WEST VISAYAS STATE UNIVERSITY

Brgy. Caradio-an, Himamaylan City, Negros Occidental

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THE
ENTREPRENURIAL
MIND

2nd Semester, A.Y. 2020-2021

LORD IVAN A. PANCHO

Facebook account: Vanito Swabe
Contact Number: 09266462905

SECOND SEMESTER-FINALS
The Entrepreneurial Mind: Crafting a Personal Entrepreneurial Strategy

Entrepreneurs Are Leaders

Until quite recently, a distinction was often made between the individual with the vision, skill, and
mindset to start up a high-potential venture (the entrepreneur) and the typically more seasoned, risk-averse
professional with the ability to scale the enterprise (the manager). This old notion has given way to what we
have sensed all along: Effective entrepreneurs are internally motivated, high-energy leaders with a unique
tolerance for ambiguity, a keen eye toward mitigating risk, and a passion for discovery and innovation. These
leaders create or identify and pursue opportunities by marshalling the diverse resources required to develop
new markets and engage the inevitable competition.

More than ever, we are convinced that the creation and liberation of human energy resulting from
entrepreneurial leadership are the largest transformational force on the planet today. The power of a single
leader can be profound, and nowhere is this more true and relevant than in entrepreneurship. Perhaps what is
most exciting about entrepreneurial leaders is that in the aggregate, their alert actions have fueled a worldwide
revolution that continues to define and shape our social, economic, and environmental frontiers.

Three Principles for Entrepreneurial Leadership

People don’t want to be managed, they want to be led. Ewing Marion Kauffman

One of the most extraordinary entrepreneurial leadership stories of our time is that of the late Ewing Marion
Kauffman, who founded and built Marion Labs, a company with over $1 billion in sales, and then founded the
Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

The following are the core leadership principles that are the cornerstone of the values, philosophy,

and culture of Marion Labs and now of the Kauffman Foundation:

 Treat others as you would want to be treated.

 Share the wealth that is created with all those who have contributed to it at all levels.

 Give back to the community.

The ultimate message is clear: Great companies can be built upon simple but elegant principles; and
all the capital, technology, service management, and latest information available cannot substitute for these
principles, nor will they cause such a culture to happen. These ideals are at the heart of the difference between
good and great companies.

Converging on the Entrepreneurial Mind

The entrepreneur is one of the most intriguing and at the same time most elusive characters in the cast that
constitutes the subject of economic analysis. Professor William Baumol, Department of Economics, NYU

Desirable and Acquirable Attitudes, Habits, and Behaviors

Many successful entrepreneurs have emphasized that while their colleagues have initiative and a
takecharge attitude, are determined to persevere, and are resilient and able to adapt, it is not just a matter of
personality. It is what they do that matters most.

Although there is an undeniable core of such inborn characteristics as energy and raw intelligence,
which an entrepreneur either has or does not, it is becoming apparent that possession of these characteristics
does not necessarily an entrepreneur make. There is also a good deal of evidence that entrepreneurs are born
and made better and that certain attitudes and behaviors can be acquired, developed,practiced, and refined
through a combination of experience and study.

In addition, although not all attitudes, habits, and behaviors can be acquired by everyone at the same
pace and with the same proficiency, entrepreneurs are able to significantly improve their odds of success by
concentrating on those that work, by nurturing and practicing them, and by eliminating, or at least mitigating,
the rest. Painstaking effort may be required, and much will depend on the motivation of an individual to grow;
but it seems people have an astounding capacity to change and learn if they are motivated and committed to
do so.

Seven Dominant Themes

Nothing that sends you to the grave with a smile on your face comes easy. Work hard doing what you love.
Find out what gives you energy and improve on it. Betty Coster, Entrepreneur
Entrepreneurial Reasoning: The Entrepreneurial Mind in Action

How do successful entrepreneurs think, what actions do they initiate, and how do they start and build
businesses? By understanding the attitudes, behaviors, management competencies, experience, and
knowhow that contribute to entrepreneurial success, one has some useful benchmarks for gauging what to do.

Successful entrepreneurs have a wide range of personality types. Most research about entrepreneurs
has focused on the influences of genes, family, education, career experience, and so forth, but no
psychological model has been supported. Studies have shown that an entrepreneur does not need specific
inherent traits, but rather a set of acquired skills.18 Perhaps one Price-Babson College fellow phrased it best
when he said, “One does not want to overdo the personality stuff, but there is a certain ring to it.

“There is no evidence of an ideal entrepreneurial personality. Great entrepreneurs can be either gregarious or
low-key, analytical or intuitive, charismatic or boring, good with details or terrible, delegators or control freaks.
What you need is a capacity to execute in certain key ways behaviors. They work hard and are driven by an
intense commitment and determined perseverance; they see the cup half full, rather than half empty; they
strive for integrity; they thrive on the competitive desire to excel and win; they are dissatisfied with the status
quo and seek opportunities to im
prove almost any situation they encounter; they use failure as a tool for learning and eschew perfection in favor
of effectiveness; and they believe they can personally make an enormous difference in the final outcome of
their ventures and their lives.
What Can Be Learned?

For over 30 years, the authors have been engaged as educators, cofounders, investors, advisors, and
directors of new, higher-potential ventures. Throughout the text are multipart cases about real, young
entrepreneurs, including some of our former college and graduate students. You will face the same situations
these aspiring entrepreneurs faced as they sought to turn dreams into reality. The cases and text, combined
with other online resources, will enable you to grapple with all of the conceptual, practical, financial, and
personal issues entrepreneurs encounter. This book will help you get the odds of success in your favor. It will
focus your attention on developing answers for the most important of these questions, including these:

 What does an entrepreneurial career take?

 What is the difference between a good opportunity and just another idea?

 Is the opportunity I am considering the right opportunity for me now?

 Why do some firms grow quickly to several million dollars in sales but then stumble, never growing beyond
a single-product firm?

 What are the critical tasks and hurdles in seizing an opportunity and building the business?

 How much money do I need and when, where, and how can I get it—on acceptable terms?

 What financing sources, strategies, and mechanisms can I use from prestart, through meaningful careers
in new and growing firms, and in the early growth stage to the harvest of my venture?

 What are the minimum resources I need to gain control over the opportunity, and how can I do this?

 Is a business plan needed? If so, what kind is needed and how and when should I develop one?

 Who are the constituents for whom I must create or add value to achieve a positive cash flow and to
develop harvest options?
 What is my venture worth and how do I negotiate what to give up?

 What are the critical transitions in entrepreneurial management as a firm grows from $1 million to $5
million to $25 million in sales?

 What is it that entrepreneurial leaders do differently that enables them to achieve such competitive
breakthroughs and advantages, particularly over conventional practices, but also so-called best practices?

 What are the opportunities and implications for 21st century entrepreneurs and the Internet,

clean tech, and nanosciences? How can these be seized and financed?

 What do I need to know and practice in entrepreneurial reasoning and thinking to have a competitive
edge?

 What are some of the pitfalls, minefields, and hazards I need to anticipate, prepare for, and respond to?

 What are the contacts and networks I need to access and to develop?

 Do I know what I do and do not know, and do I know what to do about it?

 How can I develop a personal “entrepreneurial game plan” to acquire the experience I need to

succeed?

 How critical and sensitive is the timing in each of these areas?

 Why do entrepreneurs who succeed in the long term seek to maintain reputations for integrity

and ethical business practices?

Entrepreneur’s Creed

So much time and space would not be spent on the entrepreneurial mind if it were just of academic interest.
But they are, entrepreneurs themselves believe, in large part responsible for success. When asked an open-
ended question about what entrepreneurs believed are the most critical concepts, skills, and know-how for
running a business—today and five years hence—their answers were very revealing. Most mentioned mental
attitudes and philosophies based on entrepreneurial attributes, rather than specific skills or organizational
concepts. These answers are gathered together in what might be called an entrepreneur’s creed:

 Do what gives you energy—have fun.

 Figure out what can go right and make it.

 Say “can do” rather than “cannot” or “maybe.” Illegitimi non carborundum: tenacity and creativity will
triumph.

 Anything is possible if you believe you can do it. If you don’t know it can’t be done, then you’ll go ahead
and do it.
 The cup is half-full, not half-empty.

 Be dissatisfied with the way things are—and look for improvement.

 Do things differently.

 Don’t take a risk if you don’t have to—but take a calculated risk if it’s the right opportunity for you.

 Businesses fail; successful entrepreneurs learn—but keep the tuition low.

 It is easier to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission in the first place.

 Make opportunity and results your obsession— not money.

 Money is a tool and a scorecard available to the right people with the right opportunity at the right tim.

 Making money is even more fun than spending it.

 Make heroes out of others—a team builds a business; an individual makes a living.

 Take pride in your accomplishments—it’s contagious!

 Sweat the details that are critical to success.

 Integrity and reliability equal long-run oil and glue.

 Accept the responsibility, less than half the credit, and more than half the blame.

 Make the pie bigger—don’t waste time trying to cut smaller slices.

 Play for the long haul—it is rarely possible to get rich quickly.

 Don’t pay too much—but don’t lose it!

 Only the lead dog gets a change of view.

 Success is getting what you want: Happiness is wanting what you get.

 Give back.

 Embrace sustainability.

 Never give up

1. What is the difference between a manager and a leader?

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2. Define the seven major themes that characterize the mind-sets, attitudes, and actions of a successful
entrepreneur. Which are most important, and why? How can they be encouraged and developed?
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3. Entrepreneurs are made, not born. Why is this so? Do you agree, and why or why not?
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4. What is your personal entrepreneurial strategy? How should it change?

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5. Can you evaluate thoroughly your attraction to entrepreneurship?

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6. Who should be an entrepreneur and who should not?

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7. If you work for a larger company, what is it doing to attract and keep the best entrepreneurial talent?
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 FINAL EXAM

(THE ENTREPRENURIAL MIND)

1. Who can be an entrepreneur, and who cannot? Why?

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2. Assume that at age 40 to 50 years, you have achieved a net worth of $25 million to $50 million in today’s
dollars. What do you think you have done to reach this?
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3. Is Bill Gates an entrepreneur, a leader, a manager? How can we know?

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4. How will you personally define success in 5, 10, and 25 years? Why?

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5. Great athletic talent is not equal to a great athlete. Why? How does this apply to entrepreneurship?

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Name atleast 3 succesful person who is a serial entrepreneur. Highlight what you feel are the attributes which
have contributed to their success.

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