Category Archives: Entrepreneurial Mindset

Beyond business skills, entrepreneurship education instills an entrepreneurial mindset characterized by adaptability, creativity, risk-taking, and a willingness to learn from failures.

Enterprise Education, Entrepreneurial Mindset, Resources, Skills Development, Training

Venture Creation – BA (Hons) Entrepreneurship Programme

In the last year I have had the amazing  opportunity to design a venture creation BA (Hons) Entrepreneurship Programme which is oriented towards students who wish to combine study towards an honours degree with the opportunity to start their own business in a supported environment with guidance from specialist lecturers, practising entrepreneurs and mentors. Over the years I have seen many programmes and wanted to create something for Entrepreneurs, the student and for practitioners.

This is a practice-oriented degree, which focuses on the development of the students’ entrepreneurial effectiveness. This is achieved by embracing the concept of ‘learning by doing’ which ensures students are acquiring real knowledge and practical expertise to support their business start-up and business growth aspirations. There is a focus on real business experiences including master classes, enterprise events and interactions with local and global entrepreneurs. This philosophy is extended within the assessment primarily for (rather than ‘of’) learning Entrepreneurship (QAA (2012) Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Education: Guidance for UK Higher Education Providers, pp9).

Similarly, although there is an inherent emphasis on learning within the learner’s own start-up venture, the Entrepreneurship skills acquired will be transferable to other business environments and learning opportunities.

This BA (Hons) Entrepreneurship Programme aligns with the nation and international government agenda (The Impact and Effectiveness of Entrepreneurship Policy, NESTA 2013) and seeks to increase the number of entrepreneurs in the economy.

A range of teaching pedagogies are adopted to ensure the curriculum enhances the learning of all students both in the startup and in group learning environments. In addition to lectures, seminars, videos, podcasts, presentations and visiting entrepreneurs, students will participate in action learning sets and interactive activities to apply learning from businesses experiences in their startup. These approaches are intended to take into account the principles of inclusivity: the types of learner, their startup business, their prior experience and expectations and how they learn and will be supported to learn effectively.

Given the focus on developing a continued learning environment in which students develop an entrepreneurial mindset, there is an emphasis within the BA (Hons) Entrepreneurship Programme on tutoring and mentoring to support individual requirements, and also to reflect (at a meta-cognitive level) on their learning process. The programme is supported by more than 10 Entrepreneurs in Residence, regional business support agencies and local businesses.

Blog, Entrepreneurial Mindset, Resources

7 Books every start-up entrepreneur should read

There is a great number of books out there which is aimed at Entrepreneurs and the skills and techniques they need. However if you are starting a business you don’t have time to read too many, so I have limited it to seven, which you should be able to read in one week. Enjoy!

Entrepreneur Revolution: How to Develop Your Entrepreneurial Mindset and Start a Business That Works by Daniel Priestley

I very much agree with the theme of this book “The age of the entrepreneur, the agile small business owner, the flexible innovator. The days of the industrial age are over.” and every student I meet, its about developing this mindset. This book should mainly provide some motivation and inspiration for your plunge into the next books.

The Lean Startup by Eric Ries

Building a business is no longer about “the business plan” which is cast in stone, its about doing and then creating small changes or pivots to the plan as you move forward. He goes over the a number techniques an entrepreneur can use in order to create a business.

Business Model Generation by Alexander Osterwalder

Great for the visual entrepreneur or those not interesting in writing a 50 page business plan. The book teaches us the right way to create a visual business plan and act on it. With pictures, graphs and timelines, this book is a must-have for every visionary young entrepreneur.

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

This classic book will turn your relationships around and improve your interactions with everyone in your life. Business is all about relationships, employees, investors, partners and customers all need you to be the best at dealing with their interactions.

Purple Cow by Seth Godin

Godin is one of the greatest entrepreneurial minds in the world and you should be taking a look at www.sethgodin.com. In Purple Cow, he advocates building something so amazing that people can’t ignore you and then allowing them to be your brand ambassadors. There are a lot of great case studies in this book.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey

While working on his doctorate in the 1970’s, Stephen R. Covey reviewed 200 years of literature on success. He noticed that since the 1920’s, success writings have focused on solutions to specific problems. In some cases such tactical advice may have been effective, but only for immediate issues and not for the long-term, underlying ones. This is why a lot of entrepreneur books have case studies or information which is of little help to you in your situation.

Covey presents an approach to being effective in attaining goals by aligning oneself to what he calls “true north” principles of a character ethic that he presents as universal and timeless.

The Psychology of Selling by Brian Tracy

Every entrepreneur knows that the key to a successful business is good sales technique. Not only do you have to sell your product, but you also have to sell yourself and your idea.

This book gives you valuable information and strategies about how to make more selling by focusing on one thing – the person. Young entrepreneurs tend to forget the basics of selling and jump right over to getting results, but in order to get results, you need to know the basics. Brian Tracy goes over those major points thoroughly.

Enterprise Education, Entrepreneurial Mindset, Experiential Learning, Skills Development

A Strategic Vision for Student Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship is undeniably a significant asset for students and young adults. More than hard skills as experience and technical knowledge, entrepreneurship has an intrinsic high dimension of creativity, self building, confidence and self realisation (Quality Assurance Agency 2012). A European Commission report on the effects and impact of entrepreneurship programmes in higher education stated: “Entrepreneurship education has a positive impact on the entrepreneurial mindset of young people, their intentions towards entrepreneurship, their employability and finally on their role in society and the economy.”(EC 2012)

Entrepreneurship as extra-curriculum activity might increasingly become critical for the professional development and students’ careers. As noted in High Fliers Research (2011), nearly two-thirds of recruiters warn that graduates who have had no previous work experience at all are unlikely to be successful during the selection process and have little or no chance of receiving a job offer for their organisations’ graduate programmes.

Sir Tim Wilson’s review of university-business collaboration stated “Networking between universities and the business community is a critical component of an efficient innovation ecosystem. There are several established networking tools at national and regional levels that create links between universities, business and research technology organisations. These mechanisms need to be constantly evaluated, reviewed and updated as media innovations change communications capability and expectation.” (Wilson 2012)

The National Association of College and University Entrepreneurs (NACUE) has the potential to be a major contributor to the development of entrepreneurialism amongst our student body. It deserves support from business sponsors, universities and government in promoting entrepreneurship. Such support should be conditional on NACUE retaining its close connectivity student entrepreneurial societies, and its active engagement in the Enterprise Alliance.” (Wilson 2012).

The World Economic Forum (2011) suggested four global challenges; Transform the Educational System, Build the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem, Strive for Effective Outcomes and Impact and Leverage Technology as an Enabler. The growth and advancement of entrepreneurship have been considered objectives for many EU and Member State policies over numerous years, and have grown in prominence over time. The European Commission and individual Member States have started to adopt a range of actions, including driving the build up of a more prominent culture of ‘entrepreneurial mindsets’ amongst European citizens, predominantly young people. This was partnered with the view that all students should have access to entrepreneurship education.

To make sure ‘entrepreneurship education’ does not become another extra-curricular ‘add on’ there needs to be certain changes that are made a necessity, and the following ‘actions’ are taken from McCoshan (2010) which will ensure they become an essential part of the curriculum:

  • Changes in teaching methods: greater use of experiential learning and a new coach/moderator role for teachers which helps students to become more independent and to take the initiative in their education;
  • Changes in the education context, which takes students out of the classroom into the local community and real businesses, and which establishes less hierarchical relationships within schools;
  • A key role for governments: only they can bring about the required step change in the spread and quality of entrepreneurship education.

Therefore, an ‘education in entrepreneurship’ needs to go through a conceptual shift from an education in ‘how to run a business’ to how to achieve competency in all areas of the curriculum and be able to apply entrepreneurial thinking into all those areas.

The UK Quality Assurance Agency (2012) for Higher Education has also published ‘guidance’ on the incorporation of Entrepreneurship in every teaching curriculum, qualifying this action as imperative. They acknowledged the need for entrepreneurship to enhance education across the curriculum (Quality Assurance Agency 2012).

Entrepreneurship as extra-curriculum activity might increasingly become critical for the professional development and students’ careers. As noted in High Fliers Research (2011):“Nearly two-thirds of recruiters warn that graduates who have had no previous work experience at all are unlikely to be successful during the selection process and have little or no chance of receiving a job offer for their organisations’ graduate programmes”.

The Royal Bank of Scotland Inspiring Enterprise report 2012 shows that across almost all industrialised countries, unemployment rates are highest among people just out of college, despite the international evidence that shows that young people have a lot of entrepreneurial potential. More awareness of entrepreneurship and engaging with entrepreneurship in education and training will inspire many young people (RBS 2012).

This is why the development of self help, peer led groups provides an important strategy for developing both employability and enterprise skills and should be incorporated into the national and every education institution enterprise strategy.

 

Blog, Entrepreneurial Mindset

The entrepreneur mindset

What is the secret of being an entrepreneur and how can anyone be an amazing one?

There are some very important pointers that suggest than entrepreneurial leaders are made, not born. These are people who are open to new opportunities and develop themselves into entrepreneurs, no one else can do it for them.  Entrepreneurship cannot be learnt, only practiced.

The development of the mindset may occur at various stages in life. Through research the main periods of a person’s life, normally while some form of transition is occurring when a person propensity to accepting risk is heightened. Statistically this occurs during adolescence, after completing education, after divorce, after redundancy and also after retirement.

However, growing up in a cultural environment where business owners and leaders are the norm and have the respect of their community is also very very important aspect which ensures the individual understands the importance of the role. In Britain today we still like to demonize entrepreneurs, Dragon’s and hard nose bosses in the Apprentice, to just name two popular culture. We only see businesses on the new when they are doing badly.

So once we understand that starting a business is normal and something which is good for society, the health of the economy and also creates more wealth for the country than any other occupation, we can move forward.

The second group of factors are funding, people and know-how. Mastering these leads to amazing success and there are some lessons to be learnt from others.  For those starting their first business, bootstrapping is the key, use only what you have and what you do not have, either find cheaper, more entrepreneurial way of getting it, or just do without. This attitude is one we can see if many famous entrepreneurs, like Theo Paphitis who uses his children’s inheritance to show how he does not like wasting money.

Managing other people is one of the major problems for the entrepreneur, other people rarely have the passion, commitment or single-minded dedication to the business that they have. These people require management, appraisals and paying in set intervals, based purely on some dates in a calendar and not on effort, output or more importantly the profit they created. The benefits of having people who can multiple your talents is endless, once you have mastered managing them.

The skills required to be an entrepreneur is vast, accountant, sales director, marketing guru, logistics expert, health and safety specialist, taxation consultant, operations manager and HR administrator. However, each challenge provides opportunities to learn new skills, develop the business further and ensure than any new opportunities that lie behind these tasks are fully utilized.

Entrepreneur know how can be learnt, development and tuned whilst still in education or other employment.  You can start a part time business, join a society or group, volunteering, or just researching on youtube/TED and the many other sites which have great content. 

It is this attitude to risk or failure that allows the opportunistic mindset of the entrepreneur to find out and develop new businesses. Failure is the opportunity to truly learn what it is like to be an entrepreneur. Sergey Brin , Larry Page  and Mark Zuckerberg are not entrepreneurs, they are business owners who largely have only one very small (yet highly valued) experience of business. This development of an active and dynamic knowledge of risk is what will ensure your success and the success of the country you live in.