Blog Post 2 - Job Description (Entrepreneur)

An Entrepreneur

I always appreciate explaining my job to others, especially due to how fluid entrepreneurship is. Entrepreneurship constantly adapts to the surrounding environment through an endless learning process. The best entrepreneurs see the problems they encounter through the eyes of a student or apprentice. 

 

Webster’s Dictionary defines an entrepreneur as one who organizes, manages, and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise. This definition brings in the second half of entrepreneurship: risk. Naturally, people tend to shy away from risk as they crave safety and security. Entrepreneurs lack this trait as they constantly seek new learning experiences. An entrepreneur works without fear, seeing failure not as failure but as a friend to learn from.

 

The entrepreneurial process begins with an idea and assumptions. Once an exciting idea pops into an entrepreneur’s mind, they’ll start to ask questions:

 

·      What problem am I solving?

·      Who or what demographic does this product serve?

·      How will I market this product?

 

Then, there’s the biggest question of them all:

 

·      Will my customers use and adopt the product?

 

Entrepreneurs are constantly searching for answers to that question and use the entrepreneurial process to answer their assumptions and questions.

 

The entrepreneurial process has three stages that guide entrepreneurs through the start-up learning process:

 

·      Build

·      Measure

·      Learn

 

These three steps create the feedback loop of entrepreneurship.

 

Build

 

During this stage, an entrepreneur builds the most efficient way to answer their questions and initial assumptions.

 

The process begins with turning the idea and questions into a product. Using initial assumptions, entrepreneurs build out a minimum viable product (MVP), which is the cheapest version of their product that requires minimal amount of work. 

 

While usually an MVP as an actual product, sometimes entrepreneurs create surveys, discussion groups, and other direct customer outreach as an MVP. MVPs all share the same goal of answering questions.

Measure

 

During this stage an entrepreneur analyzes their MVP, and the way users interact with it using various qualitative and quantitative measures.

 

Once an entrepreneur has launched their MVP, they begin to analyze the data and metrics associated with the questions they ask. A big part of the measure step involves setting up key performance indicators (KPIs) before you launch an MVP as entrepreneurs want to know what metrics and data to look at to track progress.

 

This step represents the most important part of the entrepreneurial process as it’s the only part in which entrepreneurs can hear and see, to an extent, what the customer wants and what the customer is looking for.

 

Because using customer feedback drives this process, entrepreneurs must build out MVPs that accurately and efficiently report statistics and feedback from the user to the product team.

 

Learn

 

In this stage, an entrepreneur applies the changes signaled by the data and metrics gathered from the measure stage.

 

After launching an MVP and analyzing feedback from users, an entrepreneur begins to develop and adapt his MVP into a new product that considers the feedback acquired from the initial MVP. This could be adding new features, adjusting the marketing strategy, or completely pivoting away from the idea towards something new.

 

The last step in the entrepreneurial process is implementing the changes and adaptations created from the feedback of the measure stage, beginning the cycle again. This repeating feedback loop constantly changes and adapts to the information from the user.

 

In closing, an entrepreneur welcomes failure as a friend. Entrepreneurs use failure as a learning experience because a failing product provides information about what the user wants. This way, entrepreneurs avoid creating a product that no one wants.

 

 

Readability Statistics

 

Flesch Reading Ease 44.9

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level 11.1

Passive Sentences 0%