Enterprise Academy

Why entrepreneurs don't scale and alternative funding.

In the final episode of the series, we will talk about why entrepreneurs don't scale and the lean startup approach. A big part of it involves being nimble enough to make changes as your product develops (or not being stuck on one particular vision of the company), and failing fast through short, inexpensive development cycles. Think minimum viable product! We end by touching on an alternative, growing method to fund your enterprise: crowdfunding. In a few words, crowdfunding means raising capital from a large number of people with small, individual contributions. What you give them in exchange varies from product to product, but we think that the benefit of getting your product out for early adopters' feedback certainly outweighs the cons here. Thank you for listening and good luck! Sources: Why Entrepreneurs Don't Scale: https://hbr.org/2002/12/why-entrepreneurs-dont-scale Indiegogo: https://www.indiegogo.com/ Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/

Effectuation, business models, and pitching effectively.

In this episode, we talk about effectuation or de-risking your enterprise. We also talk about understanding your business model, the way in which your business creates and delivers value. The components of your business model should fit well together, and it should provide a clear snapshot of how your business' gears work. Finally, we give you a couple of presentation tips to make your pitches succinct and convincing, and some things that VC firms will look for that will make you stand out. Sources: Effectuation: https://www.effectuation.org/sites/default/files/documents/effectuation-3-pager.pdf Business Model Canvas: https://www.businessmodelsinc.com/about-bmi/tools/business-model-canvas/ 10-20-30 rule: http://blog.slideshare.net/2014/06/09/guy-kawasakis-10-20-30-rule-for-presentations/ What do venture capitalists look for: https://techcrunch.com/2009/11/18/good-question-the-eight-best-questions-we-got-while-raising-venture-capital/

What is Entrepreneurship? The origin of ideas and the entrepreneurial process.

In the first episode of the series, we describe what entrepreneurship is. We start with the entrepreneurial mindset to understand what sets entrepreneurs apart from normal people. We then dive into the origin of ideas and cover the four stages of the entrepreneurial process. In general, you'll start with an idea, and move on to validating that idea to make sure it's scalable, repeatable, and profitable. Most likely than not, your product will change throughout the validation process, but you want to make sure you find product/market fit before you run out of money or start building the company. Finally, we touch on some of the caveats of getting funding for your projects, and whether or not it's really worth it to get it at all. See you in the next one! Sources: https://www.inc.com/magazine/20110201/how-great-entrepreneurs-think.html http://www.paulgraham.com/organic.html http://www.paulgraham.com/start.html