Entrepreneurial Vision<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Every successful entrepreneur that you encounter or read about likely started with an image or idea related to something he or she felt passionate about creating. This occurs even when the person has no idea how (or if) what they desire to accomplish or create will become a reality. An entrepreneur\u2019s vision is the start of a roadmap that will determine where she or he wants to go with their entrepreneurial efforts. Vision speaks to what the entrepreneur wants the business to look like in the future\u2014perhaps five or ten years out. Unfortunately, many potential entrepreneurs have dreams and ideas but never develop a concrete vision. A vision statement is the picture you have for what the venture will become in the future: what it will grow into. Be aware, though, that oftentimes, the identified vision at the start of the venture changes into something different. In later chapters, we discuss how this change requires open-mindedness and a willingness to adapt. The mission statement is a formal declaration about what the venture will do, what value it will provide to the end customer, and how it will accomplish this action. In describing your mission, carefully think about the value proposition that you provide. The value proposition is a summary statement that conveys the benefits your product, service, or unique business process\/model provides to customers. This relates back to the perspective of problem solving. Not only do you need to solve the problem, but you also must provide value. We might solve a problem, but if the value proposition isn\u2019t relevant or seen as \u201creal\u201d by the customer, the venture will probably not be successful. Both concepts of a future vision and the mission of the venture should be formalized into statements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In spite of your best efforts, you may have \ntrouble putting your entrepreneurial vision on paper. This is normal, \nespecially in the early stages of the process. You may want to start \nwith an outline and fill in the details later. Or set aside a short time\n each day that you can spend on this task so you train your mind to \nthink about the vision you are setting for yourself. If you experience a\n mental block, try changing your environment\u2014go outside, try a different\n time of day, or go to a setting that has similarities to the business \nyou are interested in creating. You might also consider talking with \nsomeone who has experience in the industry to give you suggestions. Or \nbetter yet, find a mentor\n in your chosen area of interest and keep this person apprised of your \nprogress. Having someone to bounce ideas off is a great asset to have \nwhen imagining the possibilities of the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Work It Out<\/h3>\n\n\n\nFinding a Mentor<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Mentorships can provide you with numerous benefits (Figure 1.7<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Figure 1.7 Finding\n a mentor can provide you with invaluable benefits. (attribution: \nCopyright Rice University, OpenStax, under CC BY 4.0 license)\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Read the article at \nhttps:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/goncalodevasconcelos\/2017\/11\/02\/my-best-advice-for-entrepreneurs-find-a-mentor-this-is-why-and-how\/#2bec86b1d469\n on the benefits of having a mentor, and click on the resources the \nauthor provides in the article.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then read the article at \nhttps:\/\/www.inc.com\/young-entrepreneur-council\/4-types-of-mentors-every-young-entrepreneur-should-have.html,\n which discusses types of mentors. Notice that in this second article, \nthe author focuses on sales, operations, business development, and \nentrepreneurial experience as the most significant areas that need \nexpertise for startups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Next, describe the areas that you would want \nhelp from a mentor for learning and developing your business idea. Then,\n list a few possible avenues where you could find a mentor who fits your\n needs. Considering the information in these articles, how would this \ninformation help you develop your statements and describe your value \nproposition?<\/p>\n\n\n\n An entrepreneurial vision\n considers what you want your venture to become, what this venture will \nlook like, what the driving forces are, and what values and culture \nshould surround it. Each individual entrepreneur has a unique picture of\n what the venture will become. For example, Kevin F. Adler wanted to help homeless people. He created Miracle Messages,\n a volunteer-based nonprofit organization with a goal of helping \nhomeless people reconnect with loved ones. The vision for this \norganization includes building a vast network of volunteers and \npartnerships to stop homelessness and bring people together. This vision\n is about creating community, helping each other, and strengthening \ncommunities. The business model encourages homeless people to create \nshort Miracle Messages through video, audio, or text, with messages then\n uploaded to social media and other methods to find that person\u2019s loved \none.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Go\n to the website www.miraclemessages.org to learn about the vision and \nmission of Miracle Messages. Their slogan, \u201cEveryone is someone\u2019s \nsomebody,\u201d conveys their culture of care and concern for all human life.\n As you read about this organization, consider what this organization \ncould become in the future, with an extensive network that supports \nconnecting volunteers to homeless people, then to loved ones, and to \nother organizations that support the physical relocations and resources \nto address the original reasons why the person became homeless. How can \nthis organization become a global business? Consider families dislocated\n through wars, famine, and other disasters who want to find their loved \nones. The infrastructure developed with Miracle Messages could be \nreplicated for other populations besides homeless people in the United \nStates. Depending on the founder\u2019s vision, Miracle Messages could \ncontinue to focus on homelessness in the United States, or the vision \ncould expand into other geographic areas and needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In an entrepreneurial venture, when the vision \nhas a shorter timeline, such as five years, it could focus on a local \nproblem or situation, and over time evolve into a vision that is broader\n and includes more diverse markets or populations. Your vision should \ninspire the people involved in your startup to support your venture. Use\n your imagination to create this picture of your venture with a focus on\n the future of the venture. Even though entrepreneurs use their \nimaginations and creativity in developing this picture, they also need \nto understand the venture\u2019s industry, the competition, and trends that \nare evolving or might evolve in the future. This information helps guide\n the vision for the venture and define how it is uniquely different from\n any other business. Ideally, the vision should be insightful, bold, \ninspirational, and believable, and it should be developed into a formal \nvision statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The vision statement\n should also be clearly stated and discussed with the startup team. \nAlthough you might not have a startup team, a mentor, or a support group\n developed yet, to create an entrepreneurial venture, you will need \nsupport. Your support network\n understands that working without pay is often the normal situation at \nthe beginning, with the potential for financial rewards coming when the \nventure is harvested or sold. For some entrepreneurs, knowing the vision\n includes the sale of the venture to another group or corporation is \ndifficult to accept. However, that is the point at which the venture can\n grow to become ever more viable. Alternatively, if your vision is to be\n a small business owner, such as owning a franchise, then you are buying\n into a business plan package that has already fine-tuned the processes \nand decisions to support your success as the owner\/manager of that \nbusiness. A small business owner starts or buys into a business idea that already exists, whereas an entrepreneur\n is someone who seeks to create something new through either new \nproducts, services, methodologies, or combinations of ideas that create a\n new venture or organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The lead entrepreneur should share the vision \nstatement with employees and investors, as these groups are formalized, \ncommunicating what this vision means personally and to the success of \nthe venture. You might also need to revisit this vision as your venture \ngrows, making changes based on your decisions and knowledge about your \nindustry, products, and customers\u2019 needs. Even if your vision statement \nchanges based on new information and decisions, creating an initial \nvision statement is a valuable step and will help guide your decisions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n What do you want your life to look like ten to twenty years from now? Consider these questions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n You could describe a typical workday and weekend\n day in your life as part of answering these questions. Create a vision \nstatement that describes the answers to these questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are many definitions of and ways to express creativity (you will learn more about creativity in Creativity, Innovation, and Invention<\/a>).\n Artists typically show their creative side in their art, musicians show\n their creativity through music, and writers express their creativity in\n writing. Others express technical creativity through cell phone \ninnovations or new car technology. It is up to you to determine how you \nwill express your creativity in your venture and in your professional \nlife. In most cases, when people follow their passions, their creativity\n flows from that passion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One approach to discovering your vision for your\n future is to begin with the end in mind. What picture of your desired \nfuture do you have in mind? How could this vision fit with the ideas you\n have of creating a successful venture? Notice that these questions are \nabout both your personal future and the vision for your venture\u2019s \nfuture. These two pictures should coexist. The vision for your personal \nfuture should allow for the necessary resources to support the venture\u2019s\n future, just as the venture\u2019s future will provide for your personal \nfuture. We will discuss work-life balance later in the chapter to help \nyou identify what creates success as you describe your vision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another approach to developing your vision is to use a creative thinking process.\n This type of thinking allows people to come up with ideas that they \nmight not have had without adopting a creative mindset. The creative \nthinking process (covered in more depth in Creativity, Innovation, and Invention<\/a>) has four steps: preparation, incubation, illumination, and verification (Figure 1.8<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Figure 1.8 These\n are the four steps of the creative thinking process. (attribution: \nCopyright Rice University, OpenStax, under CC BY 4.0 license)\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the preparation stage, gather information and\n collect ideas. As part of the process of tapping into creative ideas, \nyou can apply divergent thinking\n by generating as many ideas as possible, even when those ideas do not \nseem logical. Create a list of conflicting ideas, or ideas that are \ndiverse and disparate. Preparation<\/em> is the first step of the creative thinking process. The next action is to walk away from thinking about the activity: incubation<\/em>.\n We are programming our minds to realize that the work done in \npreparation is an important topic for consideration. When we walk away \nfrom consciously thinking about the activity or problem, we allow our \nunconscious minds to continue to think about the activity, even though \nour conscious minds are busy doing other things. This incubation period \nis essential for advancing creativity. In the incubation stage, you \nmight go for a walk, take a nap, or just continue with your daily \nactivities. At some point, you may have a sudden inspiration or illumination<\/em>\u2014an aha!<\/em>\n moment\u2014that clearly addresses the activity or problem you want to \nsolve. In this step, the answer often pops into our conscious minds, and\n we recognize how to proceed. The last step is verification<\/em>,\n crafting our vision statement or message, or responding to the exercise\n in creative thinking. You can apply this creative thinking process to \nmany different business situations. Once we further develop and \ncrystallize our ideas (the Business Model Canvas discussed in Launch for Growth to Success<\/a>\n is a good tool for this activity), we provide an opening for a creative\n and viable solution as we continue to think about the issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Design thinking, brainstorming, and mind mapping\n are tools that you will learn about later in the course. Although these\n tools may be familiar, there are specific methodologies that can \noptimize their success in entrepreneurial situations. Brainstorming\n requires that participants generate ideas around the desired topic \nwithout judgment. You can do this alone or with others, but including \nother people provides a greater variety of ideas, as one person\u2019s ideas \nmight trigger another idea from someone else. Be sure to write down your\n thoughts so that you can return to them later. Brainstorming is \ndifferent from divergent thinking, which does not require ideas to be \nassociated with the identified topic. For example, in brainstorming on \nthe topic of helping the homeless population, we might come up with \nideas such as finding community food and housing, or providing free \nmedical care. Using divergent thinking, we would arrive at more diverse \nideas, such as filming homeless people then uploading the videos to a \nsocial media website to connect family members with the homeless person.\n These tools could incorporate divergent thinking in the idea-generation\n step, but typically, unless people are taught how to use divergent \nthinking, the ideas generated are more structured and constrained, and \nmore logical. As much as we want to encourage divergent ideas, we also \nwant to discourage any judgment around our ideas. Once we start judging \nour ideas, we restrict our creativity and end up with less than ideal \nsolutions. Approach this process with some playfulness and relaxation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mind mapping\n is another popular technique for creative thinking. Here, you create an\n illustration on paper or a chalk board. Write down the words that come \nto mind then link those words together with lines in a diagram that \nshows how each word relates to the others. The idea is that one word can\n lead to another. You can discover associations that might not have been\n evident before you created the mind map.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You can conduct research on entrepreneurial \nideas by creating surveys and asking people questions about their \nexperiences related to your idea. For example, let\u2019s say you are \nconsidering creating a new non-messy health food that can be eaten while\n commuting to work. You could ask people about their experiences eating \nwhile commuting to work or ask questions about nutritional concerns or \ndiets. Or you could find secondary data on when people eat, eating while\n commuting, popular diets, or other related topics. Or you could find \ncase studies that focus on a few in-depth similar areas of interest or \nperform your own case studies by selecting a few peers to track their \neating habits. Or you could create a prototype of your product and ask \npeople to tell you about their experience using your product. You will \nlearn more about research strategies in Identifying Entrepreneurial Opportunity<\/a>, Problem Solving and Need Recognition Techniques<\/a>, and Entrepreneurial Marketing and Sales<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Practice\n your creativity skills by changing your routine. Because our brains \nblock out many routine activities, such as our commute to work, or other\n repetitious habits, we often fail to notice our surroundings. Pick one \nday this week to experience the world through a new perspective. Change \nyour routine in as many ways as possible. As you change your routine, \npay attention to how you are experiencing the day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Consider how you can use this experience to \nlearn how to identify new opportunities and to interact with people, \nsituations, and objects to identify problems in a way that could be \ntranslated into an entrepreneurial venture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Entrepreneurship comes with many challenges \nbecause the entrepreneur must wear many hats. This is especially true if\n the entrepreneur is the only employee in the business. But regardless \nof the business model, all entrepreneurs must be able to achieve balance\n in their lives between their dedication to growing their \nentrepreneurial venture and their personal life. Developing a vision \nthat includes different areas of your professional and personal life can\n help make this type of balance achievable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How do you define balance in your life? What \nareas do you consider when you think about a balanced life? Having \nenough money to support your lifestyle might be one goal. Other areas \nmight include physical activities or hobbies, social interactions and \nentertainment, satisfaction with how you earn money, your family and \npersonal relationships, and other interests and values. Some \nentrepreneurs start lifestyle ventures to achieve this balance. But how \ndo we achieve balance when our goal is to be a career entrepreneur?<\/p>\n\n\n\n A career entrepreneur\n is someone who takes on the daily management as the owner of the \nventure, accepting, and perhaps enjoying, the daily risks and rewards of\n managing and building the venture such as Roxanne Quimby. For Roxanne Quimby, growing Burt\u2019s Bees\n involved making difficult decisions, such as relocating from Maine to \nCalifornia to meet the growth needs of the company. Even though Roxanne \nwanted to provide employment opportunities to people in northern Maine, \nshe knew that her business needed the right infrastructure for success, \nand that infrastructure wasn\u2019t available in Maine. If you choose to \nbecome a career entrepreneur, your focus may be primarily on advancing \nyour entrepreneurial idea into a successful venture, like Roxanne did \nwith Burt\u2019s Bees; this can come at the expense of personal life goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Many career entrepreneurs need support from \nfamily and friends who accept that the lead entrepreneur\u2019s attention and\n energy are required for the success of the venture, and many lifestyle \nentrepreneurs will find challenges in meeting the needs of the venture \nwhile maintaining work-life balance. Discussions with family, close \nconnections, and the entrepreneurial team should occur in the early \nidea-formulation stage to gauge the support of the people whose \ninterests might be compromised by the entrepreneur\u2019s dedication to \nadvancing the venture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Clearly defining your idea of success for your \nlife, and for your venture, is an important step in achieving balance. \nWhat are your priorities? What can you do to balance the success of your\n new venture, the success of your own life, and the success of your \nfamily? Considering that balancing all the roles that we have in life is\n a frustration point for many people, can you find an opportunity to \ncreate an entrepreneurial venture?<\/p>\n\n\n\n What\n is your own definition of success? It\u2019s helpful for your \nentrepreneurial ventures for you to explore and define what success \nmeans for you personally and professionally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
What Can You Do?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Globalizing Miracle Messages<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Are You Ready?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
A Personal Vision Statement<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Creative Approaches to Developing Your Vision<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Are You Ready?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Creativity through a Change in Routine<\/h4>\n\n\n\n
Achieving Balance<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Work It Out<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Exploring What Success Means to You<\/h4>\n\n\n\n