I started my first own business at the age of 16, which is fairly close to the legal age of doing so. Since 2013, I’ve run a private limited company (or in swedish, Aktiebolag), and in many ways then, I could see myself as an entrepreneur. Not the world’s most extensive entrepreneur, but fairly more entrepreneurial than most of my friends. However, I feel increasingly reluctant to call myself an entrepreneur, even though I like running businesses and transforming ideas to viable futures. And there’s good reason behind this, mainly including the image that is connected to entrepreneurship.

I increasingly often from my friends hear the words ”I hate entrepreneurship”. And by the common meaning of it, I tend to agree with them. The word ”entrepreneurship”, together with ”innovation”, are word that are trending now – but they form a gated community. They come with a vocabulary that is easily noticed, you ”network” instead of make friends, you talk about ”venture capital”, ”business angels”, and a whole bunch of words that doesn’t applies to any other part of the world. And the people are predictably similar to each other in appearance. A friend of mine (who comes from the northern town of Timrå, and for the record also has his own business) put it straight when seeing the profile picture of an entrepreneurship student friend of mine on Facebook: ”He’s standing in sunglasses and backslick on the sailing boat of his father, he would get punched in the face as soon as he entered Timrå Municipality.” The verdict was harsh.

And it’s not only about appearance, I think it all comes down to whether you start a business purely for the money, or if you are genuinely interested in whatever you do within the business. The fact that half of the people I knew at the first lecture within this course quit the course after that lecture probably says the lot. It was a disaster. Confirming virtually all the stereotypes and prejudices related to entrepreneurship. I myself was on the edge of quitting as well, despite my interest in whatever could be described as entrepreneurship. I understand that the lecture of Joakim (if I remember his name correctly) was thought of as an inspirational lecture, but it worked in the diametrically opposite way. I’ve never felt so much as a part of an american presidential election, or, sometimes, a sect. When talking about ”making one million dollar by the age of 25”, or was it 10 or 100 million, I felt really, really out-of-place.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with making money, but the culture of ”entrepreneurship” needs to be more inclusive. Not only open to people with the talks and appearance of the far right-wing, talking in swedish political terms. Open to the people, like me, who would see creating businesses as a way of doing things you like to do, rather than just making money, people who see money as a tool to make good rather than the ultimate achievement. Producing a gated entrepreneurship community where these people are excluded is a drawback for society as a whole.

Erik

PS. While this entry focused more on the core looking and aura of the people involved in entrepreneurship, there is a more serious side to the problem as well, as highlighted by a Techcrunch article that recently drew my attention. Take a moment to read it through, here: Startups, A Rich Man’s Game

I really enjoyed the Skype-lecture by Terry Beaubois we had on tuesday. Incredible that someone on the other side of the world who, im guessing, is a very busy person, takes time late at night to talk to us!

However, later that day I realized that there where a few questions that I would have liked to ask him, as being someone very much in the loop on what is going on in Silicon Valley at the moment. Basically, there are two technologies that I have developed a great curiosity for recently; namely Virtual Reality and Bitcoin (or ‘Cryptocurrencies’). Two technologies that, from what I have gathered from reading and listening to podcasts, could open up completly new markets and opportunities for business.

Now, I am pretty sure most people have some idea of what VR is, and Terry did touch on the subject in his presentation, but what do you know about Bitcoin, and cryptocurrencies? I am hardly an expert on the subject myself. I did not know anything about it a year ago, but then I heard this guy, Andreas Antonopoulos, explaining it on a podcast. It really was one of those MIND = BLOWN -moments. What stuck in my head was a quote when he talked about the potential of Bitcoin and how people call it “the money of the internet”, but he proposed that the adequate description would be “it is the internet of money“.  Now that is a powerful statement if I ever heard one. If you would like to know more about this technology and get an idea of its potential I recomend you to watch this clip of Andreas breaking it down in a crash course:

It is a fairly long clip, but it really explains it in a nice and accessbile way.

All the best,

Niclas

Sandra Uddbäck from Tink told us to “go out of office” and interact with potential users in order to receive information about them. She did also give us a great advice, which I totally agree with, about how to get the right answers. Just like she explained, you should not go out and present your whole idea and ask them “Do you like it? Would you pay for this?” A lot of people might say yes but this is not equal to that they would actually pay for it when the idea is launched…

The book “The mom test” (by Rob Fitzpatrick) is a great source of how to deal with this situation and what the right questions are and how you evaluate the answers. Fitzpatrick explains how to save time and money while receiving reliable information that is not biased because someone is polite to you. Tink handle their marketing smart due to the fact that they do not have a lot of money. They have to get a lot of value for the money they spend and I think that is the right approach for most of today’s smaller businesses and start-ups. I mean, who does not want to be efficient?

I have actually some good experience myself with interviewing people after reading “The mom test”. After reading the book you are not actually interviewing people but more having a casual conversation and receiving a ton of useful information. You and the person you are talking to will be more relaxed. Just like Sandra pointed out you do not want to have short answers on very specified questions. Instead you should ask open questions and let them tell you their story and how they deal with a certain issue. For example if you want to develop a toothbrush you should not ask if they would like a toothbrush that could decrease the time they spend brushing their teeth. You should instead ask them to walk you through their morning routine. If you find out that they are actually not in a hurry in the morning it might not exist a demand for your toothbrush idea. This can save you a lot of money and time when evaluating your idea and can give you good information about another need.

So I advice you to read “The mum test” if you want to get good information out of your users that really matters.

Just let me know if you are wondering anything about the book!

Sebastian

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/242452

I came across this article on entrepreneur.com and felt that it had some astute points on strategy and business plan/model.

In my opinion, the article made some strong cases that entrepreneurs should focus more on their business strategy, product and their customers instead of their revenue model or business plan.

However, a business plan is not as redundant as the title suggests. A business plan is still essential in a start-up, though it is not the main focus. Later in the article, the author suggests a lean business model canvas that capture the succinct points of a business plan in a page.

I can’t agree more with the author. Start-ups should cut away the details of the business plan as plans change from time to time; nothing is predictable in a start up.

The lean business model canvas allows customers or investors to easily understand the business plan and it allows easy transition to another business plan. I will definitely use this as a tool if I am starting something.

Yi Quan

For me, it’s very important with innovations which can help everyone. That is probably why I choose to study medical engineering. There are a lot of interesting innovations on the market at the moment and I think that there will be even more in the future as it becomes easier and cheaper to develop new technique.

I was looking around in order to find inspiration for my pitch, and I found a website called Not Impossible Now which is writing about technology that is helping the humanity. They are also crowdsourcing solutions in order to make sure that the solutions are reaching the market, with this they are also hoping to inspire more people to be innovative. If you have some time over you should really check them out and get inspired!

If you have chosen to take the course Technology-based Entrepreneurship, my guess is going to be that you have, at least to some extent, played around with the thought of starting a business of your own. I know I have. And I know that I chose to apply for the course because I was hoping that it might provide me with some useful tools should I ever come upon a business idea worth pursuing. Of course, part of it was also having a 7,5 credit hole in my schedule to fill. None the less, now that I am here I am determined to make the most out of it, and my first impressions of the course have been really good!

As I mentioned earlier, I think we are all “guilty” of entertaining the thought of starting something. Becoming the boss of something. To watch something grow from an idea to an enterprise. And by “all” I mean most of the able bodied/able minded people in society today. Because really, if you think about it, who really wants to work for someone else? If you are not pursuing your own dream, you are most likely a cog in the machine working towards realizing someone elses. So why is it not that more people try to start something of their own?

I think it has to do with the fact that it is very easy to find excuses! I believe it to be a very human trait to see obstacles instead of opportunities, to take the path of least resistance, if you like. That is why, for my first blog post here, I would like to share this article, explaining that there are NO good excuses. Go ahead, click the link and read it.

http://www.businessinsider.com/this-graphic-will-demolish-every-excuse-you-have-for-not-founding-a-startup-2015-2?utm_content=bufferc61eb&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer&IR=T

So, now you know that all those excuses really are nothing more than your brain trolling itself.

All the best,

Niclas