Here are my concluding reflections on Entrepreneurship from a personal point of view (for more reflections on the course content, see my previous post). What I liked most about this class, and learned most from, is its hands-on approach. That we were encouraged to participate in events, meet guest speakers and to talk to people: to “get out of the building”. The class was mandatory for me, and as I never have seen myself as an entrepreneur I probably would not have chosen to take it if I had the choice last semester – but now I am actually considering choosing the path of entrepreneurship as an option for my career.
I have realized that the role of an entrepreneur fits pretty well with my skills and ambition; I like to be creative, when the pace is high and to see concrete results of my work. I also liked the extreme enthusiasm that many of the entrepreneurs I’ve met have shown, it is an environment that really catches and increases my motivation (although I’ve also found that peoples’/entrepreneurs’ enthusiasm might be a bit too intense and a sect-like from time to time). This is my major takeaway – that entrepreneurship might be a thing for me. What I liked less with this class was the information that at times was a bit contradicting and hard to access. But with all the feedback we’ve given I think this might work better next semester.
To finish: I actually think about events (in this case the picture above) in a slightly different way than before – I often immediately start reflecting on whether the problem/need/delight is a viable business idea. The picture shows users that are clearly interested in the laser pen in a different context than its usual area of application (it is quite unfortunate that these users don’t have any purchasing power of their own – business model innovation would also be needed to make a venture out of this 🙂 ).
Sophie, 25: “One possibility to make the app profitable would be to sell statistics from the app to people. Maybe sell it to someone who wants to start a bar, or to people needing statistics on the movement and habits of students. I would like to be able to put an upper limit on the price and maybe also being able to adjust the distance I am willing to walk to get cheap beer.”
be you should have some extra features in the app? For example: “bars that are open until 01” or “bars that also sell wine”. I don’t know if the users would pay for this app, as the target customer is a poor student. To get the bars to pay for participating would also be hard, as the app would be really bad if only five bars joined.”
