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6 Entrepreneurship and Venture Management 29-01-2024

The Challenge of Entrepreneurship

How do we figure things out?

Blue ocean strategy

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One Way Thinking
A Paradigm
✓ Is a preconceived ((Previous)) idea of what the world is, what it should be like, and how it
should operate.
✓ Paradigms stifle creativity.
Perception
✓ Is a is the process by which sensations are selected, organized, and interpreted.
✓ Paradigms Based on different experiences

Creativity and Innovation

Creativity
✓ The ability to develop new ideas and to discover new ways of looking at problems and
opportunities
✓ Thinking new ideas
Innovation
✓ The ability to apply creative ideas / solutions to problems / opportunities to enhance /
enrich people’s lives.
✓ Doing new things

Creativity Innovation
Entrepreneurship
✓ The result of a disciplined, systematic process of applying creativity & innovation to fulfill
the needs and opportunities in the marketplace
✓ Take creative ideas to serve the new business

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✓ Always ask:
o is there a better way?
o Challenge custom, routine & tradition
o Find more than one “right” way
Barriers to Creativity
✓ Searching for the one “right” answer
Planning
✓ Focusing on “being logical”
✓ Blindly following the rules
✓ Constantly being practical (dream)
✓ Becoming overly specialized

Creativity Process
Investigation Incubation Verification
Preparation Transformation Illumination Implementation

Preparation
✓ Get your mind ready for creative thinking:
o Adopt the attitude of a lifelong student.
o Read a lot (not just in your field of expertise).
o Clip articles of interest to you and save them.
o Develop your listening skills
✓ Join professional or trade associations and
✓ Attend their meetings.
✓ Eliminate creative distractions.
✓ Take time to discuss your ideas with other people.
Investigation
✓ This step requires one to develop a solid understanding of the problem, situation, or
decision at hand.
✓ To create new ideas and concepts in a particular field, an individual first must study the
problem and understand its basic components.
✓ Creative thinking comes about when people make careful observations of the world
around them and then investigate the way things work (or fail to work).
Transformation
✓ Involves viewing both the similarities and the differences among the information
collected.

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✓ Two types of thinking are required:
o Convergent: the ability to see the similarities and the connections among various and
often diverse data and events.
o Divergent: the ability to see the differences among various data and events.
✓ How can you transform information into purposeful ideas?
o Grasp the “big picture” by looking for patterns that emerge.
o Rearrange the elements of the situation.
o Use synectics: taking two seeming nonsensical ideas and combining them.
o Remember that several approaches can be successful. If one fails, jump to another.
Incubation
✓ Reflect on the information collected:
o Walk away from the situation.
o Take the time to daydream.
o Relax – and play – regularly.
o Dream about the problem or opportunity.
o Work on the problem in a different environment.
Illumination
✓ This phase of the creative process occurs at some point during the incubation stage when
a spontaneous breakthrough causes “the light bulb to go on.”
✓ It may take place after five minutes—or five years..
✓ It comes without warning.
✓ It’s not something that we think is going to happen.
✓ It feels like a gift, and, in fact, it is.
Verification
✓ Validate the idea as accurate and useful.
o Is it really a better solution?
o Will it work?
o Is there a need for it?
o If so, what is the best application of this idea in the marketplace?
o Does this product or service fit into our core competencies?
o How much will it cost to produce or to provide?
o Can we sell it at a reasonable price that will produce a profit?
o Will people buy it?
Implementation
✓ The focus of this step is to transform the idea into reality. Plenty of people come up with
creative ideas for promising new products or services, but most never take them beyond
the idea stage.
✓ What sets entrepreneurs apart is that they act on their ideas. An entrepreneur’s
philosophy is “Ready, aim, fire,” not “Ready, aim, aim, aim, aim”.
Techniques for Improving the Creative Process

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Brainstorming
✓ Brainstorming is a process in which a small group of people interact with very little
structure with the goal of producing a large quantity of novel and imaginative ideas.
✓ The goal is to create an open, uninhibited atmosphere that allows members of the group
to “freewheel” ideas.
✓ For a brainstorming session to be successful, entrepreneurs should follow these
guidelines:
o Keep the group small—just five to eight members.
o Make the group as diverse as possible.
o Encourage participants to engage in some type of aerobic exercise before the session.
o Ignore company rank and department affiliation.
o Give the group a well-defined problem.
o Rather than waste precious group meeting time getting participants up to speed,
provide everyone involved in the session with relevant background material about the
problem to be solved beforehand.
o Limit the session to 40 to 60 minutes.
o Take a field trip.
o Appoint someone (preferably not a brainstorming participant) the job of recorder.
o Use a seating pattern that encourages communication and interaction (e.g., circular or
U-shaped arrangements).
o Throw logic out the window.
o Encourage all ideas from the team, even wild and extreme ones.
o Discourage participants from editing their ideas.
o Establish a goal of quantity of ideas over quality of ideas.
o Forbid evaluation or criticism of any idea during the brainstorming session.
o Encourage participants to use “idea hitchhiking,” building new ideas on those already
suggested.
o Dare to imagine the unreasonable.
Benefits
Value =
Cost
Mind Mapping
✓ Mind Mapping is a graphical technique that encourages thinking on both sides of the brain, visually
displays the various relationships among ideas, and improves the ability to view a problem from
many sides.
✓ Extension of brainstorming.
✓ Strength of mind mapping is that it reflects the way the brain works.
✓ Rather than throwing out ideas in a linear fashion, the brain jumps from one idea to another.
✓ The mind-mapping process works this way:
o Start by writing down or sketching a picture symbolizing the problem or area of focus in the
center of a large blank page.
o Write down every idea that comes into your mind, connecting each idea to the central picture
or words with a line.
o Work as quickly as possible for no more than 20 minutes.
o Do not judge the quality of your ideas; just get them onto the paper
o Build new ideas on the backs of existing ones.
o If you see a connection between a new idea and one already on the paper, connect them with
a line. If not, simply connect the idea to the center symbol.
o When the flow of ideas slows to a trickle, stop! Don’t try to force creativity.
o Allow your mind to rest for a few minutes and then begin to integrate the ideas on the page into
a mind map.

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Rapid prototyping
✓ Rapid prototyping is the process of creating a model of an idea, enabling an entrepreneur to
discover flaws in the idea and to make improvements in the design.
✓ Rapid prototyping serves to screen ideas that are not practical or just won’t work so that
entrepreneurs can focus their creative energy on other ideas.
✓ The three principles of rapid prototyping are the three Rs:
1. Rough
2. Rapid
3. Right
Strategies to Spot Opportunities

Observing Solving A Find Gaps In

The Trend Problem The
MarketPlace
Observe Trends (PEST)

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Solve a Problem
✓ problems can be recognized by observing the challenges that people encounter in their daily lives
and through more simple means, such as intuition, serendipity, or chance.
✓

Finding gaps in the marketplace

✓ marketplace gap is when you identify something that customers need, but it isn't currently
available. This could be something that's completely unique, an improvement on an existing idea,
or a way to introduce something to a different market.

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Property Rights
Patent
✓ A grant from the Patent and Trademark Office to the inventor of product, giving the exclusive right
to make, use, or sell the invention for 20 years from the date of filing the patent application.

Trademark
✓ Any distinctive word, symbol, design, name, logo, slogan, or trade dress a company uses to identify
the origin of a product or to distinguish it from other goods on the market.
Service mark
✓ The same as a trademark except that it identifies the source of a service rather than a product.
Copyright ©
✓ an exclusive right that protects the creators of original works of authorship such as literary,
dramatic, musical, and artistic works.
✓ The primary weapon an entrepreneur has to protect patents, trademarks, and copyrights is the
legal system.
Before engaging in a legal battle consider:
❖ Can the opponent afford to pay if you win?
❖ Do you expect to win enough to cover your
❖ legal costs?
❖ Can you afford the loss of time, money, and
❖ privacy involved?

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