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Course content

• Definition of an entrepreneur
• Evolution of the entrepreneur
• Types of entrepreneurs
  • Denoting the difference between entrepreneurs and small business owners
  • Social entrepreneurship
  • Intrapreneurship
• Relationship between entrepreneurship and innovation
• The process of innovation
  • Types of innovation
  • Facilitators of innovation
  • Characteristics of the innovator
  • Rules for innovative (creative) behavior
• Types of companies typically started
• The importance of entrepreneurship
• Contributions of entrepreneurs

• Characteristics of entrepreneurs
  • Determining if you have what it takes
    • Testing your entrepreneurial proclivities
• The motivations of an entrepreneur
• The entrepreneurial decision
• The background of an entrepreneur
  • Are entrepreneurs born or made?
• The gender or an entrepreneur
• What it takes to be an entrepreneur
• What is needed to be an entrepreneur
• Factors that contribute to entrepreneurial success

• Finding opportunities
• Determining the unduplicated value or utility you will be providing
  • Distinguishing your product/service
• Establishing your product/service line
• Formulating your business model
  • Top line
    • Validating your anticipated revenue stream
  • Bottom line
  • Margin
  • In-between lines
• Identifying your potential customers
  • Quantifying anticipated demand
  • Determining their wants and needs
  • Verifying their capacity and proclivity to purchase
• Developing approaches to your target markets
• Assessing your competition
• Making the numbers work - Number Gumbo
• Figuring out how to put it together
  • Creating a business plan
  • Identifying and mobilizing the needed resources
    • Specifying plant and equipment needs
    • Projecting your cash requirements
    • Screening vendors
    • Formulating make or buy decisions
• Organizing
  • Organizational structures
  • Franchise alternatives
• Building a team
  • Hiring the first employee
  • Raising the capital
  • Bankrolling the operation 
    • Banks
    • Investors
      • Angels
      • Venture capital providers
      • The public
    • Other lenders
• Doing a final self-check

• Marketing
  • Creating a theme or personality
  • Selecting marketing methodologies
    • Determining sales and distribution channels
      • Virtual outlets 
    • Promoting
  • Advertising
  • Establishing prices
  • Building a sales team
    • Motivating sales personnel
  • Maintaining customer relationships    
• Controlling the finances
  • Cost analysis and control
  • Running the cash
  • Monitoring
    • Establishing "key numbers"
    • Running ratios
  • Controlling debt
• Directing operations
  • Planning and scheduling
  • Ensuring product safety
  • Establishing a report structure
• Interacting with your collaborators
  • Team members
  • Investors
  • Lenders
  • Spouse or significant other
• Motivating a team
  • Creating entrepreneurs & intrapreneurs
  • Compensating
    • Sharing ownership
• Nurturing a safe, positive workplace 
• Dealing with competition
  • Managing risk
  • Assessing it
  • Accepting it
  • Preventing it
  • Dealing with negative outcomes
  • Precluding loss
    • Using insurance
• Innovating and changing 
  • Creative destruction - Perpetually recreating the business
  • The nature of creativity
  • Employing your creativity 
    • Idea generating techniques for opportunity exploitation and problem resolution
  • Ensuring an innovative environment
    • The Environmental Audit        
• Protecting intellectual property
  • Managing licenses
• Managing time
• Bargaining and negotiating
• Getting help
• Dealing with failure
  • Learning the warning signs
  • Taking immediate action
• Dealing with the impact of the external environment
  • "The Theory of Events"

• Valuing the enterprise
• Dealing with family
• Succession
• Preparing for the “if”
• Selling the enterprise