Entrepreneurship - From Ideas to Reality

348 Pages·2.586 MB·English

by  The Open University

ENT_1
Entrepreneurship – from ideas
to reality
About this free course
This free course is an adapted extract from the Open University course .
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of free learning from The Open University –
There you’ll also be able to track your progress via your activity record, which you can use
to demonstrate your learning.
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Contents
Introduction and guidance
Introduction and guidance
What is a badged course?
How to get a badge
Session 1: Where do good ideas come from?
Introduction
1 Are you an entrepreneur?
2 What’s the big idea?
3 Invention, innovation and enterprise
3.1 Finding ideas or ideas finding you
3.2 Discovery skills
4 Learning about ideas
4.1 Ideas all around us
5 Solving problems and seeing opportunities
5.1 Design thinking
5.2 Framing
5.3 Learning from mistakes
6 This session’s quiz
7 Summary
Session 2: From idea to reality
Introduction
1 Starting your business
1.1 Motivation and context
2 Business in the UK
3 Planning for growth
3.1 Medium-sized businesses
3.2 What are your goals?
4 Protecting your idea
4.1 Professional advice is advised
5 What kind of business structures are there?
5.1 Not for profit
5.2 What structure do I need?
6 Getting and running a business
6.1 Bootstrapping it
6.2 Developing your enterprise and finding help
7 This session’s quiz
8 Summary
Session 3: Creating value
Introduction
1 Practice and theory
1.1 Traditional approaches to business
1.2 The business model canvas
1.3 Defining the terms of a business model
2 Your business model is unique
3 The entrepreneur’s dilemma
3.1 Dilemma 1: building confidence
3.2 Dilemma 2: managed growth
3.3 Dilemma 3: finding support
3.4 Dilemma 4: pivoting
4 This session’s quiz
5 Summary
Session 4: Customers and markets
Introduction
1 Who are your customers?
1.1 Are they customers at all?
1.2 Beyond customer transactions
1.3 Getting to know your customers
1.4 What do customers want?
1.5 Customer segments
2 The marketing mix
2.1 What does the market look like?
2.2 What kind of market is it?
3 How will you compete?
3.1 Returning to the Ps
3.2 Returning to the competition
4 This session’s quiz
5 Summary
Session 5: Defining and building the value proposition
Introduction
1 The value proposition (VP)
2 How mutual value is created
2.1 Dimensions of value
3 Optimising value
4 Brand or USP?
5 Defining your value proposition
6 This session’s quiz
7 Summary
Session 6: Aligning resources to opportunities
Introduction
1 An environmental scan
1.1 Porter’s Five Forces
2 Transformation model
2.1 Types of transformation process
2.2 Overlapping transformations
3 From resources to capabilities
3.1 Human resources
3.2 Tangible resources and ‘know how’
3.3 Mapping your capabilities
4 Sustainability and making a difference
4.1 Key success factors
5 This session’s quiz
6 Summary
Session 7: Financing your business
Introduction
1 Financing your business
2 Cash management
3 Financial accounts
4 Limited liability
5 What are potential investors looking for?
6 Debt
7 Grants
8 Alternative finance
8.1 Online platforms
8.2 Rate of return
8.3 Crowdfunding
8.4 Peer-to-peer lending
8.5 What is public equity?
8.6 Private equity
8.7 Angel investors and venture capitalists (VCs)
8.8 Weighing up the pros and cons
9 This session’s quiz
10 Summary
Session 8: Bringing it all together – just start!
Introduction
1 Overcoming self-doubt
2 Building your network
3 Pitching your business
3.1 What to cover in your pitch
4 The secrets of success
5 This session’s quiz
6 Summary
Where next?
Tell us what you think
References
Further reading
Acknowledgements
Introduction and guidance
This free badged course, Entrepreneurship – from ideas to reality,
lasts 24 hours, with 8 ‘sessions’. You can work through the course at
your own pace, so if you have more time one week there is no
problem with pushing on to complete a further study session.
The course has been designed to help you in starting up and running
your own business. Using case studies it will take your through the
decisions from generating initial ideas through to deciding what you
will do and how to establish your business and grow it.
You will be guided through business models, funding options,
business types, the influence of location and importantly assessment
of your own skills, values and attitudes to risk. You will receive
practical advice from real entrepreneurs and will also be signposted
towards additional support which can help you develop your own
capabilities further.
There will be numerous opportunities to check your learning. This
includes interactive quizzes, of which Weeks 4 and 8 will provide you
with an opportunity to earn a badge to demonstrate your new skills.
You can read more on how to study the course and about badges in
the next sections.
After completing this course, you will be able to:
identify strengths of an entrepreneur and what support is
needed to run a business
evaluate, develop and refine a business idea and create a
business model
identify the gaps in resources and capabilities needed to grow a
new business
create a plan to develop capability and make progress growing
a business
create a pitch to gain support for development of a business.