Republic of the Philippines

ISABELA STATE UNIVERSITY

Roxas, Isabela March 1, 2022

ENTREPRENEURSHIP
(Module 1)

Overview/ Introduction:
Entrepreneurship is the art of starting a business, basically a start-up company
offering creative product, process or service. We can say that it is an activity full of
creativity. An entrepreneur perceives everything as a chance and displays bias in taking
decision to exploit the chance.
An entrepreneur is a creator or a designer who designs new ideas and business
processes according to the market requirements and his/her own passion. To be a
successful entrepreneur, it is very important to have managerial skill and strong team
building abilities.
Learning Outcome/Objective

▪ Identify role in the business as an entrepreneur

▪ The Learner will identify and present issues and concerns
▪ Problem statement creation and presentation
▪ Creation of user persona
▪ Interview validation
▪ Creation and presentation of need statement

Learning Content/Topic

It contains readings, selection and discussion questions and sets of activities that
students can work on individually or by group.

Entrepreneurship: Definition, History, Roles with Multi-Disciplinary Approach

Customer/Empathy Plans
Problem Identification
Opportunity Sensing
Customer/User Persona Creation
Ideation

CHAPTER I: Empathy Design

Entrepreneurship: Definition, History, Roles with Multi-Disciplinary Approach

What is Entrepreneurship?
Entrepreneurship is the act of creating a business or businesses while building and scaling it
to generate a profit.

But as a basic entrepreneurship definition, that one is a bit limiting. The more modern
entrepreneurship definition is also about transforming the world by solving big problems.
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Like bringing about social change or creating an innovative product that challenges the
status quo of how we live our lives on a daily basis.

Entrepreneurship is what people do to take their career and dreams into their hands and
lead it in the direction they want.
It’s about building a life on your own terms. No bosses. No restricting schedules. And no
one holding you back. Entrepreneurs are able to take the first step into making the world a
better place – for everyone in it, including themselves.

What is an Entrepreneur? Entrepreneur Definition

An entrepreneur is a person who sets up a business with the aim to make a profit.
This entrepreneur definition can be a bit vague, but for good reason. An entrepreneur can
be a person who has a home business idea and sets up their first online store on the side
or a freelancer just starting out.

The reason why they’re considered entrepreneurs, though some disagree, is because where
you start out isn’t necessarily where you’ll end up.

An entrepreneur is someone who starts a side hustle that can eventually create a full-time,
sustainable business with employees. Same with the freelancer. If your entrepreneurial
mindset is focused on creating a profitable business, you fit the entrepreneur definition.

But the entrepreneur meaning involves much more than being a business or job creator.
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. And the entrepreneur definition
rarely ever talks about the enormous impact these thought leaders have on the world.
Entrepreneurs see possibilities and solutions where the average person only sees
annoyances and problems.

Understanding what an entrepreneur is can help more people recognize the value they can
– and already do – contribute to the world.

What Is the Meaning of Entrepreneurship?

The meaning of entrepreneurship involves an entrepreneur who takes action to make a
change in the world. Whether startup entrepreneurs solve a problem that many struggle
with each day, bring people together in a way no one has before, or build something
revolutionary that advances society, they all have one thing in common: action.
It’s not some idea that’s stuck in your head. Entrepreneurs take the idea and execute it.
Entrepreneurship is about execution of ideas.

What is an Enterprise?

Enterprise refers to a for-profit business started and run by an entrepreneur. And we will
often say that people running such businesses are enterprising. The roots of the word lie in
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ISABELA STATE UNIVERSITY
Roxas, Isabela March 1, 2022

the French word entreprendre (from prendre), meaning ‘to undertake’, which in turn comes
from the Latin “inter prehendere” (seize with the hand).

Entrepreneurs usually start an enterprise – with the associated risks – to make a profit,
and for one of several reasons:

Problem-solving. They see a particular issue that they feel they can solve.
Exploit ideas. They have a new idea or product they believe will be successful.
Filling a gap. They see a gap in the market they believe they can fill.
Competitive pricing. They believe they can produce something on the market cheaper and
offer it at a lower price.
Knowledge-based. Where they believe they can supply specialist knowledge that customers
will pay for.

History of Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship is defined as the process of starting a business. Today, entrepreneurs are

romanticized as being the cornerstones of a successful capitalist economy.
But where did entrepreneurship begin? Who were the first entrepreneurs? In a global
economy dominated by big businesses, what does the future hold for entrepreneurship?
Today, we’re going to tell you everything you need to know about the history of
entrepreneurship.

The Beginnings of Entrepreneurship and Trade

Believe it or not, the first entrepreneurs can be traced back to nearly 20,000 years ago. The
first known trading between humans took place in New Guinea around 17,000 BCE, where
locals would exchange obsidian (a volcanic glass prized for its use in hunting tools) for
other needed goods – like tools, skins, and food.
This early type of entrepreneurship continued for millennia. Hunter-gatherer tribes would
trade goods from different parts of their respective regions to provide an overall benefit for
their tribe.

Entrepreneurship and the Agricultural Revolution

The first big shift in entrepreneurship took place during the Agricultural Revolution, which
occurred about 12,000 years ago.
You probably already know the story about the Agricultural Revolution, but here’s a brief
refresher: humans started to domesticate plants and animals. Instead of having to roam,
forage, and hunt for their food in different regions throughout the year, human populations
could remain stationary in one location and farm the land.
This was a fundamental shift in human history. Villages and towns started developing close
to fertile lands. There was no longer a need for everyone in the community to be directly
involved with food production. People didn’t need to spend all day hunting and gathering
for their own sustenance – it was more efficient to let a smaller number of farmers handle
food production while the rest of the population focused on other tasks.
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By specializing in different professions, members of the community could trade valuable

goods for food.

These were the earliest entrepreneurs in human civilization. Some common areas of
specialization included:
Hunting and gathering
Fishing
Cooking
Tool-making
Shelter-building
Clothes-making

Farmers could grow more food than they needed to support their own families. Thus, they
would sell food at the market to say, a clothes-maker. The farmer’s family no longer needed
to make their own clothes. They could rely on the specialized services within a community
to provide for them.
Over time, these specialists became better and better at their unique areas of specialization.
Tricks of the trade would be passed down through families. The pace of innovation sped up.
As specialists became better and better at their unique roles, they brought increased
benefits for the entire community.
Towns and cities grew to include thousands of people. Dependable sources of food
encouraged people to build permanent settlements and homes. Different social institutions
arose around these permanent structures, including religious centers, courts, and
marketplaces. This provided new business opportunity for entrepreneurs to explore.
As time went on, new areas of specialization began to emerge. Early entrepreneurs would
work in areas like:
Pottery
Carpentry
Wool-making
Masonry

Standards of living continued to increase. Entrepreneurs were constantly at the forefront of

innovation. If a problem needed to be solved, these early entrepreneurs recognized that
they could profit by solving that problem.

The Expansion of Trade Routes from 2000 BCE Onward

Between the Agricultural Revolution and 2000 BCE, cities started to appear around the
world. Early areas of civilization were concentrated around rivers, particularly the Nile, the
Tigris and Euphrates, the Indus, and the Yellow and Yangtze.
By 3,000 BCE, cities in Sumeria (modern day Iraq) contained tens of thousands of people.
The city of Uruk, found on the banks of the Euphrates, was home to 50,000 people in the
same amount of space that would have previously supported just one tribe of hunter-
gatherers.
As cities sprang up around the world, entrepreneurship took an important turn.
Entrepreneurs were still specializing in all of the areas listed above (pottery, carpentry, tool-
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making, etc.). But they began to realize that profits could be made by trading between cities
and cultures.
The right international trade route could make an entrepreneur very wealthy. Some of the
popular trade routes at the time included:

Trading salt from Africa across the Roman Empire

Trading technologies like Chinese paper-making around the world
Trading rice from China across Asia
Trading coffee, lemons, and oranges from Arabia into Europe
Trading complex ideas like the Arabic number system into Europe (this occurred in the year
1200 thanks to an Italian trader named Leonardo Fibonacci).
Trading gunpowder (a combination of carbon, sulphur, and potassium nitrate) from China to
other parts of the world

Weapons trading was particularly important in these early times. Iron was discovered
around 2000 BCE, and the civilizations that controlled iron were able to dominate other
civilizations. This would lead to the world’s first empires, including Alexander the Great’s
Empire, the Han Chinese Empire, the Roman Empire, and the Persian Empire.
Entrepreneurs that were able to trade military goods that created empires were justifiably
rewarded for their work. Thus, some of the most successful early entrepreneurs traded the
means of warfare around the world.
Of course, trade routes were about more than just raw resources and goods. They were also
about ideas and technologies. In this way, entrepreneurs were responsible for spreading
ideas around the world.

Entrepreneurship and the Invention of Money

One of the key developments in the history of entrepreneurship (and in human history) was
the invention of money.
Prior to the invention of money, all entrepreneurship and trade took place through the
barter system. If John wanted 5 bars of iron, then he might have to sell 1 horse to get those
bars. Of course, he would also need to find an iron merchant who needed a horse.
The limits of the barter system were known as a “coincidence of wants.” Understandably,
this vastly limited trade and entrepreneurship in early history.

Currency changed all that. Some of the earliest forms of currency were found in ancient Iraq
in the forms of silver rings and silver bars. Starting in 2000 BCE, early forms of money have
been discovered. These forms of money were called specie and changed widely throughout
the world: some cultures used seashells, for example, while others used tobacco leaves,
beads, or large round rocks.

Over time, paper money and coinage would be developed. Currency gave entrepreneurs several
important things:
It facilitated long-distance trade
It acted as a medium of exchange
It provided a way for entrepreneurs to store value
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Obviously, currency changed the fate of entrepreneurship forever.

Entrepreneurship and the Beginnings of the Marketplace in the Medieval Period

Starting in the medieval period, markets became more and more popular. Larger
populations required larger marketplaces where they could purchase food, clothing,
services, and other important things.

The population spurt starting around 1470 solidified the market’s connection with
entrepreneurship. Here are some of the important developments that took place in
entrepreneurship during this period:
Banking grew to new heights and complexities as small business owners had greater
financing needs.

The guild system expanded, giving skilled craftsmen and other entrepreneurs a way to
organize their business together, regulate the quality of the goods produced, and develop
reputations for certain goods in towns across medieval Europe.
Entrepreneurs were able to purchase goods from abroad, turn those goods into finished
products, and then sell those goods for a profit at a wider scale than ever before.

The Unexpected Stifling of Innovation

It wasn’t all good news for entrepreneurs during this period. Many entrepreneurs had their
inventions and innovations stifled.
Prior to the advance of merchants and explorers, many people frowned upon the
accumulation of capital. Innovation was often – perplexingly – blocked around the world.
There are even examples were visionary entrepreneurs had their inventions stifled because
they weren’t seen as beneficial for society.
StartupGuide.com writes that:
“Early on in the history of capitalism, the idea of monetary gain was shunned and shamed by
many. The practice of usury, charging interest on loans, was banned by the Christian Church.
Jobs were assigned by tradition and caste. Innovation was stifled and efficiency was
forcefully put down, sometimes punishable by death. In sixteenth-century England, when
mass production in the weaving industry first came about, the guildsmen protested. An
efficient workshop containing two hundred looms and butchers and bakers for the workers
was outlawed by the King under the pretense that such efficiency reduced the number of
available jobs.”
Nevertheless, this period still gave rise to some of the world’s most influential technologies,
including the windmill, paper mill, mechanical clock, the map, and the printing press, among
many others.
It paved the way for future entrepreneurs to use innovation to capitalize on growing trends.

Mercantilism, Explorers, and the New World from 1550 to 1800

The period from 1550 to 1800 gave rise to the philosophy of mercantilism. Followers of this
philosophy believed that there was only a finite amount of wealth in the world. A country’s
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wealth and value was solely based on how much treasure and gold it could obtain, and how
many more exports it could sell compared to imports.
Columbus’s “discovery” of the New World in 1492 would permanently change
entrepreneurship. Mercantilist ideals combined with a vast New World to discover made
early explorers some of the wealthiest entrepreneurs.
During this period, entrepreneurs were known more as merchants and explorers than as
entrepreneurs. These individuals would raise capital, take risks, and stimulate economic
growth (much like the entrepreneurs of today). Many see this period as the beginnings of
capitalism.
Some of the key advances of this period were related to the goods and materials brought
back from the new world. Silver imports from the New World, for example, fuelled
expanded trade across the Atlantic Ocean. Later on, gold would provide similar motivation.
Another key advance in entrepreneurship during this period were Luca Pacioli’s accounting
advances. Pacioli created standardized principles for keeping track of a firm’s accounts.
These principles would later be used by the era’s explorers and merchants.

Entrepreneurship in the 1800s Onward: Machines and Markets

Many people see the last 200 years of entrepreneurship as being fuelled by “machines and
markets”.
Capitalism became more entrenched in societies around the world. The theories of
capitalism were solidified in Adam Smith’s 1776 work An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes
of the Wealth of Nations, where he destroyed the idea of mercantilism. Instead, he argued
that self-interested was the driving force in societies around the world.
Thus, entrepreneurs of this period were able to act in self-interest while still improving
society as a whole. Robert L. Heilbroner explains this theory in The Worldly Philosophers:
“A man who permits his self-interest to run away with him will find that competitors have
slipped in to take his trade away; if he charges too much for his wares or if he refuses to pay
as much as everybody else for his workers, he will find himself without buyers in the one case
and without employees in the other.”
Thus, the competition of the marketplace regulates self-interest and leads to a type of
entrepreneurship that fuels innovation, improves the standard of living, and increases the
wealth of nations.

Post World War II Entrepreneurship

After World War II, entrepreneurship began to change for a few different reasons.
First and most importantly, the economy was increasingly global and becoming more global
every decade. Better means of shipping and communication made it easy for entrepreneurs
to sell products and services to a global audience. Massive economies like America could no
longer afford to concentrate solely on selling products to American marketplaces.
There were also microeconomic factors like the number of people owning cars. Especially in
America, car ownership made it more important to have highways between major cities. As
highways became more important, restaurants were needed where people could eat while
traveling.
This is the environment where entrepreneurs like Ray Kroc made their millions. Kroc created
a standardized restaurant that cut down on costs by serving a limited number of men items.
Then, he replicated that model.
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Other companies that prospered during this period included General Electric, aircraft
companies like Lockheed, IBM, and Holiday Inns.
Other countries around the world experienced similar boosts in growth following World War
II. Japan, for example, became one of the world’s largest economies by exploiting a large
population available for cheap wages. Germany experienced a similar trajectory.

Modern Entrepreneurship
Today, entrepreneurs are the lifeblood of economies all over the world. Even in command
economies like China, entrepreneurs are valued for their contributions to the economy and
encouraged to innovate to compete with companies around the world.
The global economy – combined with modern infrastructure and communications – has
introduced a new age of competition to the world of entrepreneurship. No longer are you
competing with entrepreneurs in your tribe, town, village, or city: you’re competing with
entrepreneurs all over the world.
Many of these entrepreneurs can access cheaper means of production than you. They may
have better access to raw resources of cheap labor, for example. This has made modern
entrepreneurship more challenging – and arguably more rewarding – than ever before.

Conclusion: Where Does Entrepreneurship Go from Here?

Since the beginnings of history, entrepreneurship has always been ruled by the market
forces known as supply and demand. Early entrepreneurs in the Agricultural Revolution met
the needs of farmers by providing them with tools and shelter. In exchange, they received
food that could feed their families.
As years went by, the means of entrepreneurship changed dramatically but the
core reasons for entrepreneurship remained the same. Everywhere in the world,
entrepreneurs arose to address demand by providing supply. They innovated and invented
new technologies to solve problems that nobody had ever solved before.
At the same time, competition has ensured that the entrepreneur’s self-interest doesn’t
cause an overall negative impact on society. Competition prevents entrepreneurs from
overcharging for goods or underpaying employees, for example.
These foundational structures of entrepreneurship aren’t going to change anytime soon. For
that reason, entrepreneurs will continue to have a special place in society and will continue
to be found at the forefront of innovation.

Roles with Multi-Disciplinary Approach

Entrepreneurship Education

Over a relatively short period of time, entrepreneurship education has been pushed to the
top of socio-economic and political agendas, and is currently a high priority imperative for
government policy makers throughout the industrially developed and developing world
Mitra and Matlay (2004).

With the challenges faced by a globalised economy, it is now recognised that

entrepreneurship can have a significant role to play through the promotion of
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innovation, employment generation and the development of social enterprise and,

therefore, entrepreneurship education is deemed of great importance.

In 2010, the OECD re-affirmed the role of entrepreneurship education in supporting

economic growth and, in particular, recovery from the recent economic crisis. The first of
five stated policy principles to drive innovation was to empower people to innovate.
More specifically, it was argued that governments should seek to provide:

• Education and training systems (which) equip people with the foundations to learn
and develop the broad range of skills needed for innovation in all of its forms, and with the
flexibility to upgrade skills and adapt to changing market conditions;
• Practical experience to promote entrepreneurial mindsets, and;
• Foster an entrepreneurial culture by instilling the skills and attitudes needed
for creative enterprise.

It is widely recognised that the benefits of entrepreneurship education are not limited to
the creation of new business ventures and subsequent new jobs, but will also develop key
competencies of students, encourage innovative mind sets and as a consequence enable
them to be more creative and self-confident in whatever they undertake.

Mwasalwiba (2010), reviewed literature on entrepreneurship education and found that the
most common definition for entrepreneurship education is that of an educational
process designed to influence individuals’ attitudes, behavior, values or intention towards
entrepreneurship. He found there was relative agreement among academics that the
main rationale for entrepreneurship education is more economic than social, with
entrepreneurship being seen as a solution to economic problems, in particular employment.

However, there has been a move towards a behavioural view with a focus on
entrepreneurship education to influence attitudes, values and a general culture. In this way,
scholars are reluctant to associate entrepreneurship education strictly with new venture
creation as a sole educational objective.

It has been highlighted by (Hytti and Kuopusjärvi, 2004, p.6) that there is also a
distinction between preparing people to be enterprising/entrepreneurial and preparing
them to be entrepreneurs.

Universities and third level colleges engage at various levels with the teaching of
entrepreneurship. Today most third level colleges have incorporated elements of
entrepreneurship in their programmes and modules. The level to which the theme is
incorporated depends on the objective. For example, Hegarty and Porter (2010, p.723),
suggest that entrepreneurship education has three roles, depending
on the context:
- To learn to understand entrepreneurship
- To learn to become entrepreneurial
- To learn to become an entrepreneur
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As entrepreneurship plays such a vital role in the development of an economy and the
creation of wealth and jobs, the question for the educational sector is how to develop
training programmes which will instill the necessary skills in students to
allow them to operate as graduates in an entrepreneurial manner. Henry et al., (2003,
p.196), asserts that at the individual level, students who have completed
entrepreneurship programmes are more likely to:

. create more businesses and employment;

. generate more business contacts;
. have a broader range of skills and knowledge;
. possess greater self-confidence in their entrepreneurial abilities;
. test the commercial viability of their idea; and
. improve their employability even if they do not start a business.

The European Commission (2008 p.26) has specified the importance of the development of
entrepreneurship education at third level. It suggests that there are features of
entrepreneurship education that are common within all disciplines and programmes and
courses should be geared to the acquisition of generic and horizontal skills, aimed at making
students: ‘…. more creative/innovative; highly motivated; pro-active; self-aware;
selfconfident; willing to challenge; better communicators; decision-makers; leaders;
negotiators; networkers; problem solvers; team players; systematic thinkers; less
dependent; less risk averse; able to live with Uncertainty; capable of recognising
opportunities.’

The same report recognises that the teaching of entrepreneurship needs to be tailored
to the specific needs of different fields of study. Botham and Mason (2007, p.10)
recognise that while much of entrepreneurship education is in the Business Schools, there
has also been a rapid growth in Engineering Schools and increasingly other disciplines.
Volkmann (2004, p.185) states that entrepreneurship taught and learned on the basis of
an interdisciplinary approach at universities, introduces new forms of knowledge and
teaching methods as well as new problem-solving skills for students.

Terms such as “multidisciplinary” and “interdisciplinary” entrepreneurship education

are being used to explain models where collaboration occurs between different
disciplines. The extent to which the collaboration occurs can range from side by side
delivery of lecture material to the total integration of the different disciplines in a
programme or a module or a single assignment project.

Technological and Business disciplines are well suited to such collaboration. The World
Economic Forum (2009, p.21) suggests that Entrepreneurship needs to be expanded across
disciplines – particularly in the technology and science departments, where many
innovative ideas and companies originate.
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ISABELA STATE UNIVERSITY
Roxas, Isabela March 1, 2022

B. Customer/Empathy Plans

Customer Empathy

Customer empathy is understanding the underlying needs and feelings of customers. It goes
beyond recognizing and addressing their tactical requirements and puts things into further
context by viewing things from their perspective. Product managers utilize customer
empathy to create products that not only help users accomplish a task but also fit into their
overall workflow and lifestyle.

Why Does Customer Empathy Matter?

Customer empathy sees users as real people and not just individuals trying to do something.
It rounds out customers into whole people, provides a larger context for how products and
solutions fit into the much broader ecosystem of their lives, their jobs, and their
environment.

When product teams recognize that their product isn’t used in a vacuum it helps them
understand the vast set of interdependencies and external factors that impact the user
experience. It also acknowledges that users have varying motivations for using a product
and different definitions of success; accomplishing the task at hand is important, but there is
a multitude of factors beyond that achievement playing into overall happiness and
satisfaction with a product.

An empathetic culture not only listens to customers but translates that learning into
action. They can anticipate customer needs because they understand them as human
beings and not just “users,” which leads to growth, revenue, and proven loyalty. Most
importantly, these organizations can not only figure out what is working, but they
understand why.

The risks of ignoring customer empathy

Despite how much people think rational thought dictates the vast majority of their
decisions, emotions always bubbling beneath the surface and influence choices. Not
acknowledging and being considerate of those emotions when creating and evolving
product experiences can derail adoption, usage, and recommendations.

By empathizing with customers, product managers can create products that address the
real-world needs and concerns of users, going beyond the binary “it works or it doesn’t
work” evaluation of a product’s effectiveness.
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The risks companies face by not embracing customer empathy are very substantial l.
Solutions that work well in theory but are awkward, frustrating or time-consuming in
practice could see high churn rates and poor net promoter scores. Customers may feel
unappreciated, unheard, and left yearning for something better.

Organizations lacking customer empathy are missing out on additional opportunities by not
fully exploring what their customers truly think and feel about their products. The
knowledge and insights that can be gleaned from a more empathetic approach could yield
insights into new features, better user experiences, or completely new verticals and product
line extensions that would otherwise remain unknown.

How is Customer Empathy Put into Practice?

Acknowledging the value of customer empathy is an important first step, but incorporating
it into the product development process and overall corporate culture requires more work,
and that intentionality doesn’t happen without dedicated effort.

Leverage customer-facing staff

While product managers may not have that many interactions with customers, there are
several other departments that interact with them far more frequently. Customer
service/support/success, account management, billing, operations, and even salespeople all
have lots of customer feedback that can be mined to create a more empathetic
organizational connection and product experience.

The challenge is unlocking the nuggets of anecdotal customer feedback. To break down the
informational silos, product teams must establish good working relationships with these
teams and create forums for sharing to occur.

Processes to promote information exchange

With a solid baseline of mutual appreciation between these teams, additional processes can
be instituted to formalize feedback gathering. While this can sometimes be achieved
through casual conversations and letting folks know— the product team is eager to hear
what’s happening in the field. Build a structured approach for feedback to increase the
frequency and volume of information everyone is sharing.

For example:

Schedule regular meetings: Listening sessions can create a culture more conducive to
sharing customer pain points and troubles. Depending on the systems the organization is
employing, CRM or help desk apps can also be a good input to the process.

To further tap into the value customer-facing teams have to offer, product teams can go
beyond mere information gathering and include them in coming up with new ideas and
methods for satisfying customers. When you open up the floor during brainstorming
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sessions, customer-facing staff oftentimes come up with possibilities that may have never
occurred to the product team. These seeds may grow into new features or products, or
inspire improvements in other processes that impact the customer’s overall experience with
the company.

Give customers a voice

While coworkers can provide lots of value, there’s nothing like getting it straight from the
source. The best way to achieve this is via direct interaction with customers, either
with interviews or on-site visits.

Carve out dedicated time with your customer, telling them “we’re listening,” and take in
everything they have to say. Resist the urge to challenge them or try to justify the current
situation. Remember you’re seeking out qualitative insights into the customer experience.
Not only does this provide great intel, but it also further humanizes the customer as it’s
coming directly from them and not being filtered through a third-party.

These sessions shouldn’t try to serve double-duty as sales opportunities, training time, or
troubleshooting. Product managers should simply only ask questions if they’re looking for
clarification or to prompt exploration of additional areas. It’s the customer’s opportunity to
tell their story in their own voice and to perform valuable user research.

Of course, true customer empathy also requires product teams to show these customers
that they are actively listening. So follow up on things and let them know when you have
addressed their issues.

Customer advisory boards are another forum for this feedback, but nothing beats an in-
person, one-on-one meeting with a client to show them their opinion matters.

Bake customer empathy into the roadmap

All that work to understand customer needs, frustrations, and preferences are worthless if
you don’t translate them into action. With this goal in mind, product teams should regularly
review their plans, product designs, and roadmap to ensure customer empathy is fully
realized in the actions your company takes.

We recommend that you distill the feedback gathered into both specific requirements and
ongoing themes. You can prioritize and address the requirements accordingly, but the
themes are more of a level-setting that you should continually consider and use as an
evaluation tool for any changes or enhancements.

If planned changes don’t improve the things customers care about then we recommend
giving them serious reconsideration. Any negative impact for customers may outweigh the
potential benefits for the company or other users, which should give any customer-centric
organization pause.
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Is Customer Empathy More than a Soft Skill?

Most might consider customer empathy to be a “soft skill,” but these tangible tactics help
make it a standard operating procedure. As you incorporate an open-minded approach to
understanding customers, it will pay dividends over time.

C. Problem Identification

There are two kinds of problems to identify in order to come up with ideas for a business: either you
can solve an issue that has not been tackled yet or you can solve the problems that arose as a result
of a ‘solution’ to an existing problem.

Tackling an unsolved issue

While doing this, you need to have thorough knowledge of the market you are about to enter.
Tackling an issue that has no alternative solutions is hard, because you need to start from scratch.
Most people have found a problem that they think is relevant enough to tackle. The issue of ‘lack of
real need in the market’ arises because of the inability to correctly identify the problem. Without
identifying the essence of the problem, it becomes impossible to identify your target consumer base,
to understand their experience in dealing with the problem and what the ideal solution should be.
You need to assess the problem from all angles because what you think may be the problem, may
only just be a disturbance. You need to find the situation where a disturbance turns into a problem,
since most consumers will only purchase a product if it is relieving their pain. You can use Marius
Ursache’s Problem Statement Canvas to help you with this. It goes like this:
“When (context) occurs, (customer type) who has (characteristic) and (characteristic), have
problems. Because of this, they feel (emotion), then experience (quantifiable impact). Currently,
they use (alternative solutions) despite the disadvantages.”
A problem never stands alone, it is accompanied by multiple aspects that are easy to overlook. By
following this procedure, not only do you come to the core of the issue but also become aware of all
the aspects surrounding it.

Tackling a partially solved issue

According to Amit Raffi, “the most frequent mistake that people tend to make is to think everybody
in the market is like them. If they like the product, everybody else will.” This is the mistake most
startups make initially. If you want to start a business to provide a better solution to a problem, you
must properly analyze your existing competitors. In order to provide a successful solution to the
problem, you need to analyze the consumer base. Talking to consumers who are ‘getting by’ with
the alternatives will put you at a great advantage, as you will get to know what the actual need is
and what others are doing wrong. These kinds of problems seem easier to identify and build a
solution on because someone has already tried before you. But chances are that even they are
working on ways to improve their services, so you need to do it better than them by tying up all the
loose ends and leaving no room for error.
 Republic of the Philippines
ISABELA STATE UNIVERSITY
Roxas, Isabela March 1, 2022

D. Sensing opportunities:

This involves analysis of various trends and phenomena in the environment, creation of new
ideas and identifi cation of the need for change

▪ Customer/User Persona Creation

Promoting a product without knowing who your target audience, or what your target
audience wants, is an impossible task.
You’ll just be making decisions based on what you think they want. That’s not sustainable
over the life of any brand.
That’s why creating user personas is important for any company that wants to grow.
Don’t know how to start creating user personas? Use Venngage’s templates as a starting
point

E. What is a user persona?

User personas are representations of your target customers. Creating user personas
involves researching and outlining your ideal customer’s goals, pain points, behavior, and
demographic information.
 Republic of the Philippines
ISABELA STATE UNIVERSITY
Roxas, Isabela March 1, 2022

The research involved in putting together a user persona report will not only help you
understand your target audience but will also help you create a better product for them.
Things like life goals, education level, age, and common problems will determine how you
serve these customers in the future, especially when it comes to making marketing
decisions.

Even small factors like location or salary can influence how those people make decisions,
and in turn, use your product.
User personas are important for creating a targeted marketing plan, and for influencing
your growth strategy.

Example of creating a user persona?

1.Create 3-5 unique and detailed personas to start

2.Highlight products your audience already uses in your industry

3. Include goals that your product or service may not directly impact
4. Begin your user persona guide with a helpful introduction paragraph
Part of creating a well-rounded user persona is giving them a backstory. It really doesn’t
have to be much, but enough to help highlight key traits or aspects.You can use this intro to
talk about what makes your personas tick. Outline why your company should care about this
persona. Or make it purely biographical, like in the user persona example above.
5. Include details like geographic location and salary range
 Republic of the Philippines
ISABELA STATE UNIVERSITY
Roxas, Isabela March 1, 2022

F. What Is Ideation?

Ideation refers to the process of developing and conveying prescriptive ideas to

others,typically in a business setting. It describes the sequence of thoughts, from
theoriginal concept to implementation. Ideations can spring forth from past or present
knowledge, external influences, opinions, convictions, or principles. Ideation can be
expressed in graphical, written, or verbal terms.

How Ideation Works

Simply put, ideation is the literal action of forming ideas, from their conception to real-
world application and implementation. Ideas and the act of ideating can come from anyone
tangentially or directly associated with a business or organization, including low-level
employees, managers, customers, partners, and stakeholders. Actual ideations can be the
result of brainstorming sessions, online forums, seminars, team-building exercises, surveys,
and social media platforms.

Styles of ideation include the following:

• Problem solutions: This straightforward method is where an individual identifies a

problem that they subsequently solve.
• Derivative ideas: This involves making improvements to an existing idea.
• Symbiotic ideas: This is a collision of several incomplete ideas that combine to
create a fully-baked, holistic idea.

Flexible Teaching Learning Modality (FTLM) adapted

Google meet, google classroom, module, exercises, , etc.

References (Copyrighted within the last 10 years)

This contains the list of references/readings which students can explore.

A. https://www.oberlo.com/blog/what-is-entrepreneurship
B. https://www.ringcentral.co.uk/gb/en/blog/definitions/enterprise/
C. https://bebusinessed.com/history/history-of-
entrepreneurship/#:~:text=Believe%20it%20or%20not%2C%20the,tools%2C%20ski
ns%2C%20and%20food.
D. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322697537_A_Multidisciplinary_Appro
ach_to_Creating_the_Entrepreneurial_Mindset_Amongst_Graduates
E. https://ecelliitd.wordpress.com/2020/06/14/problem-
identification/#:~:text=There%20are%20two%20kinds%20of,solution'%20to%20an
%20existing%20problem.
F. https://venngage.com/blog/user-persona-examples/
G. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/i/ideation.asp