1ZEUB0 - Introduction to technology entrepreneurship
Institution
Technische Universiteit Eindhoven (TUE)
Book
The Smart Entrepreneur
Summary of the book 'The Smart Entrepreneur' by Bart Clarysse and Sabrina Kiefer. Used for the course 1ZEUB0 Introduction to technology entrepreneurship at the TU/e. The summary includes all chapters and some of the figures used in the book.
ETP3702 Assignment 6 (COMPLETE ANSWERS) Semester 1 2024 - DUE 28 May 2024
ETP3702 Assignment 6 (COMPLETE ANSWERS) Semester 1 2024 - DUE 28 May 2024
ETP2601 -ENTREPRENEURIAL SKILLS
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1ZEUB0 - Introduction to technology entrepreneurship
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SUMMARY:
The Smart Entrepreneur
By Bart Clarysse and Sabrina Kiefer
Copyright this summary: S.E. Stalpers
1
,SECTION I: Idea creation and evaluation
This book on entrepreneurship will appeal to the following readers: aspiring entrepreneurs, students,
industry, academics and investors. This book exists because of the following reasons:
- The authors have been coaching entrepreneurs, so have a lot of experience with this.
- Lots of books exists from US character, this one is more European perspective.
- Not every entrepreneurial light-bulb moment is destined to become next Google.
- Insight in how academic research can be applied in practical ways for shaping business
concept and creation of company.
An entrepreneurial business case is the rationale embedded in the business plan, explaining why the
business is capable of thriving – the substance of your business plan. With no exact statistics for
business survival in this unstable environment, a failure rate of some three out of four is the oft-
quoted rule of thumb.
1. Understanding the fit between opportunities and ideas
A venture will rest on two essential ingredients: the identification of a good opportunity and a solution
to exploit that opportunity. This stage of your entrepreneurial journey – the idea stage – introduces
to the early building blocks for finding these two ingredients. This isn’t a one-off exercise, however;
you’ll refine your opportunity definition as you move through the subsequent stages of your journey,
exploring all the factors that could help or hinder your business.
Your opportunity is the compelling reason why your business idea would appeal to customers, and is
usually defined as an unsolved problem, a gap in the market or an unaddressed customer pain with
respect to existing products or services. Your solution is the thing you’ll sell, which may be a product,
service or combination of the two, or possibly a platform technology that will be turned into products
by others. Starting points for new venture ideas typically fall into two broad categories:
- The demand-pull idea: this arises in response to a customer need or problem, whereby the
entrepreneur needs to create a profitable, innovative solution to meet a need.
- The knowledge-push idea: this typically involves a new technology or competence, whereby
an innovative solution itself may seem like an opportunity but the entrepreneur must seek a
profitable area of application and market – that is, a problem seeking that solution.
Although categorising an idea as demand-pull or knowledge-push is helpful to orient your thinking, do
keep in mind that entrepreneurial opportunities don’t always fit neatly into one category; even those
that sit fairly clearly in one category may contain some element of the other. As inventor you often
have a bias, this creates a somewhat hybrid situation: is your idea really motivated by demand, or by
your preferences? The key is not only to be able to state why your idea or solution is good, but to
explain why it compares favourably to alternative solutions on the basis of key criteria.
2. Fine-tuning demand-driven ideas and solutions
There is a high chance that an idea is based on untested or intuitive assumptions, and it’s better to
investigate these in the beginning rather than when one has already committed life savings to a new
business. Furthermore, this exercise will help devise alternative ideas, or modifications to your initial
one, so that you may find a better opportunity at the end of it than when you started.
An entrepreneurial venture must draw on all of these thinking styles to succeed: the creative and
visionary outlook, the practical, action-focused approach, the evaluative or judgemental capability,
and the empathic, social mind-set that makes understanding the motivations of a real customer
possible. Ideally, the founding team of a new venture will involve a range of people who can offer
different ways of thinking and approaching a problem, without falling into decision paralysis. The main
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, value of this exercise is that it allows you to judge several ideas against a single yardstick. The idea
generation exercise contains six phases, described below:
1. Seek and observe unsolved problems The first step in the exercise is to find and choose a
problem. Think about related or similar problems that you could also explore as a part of your
business idea. Note down what would improve for parties affected if the problem were dealt
with. How important is the problem?
2. Explain and define problems Looking beyond the surface of problems and understanding
their root causes will help you think of realistic solutions. Use for example the five W’s to start
exploring the full context of the problem: who suffers, what happens, when, where and why?
In the end you should arrive at a final problem definition.
3. Brainstorm ideas and solutions The key to successful brainstorming is making no
judgements about whether an idea is good or not and is best done out loud in a group
discussion. Record all ideas in brief form, regardless of how strange.
4. Organise and synthesise your ideas Some ideas are similar or related in some way and can
be grouped into categories. Next the group further elaborates on ideas to work them into
more detailed, practical solutions.
5. Evaluate and select ideas Use your understanding of the problem to identify a set of criteria
that must be met for the problem to be solved in a satisfactory manner. Once you’ve identified
a set of criteria, you can use a set of decision matrices to score the advantages and
disadvantages of your proposed solutions or concepts. You can benchmark your ideas against
the existing competition, scoring them against the status quo product at the same set of
criteria.
6. Plan how to implement selected ideas This refers to what your business will produce and
sell, and to whom, and is the basic business idea that you’ll investigate further.
3. Shaping applications from knowledge-driven ideas
Consulting may be a way to get to know the market, so that you can identify an application which
could be built into a scalable product or service. The important point is that technologies didn’t enter
all application markets at the same time, but in phases and the same will undoubtedly be true for the
technology or competence you are hoping to commercialise reading this book. Finding the ‘killer app’
often takes time and certain amount of trial and error.
Focus effort on proving the technology in one application market. Success with one application creates
interest in other markets. If you don’t consider a variety of factors and keep your ear to the ground,
you could waste time and resources trying to enter the wrong market, possible while a smarter
competitor overtakes you.
Cropdesign example: company building technology on vague and broad business plan, costing a lot of
time, effort and money and not working out the way they wanted. While it’s easy to make judgements
with hindsight, it seems that founders and managers had an opportunity to spot trends and make
alternative plans sooner than they did, saving several years and some of their investors’ money to
create more value from the business.
When you’ve done your research and talked to experts, you will need a way to organize and analyse
your collected data. To make the best use of your investigation and analysis, you can draw up a
knowledge/application matrix, an evaluation tool to help you map out and compare the possibilities
of your application.
1. What does your technology do?
2. What are the alternatives?
3. Map out alternatives, the industries and possible markets For each industry that seems
promising, arrange the information in a knowledge/application matrix that shows both your
technology and alternative methods in use.
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