Reference no: EM133549525 , Length: word count:1000

Entrepreneurship - MGMT Level 6

Individual entrepreneur interview memo: You are required to interview an entrepreneur and assess the venture he or she has started. For your benefits, it would be ideal if the entrepreneur operates in a business you are interested in. The goal is to get a comprehensive understanding of the venture creation process and the role personal agency plays in it.

In this interview, you want to highlight information such as the entrepreneur's background, how he or she recognized an opportunity to pursue, the factors that enabled the entrepreneur to grow the venture, and the reasons for exit.

Do as an airline CEO.

Interview Protocol Interview an Entrepreneur and Assess the Venture

Group Assignment

The purpose of this interview is to build your confidence in interviewing people, as well as to enrich and corroborate information you learn in class.

STEP 1: CONTACT THE PERSON YOU HAVE SELECTED AND MAKE AN APPOINTMENT.

Be sure to explain why you want the appointment and to give a realistic estimate of how much time you will need.

I am flexible on your choice of interviewee(s) and some other logistical issues because the point is for you to learn something from the field. You can interview: at the allotted time or another time of your choosing; as a group or an individual; people in Singapore or overseas; family members or not; from a simple business to a high tech; one interviewee or more; people related to your project or not.

At the end, you still need to submit an individual report and this is possible because 50% of the report is an individual reflection (see grading rubric at the end of this Appendix). Also if you interview more than one person, you can choose to only write a memo for one of them, or some combinations. Just bear in mind of the page limit (below).

STEP 2: IDENTIFY SPECIFIC QUESTIONS YOU WOULD LIKE TO HAVE ANSWERED AND THE GENERAL AREAS ABOUT WHICH YOU WOULD LIKE INFORMATION. (SEE SUGGESTED INTERVIEW IN STEP 3.)

Using a combination of open-ended questions, such as general questions about how the entrepreneur got started, what happened next, and so forth, and closed-ended questions, such as specific questions about what his or her goals were, if he or she had to find partners, and so forth, will help to keep the interview focused and yet allow for unexpected comments and insights.

STEP 3: CONDUCT THE INTERVIEW.

Recording the interview on audiotape can be very helpful to you later and is recommended unless you or the person being interviewed objects to being recorded. Remember, too, that you most likely will learn more if you are an interested listener.

Would you tell me about yourself before you started your first venture?

• Were your parents, relatives, or close friends entrepreneurial? How so? Did you have any other role models?

• What was your education/military experience? In hindsight, was it helpful and in what specific ways?

• What was your previous work experience? Was it helpful? What particular "chunks of experience" were especially valuable or irrelevant?

• Did you have a business or self-employment during your youth?

• In particular, did you have any sales or marketing experience? How important was it or a lack of it to starting your company?

How did you start your venture?

• How did you spot the opportunity? How did it surface?

• What were your goals? What were your lifestyle needs or other personal requirements? How did you fit these together?

• How did you evaluate the opportunity in terms of the critical elements for success?

• The competition? The market? Did you have specific criteria you wanted to meet?

• Did you find or have partners? What kind of planning did you do? What kind of financing did you have?

• Did you have a start-up business plan of any kind? Please tell me about it.

• How much time did it take from conception to the first day of business? How many hours a day did you spend working on it?

• How much capital did it take? How long did it take to reach a positive cash flow and break-even sales volume? If you did not have enough money at the time, what were some ways in which you bootstrapped the venture (bartering, borrowing, and the like). Tell me about the pressures and crises during that early survival period.

• What outside help did you get? Did you have experienced advisors? Lawyers? Accountants? Tax experts? Patent experts? How did you develop these networks and how long did it take?

• How did any outside advisors make a difference in your company?

• What was your family situation at the time?

• What did you perceive to be your own strengths? Weaknesses?

• What did you perceive to be the strengths of your venture? Weaknesses?

• What was your most triumphant moment? What was your worst moment?

• Did you want to have partners or do it solo? Why?

Once you got going:
• What were the most difficult gaps to fill and problems to solve as you began to grow rapidly?

• When you looked for key people as partners, advisors, or managers, were there any personal attributes or attitudes you were especially seeking because you knew they would fit with you and were important to success? How did you find them?

• Are there any attributes among partners and advisors that you would definitely try to avoid?

• Have things become more predictable? Or less?

• Do you spend more time, the same amount of time, or less time with your business now than in the early years?

• Do you feel more managerial and less entrepreneurial now?

• In terms of the future, do you plan to harvest? To maintain? To expand?

• In your ideal world, how many days a year would you want to work? Please explain.

• Do you plan ever to retire? Would you explain?

• Have your goals changed? Have you met them?

• Has your family situation changed?

• What do you learn from both success and failure?

Questions for Concluding

• What do you consider your most valuable asset -- the thing that enabled you to make it?

• If you had it to do over again, would you do it again, in the same way?

• As you look back, what do you feel are the most critical concepts, skills, attitudes, and know-how you needed to get your company started and grown to where it is today? What will be needed for the next five years? To what extent can any of these be learned?

• Some people say there is a lot of stress being an entrepreneur. What have you experienced? How would you say it compares with other "hot seat" jobs, such as the head of a big company or a partner in a large law firm or accounting firm?

• What things do you find personally rewarding and satisfying as an entrepreneur? What have been the rewards, risks, and trade-offs?

• Who should try to be an entrepreneur? And who should not? Can you give me any ideas there?

• What advice would you give an aspiring entrepreneur? Could you suggest the three most important lessons you have learned? How can I learn them while minimizing the tuition?

• Would you suggest any other entrepreneur or other people, I should talk to? (Make sure you get their contact information).

STEP 4: EVALUATE WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED.

Write down the information you have gathered in some form that will be helpful to you later on. Be as specific as you can. Jotting down direct quotes is more effective than statements such as "highly motivated individual." And be sure to make a note of what you did not find out.

STEP 5: WRITE A THANK YOU NOTE.

This is more than a courtesy, it will also help the entrepreneur to remember you favorably should you want to follow up on the interview.

WRITE-UP INSTRUCTIONS

The purpose of the exercise is for you to learn something directly from an entrepreneur, corroborate information you learn in class, and build your confidence in interviewing people.

Here is my "suggested" outline sections for the write up you are going to submit to me for grading. You are free to follow an outline that fits your particular interview or circumstances.

I would like you to emphasize the following main points:

1. Background and experience of founders
a. Just highlight salient information; no need to list everything.
2. Opportunity recognition
a. That is, how founders recognize the opportunity in the first place
3. Assembling resources
a. That is, how founders assemble the initial resources needed for the venture
4. Initial key actions post-formation
a. That is, what are the initial key actions the team did after it had been assembled?; just focus on some key, major actions; no need to list or discuss everything
5. Lessons learnt and recommendations.
a. What have you learned about the four points above?
b. What was most insightful for you or your team? How does this information you have collected relate to the cases/concepts/frameworks we discussed in class?
c. What recommendations can you propose based on the interview to improve the business going forward or to have done it better?

These final parts (i.e. lessons learnt and recommendation) of your report is very important (account for 50% of grade; see rubric below) and hence I suggest that it be about two pages (don't have to be exact), but don't make it an afterthought or just spend one paragraph on it.

It would be helpful if you record the interview first before later extracting it. The individual report is limited to no more than three pages of text or 1000 words, whichever is longer (double spaced, I -inch margin on all sides, Arial font size 12). You should provide contact information of your entrepreneur (entrepreneur's name, business name, business address, and contact number). Also, take a team photo with the entrepreneur and include it on the cover page (outside the page limit).