
positive motives such as:
• Market opportunity: The identification of a perceived gap in the market place is
also a common reason for starting a business. Entrepreneurs may seek to exploit
this opportunity through special knowledge, product development or the
appropriate technology and skills.
• Financial motives: The promise of long-term financial reward can clearly be a
motive in starting a new firm. Entrepreneurship offers a possibility of achieving
more financial rewards than working for someone else.
• Community service: - Sometimes individuals with an entrepreneurial ability may
come across some needs and wants of the community and they may think that they
can provide it with an exchange of value. This community serving motive may
provide an advantage.
• Recognition and Self Fulfillment: Entrepreneurship provides the ability to be
involved in the total operation of the business, from concept to creation thereby
offering the prestige of being the person in charge.
b) Push influencers: Many people are pushed into founding a new enterprise by variety
of factors including;
• Independence: Entrepreneurship allows individual to undertake the activities of
their choice and comfort which offers freedom in return. For example, a study of
female entrepreneurs in Britain found that women were motivated particularly by
the need for autonomy.
• Unemployment: Job insecurity and unemployment are on the rise in most countries
due to the prevailing economic climate. Latest researches show that many
entrepreneurs are pushed in this way to the entrepreneurial ventures as a means of
survival.
• Disagreement with previous employer: Uncomfortable relation at work has also
pushed new entrants into small business. These people want to be their own boss,
make their own decisions and choose whom to do business with, how and what
work they will do.
• Challenge: A challenge is most of the time a good motive for success. And only
the toughest entrepreneurs come to be successful in the ever-challenging
environment of the business world. These entrepreneurs are pushed by the actions
of others to venture into new areas.
• Curiosity: In a bid to gather knowledge in certain areas of life, entrepreneurship
has become appealing to some people since pursuing it allows them gain more
insight.
• Entrepreneurial programmes and incentives: Some people have become
entrepreneurs in order to take advantage of a lucrative program to assist start-ups or
the incentives allotted to a particular business area from the government.
CHAPTER THREE
ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND THE ECONOMY