Chapter 2: Entrepreneurial Mindset and Habits^[1]

The Entrepreneurial Mindset

Entrepreneurship takes many forms, but entrepreneurs share a major trait in common: An entrepreneur is someone who identifies an opportunity and chooses to act on that opportunity. Most business ventures are innovative variations of an existing idea that has spread across communities, regions, and countries, such as starting a restaurant or opening a retail store. These business ventures are, in some ways, a lower-risk approach but nonetheless are entrepreneurial in some way.

Many entrepreneurs start a new venture by solving a problem that is significant, offering some value that other people would appreciate if the product or service were available to them. Other entrepreneurs, in contrast, start a venture by offering a “better mousetrap” in terms of a product, service, or both. In any case, it is vital that the entrepreneur understand the market and target segment well, articulate a key unmet need (“pain point”), and develop and deliver a solution that is both viable and feasible. In that aspect, many entrepreneurs mitigate risks before they launch the venture.

Being aware of your surroundings and the encounters in your life can reveal multiple opportunities for entrepreneurship. In our daily lives, we constantly find areas where improvements could be made. For example, you might ask, “What if we didn’t have to commute to work?” “What if we didn’t have to own a vehicle but still had access to one?” “What if we could relax while driving to work instead of being stressed out by traffic?” These types of questions inspired entrepreneurial ventures such as ride-sharing services like Uber, the self-driving vehicle industry,^[2] and short-term bicycle access such as a free bike-sharing program in Pella, Iowa.^[3]

These ideas resulted from having an entrepreneurial mindset, an awareness and focus on identifying an opportunity through solving a problem, and a willingness to move forward to advance that idea. The entrepreneurial mindset is the lens through which the entrepreneur views the world, where everything is considered in light of the entrepreneurial business. The business is always a consideration when the entrepreneur makes a decision. In most cases, the action that the entrepreneur takes is for the benefit of the business, but sometimes, it helps the entrepreneur get ready to adopt the appropriate mindset. The mindset becomes a way of life for the entrepreneur. Entrepreneurs often are predisposed to action to achieve their goals and objectives. They are forward thinking, always planning ahead, and they are engaged in “what if” analyses. They frequently ask themselves, “What if we did this?” “What if a competitor did that?”—and consider what the business implications would be.

Most people follow habits and traditions without being aware of their surroundings or noticing the opportunities to become entrepreneurs. Because anyone can change their perspective from following established patterns to noticing the opportunities around them, anyone can become an entrepreneur. There is no restriction on age, gender, race, country of origin, or personal income. To become an entrepreneur, you need to recognize that an opportunity exists and be willing to act on it. Note, however, that the execution of the entrepreneurial mindset varies in different parts of the world. For example, in many Asian cultures, group decision-making is more common and valued as a character trait. In these regions, an entrepreneur would likely ask the advice of family members or other business associates before taking action. In contrast, individualism is highly valued in the United States and so many U.S. entrepreneurs will decide to implement a plan for the business without consulting others.

Thinking Like an Entrepreneur

An entrepreneurial spirit allows entrepreneurs to carry a manner of thinking with them each day that allows them to overcome obstacles and to meet challenges with a can-do attitude. What does it mean to have an entrepreneurial spirit? For the purposes of this discussion, it could mean being passionate, purposeful, positive, bold, curious, or persistent.

The founders of Airbnb have a passion for supporting individual rights to rent out unused space. Why should the established model of hotels prevail? Why shouldn’t an individual homeowner have the freedom to rent out unused space and leverage that space into an income? Airbnb has succeeded in creating more flexible and affordable options in the space of the rapidly growing “sharing” economy. At the same time, some states and municipalities have raised issues about the regulations monitoring ventures like this. While entrepreneurial spirit is partly about fighting for individual rights and freedoms, there should be a balance between economic freedom and consumer protection. The entrepreneurial spirit involves a passion for presenting an idea that is worthwhile and valuable, and a willingness to think beyond established patterns and processes, while still keeping in mind local laws and regulations, in the quest to change those established patterns (or at least to offer alternatives to them).

Passion is a critical component of the entrepreneurial process. Without it, an entrepreneur can lose the drive to run the business. Passion can keep an entrepreneur going when the outside world sends negative messages or less-than-positive feedback. For example, if you are truly passionate about starting an animal shelter because of your love of animals, you will find a way to make it happen. Your internal drive to help animals in need will spur you on to do whatever it takes to make the shelter become a reality. The same is true of other types of startups and owners with similar passions. However, passion needs to be informed by the entrepreneur’s vision and mission—passion for the sake of passion is not enough. A clear mission statement—which details why the business exists and the entrepreneur’s objectives for achieving that mission—will guide an entrepreneur’s passion and keep the business on track. Passion, vision, and mission can reinforce each other and keep the entrepreneur on the right track with next steps for the business.

Two additional concepts related to the pursuit of entrepreneurship are grit and self-efficacy. Grit is the inclination to pursue very long-term goals with passion and perseverance over a sustained period of time. Here the emphasis is on stamina. Grit involves sticking to your goals, day in and day out – not just for a week or month, but for years – and working hard to make your desired future a reality. It is living life like a marathon, not a sprint. Those who possess grit can self-regulate and postpone their need for positive reinforcement while working diligently on a task. Grit can be observed in hard-working, persevering people who seem unwilling to give up on accomplishing their goals. Keeping a positive attitude about potential achievements and productively struggling are traits that mostly come from within and are part of a person’s self-efficacy. Self-efficacy reflects an individual’s perception of their capabilities or their belief in themselves. When an individual believes themself to be capable of a particular action, they are said to have high self-efficacy. Research has shown that individual differences in perceived self-efficacy may be better predictors of performance than previous achievement or ability. In fact, self-efficacy can be particularly important when in the face of adversity. In other words, if you believe in yourself and your ability to succeed, you are actually more likely to succeed.^[4]

An Entrepreneurial Mindset in Your Discipline or Field

Within your industry of interest or area of study, what are the challenges that create frustration? How can these be turned into opportunities? Let’s look at some examples of entrepreneurial endeavors in specific industries to help you plan your own venture in your own industry.

In the agriculture industry, insects, weeds, weather conditions, and the challenges of harvesting crops are all ripe for entrepreneurial activities. The move toward organic produce has also affected this industry. From an entrepreneurial perspective, what products could you invent to support both organic farming and the problems of insects that damage or destroy crops? The old method was to use chemical sprays to kill the insects, but today, the growing demand for organic foods and increased awareness of the impact of chemical sprays on our environment are changing this scenario. One new idea to solve this problem combines a vacuum cleaner with an agriculture product. This is exactly what Coastal Tractor developed with its Bug-Vac product.^[5]

Often, the entrepreneurial mindset includes futuristic ideas that shake up the normal, conventional processes that are grounded in experience over time. Tried-and-tested processes and products that have a proven history of success can be a formidable obstacle to new ideas. A new idea may even appear as impossible or outlandish, perhaps even an embarrassment to the steady and predictable practices established within an industry. This can create a dilemma: Do we try something new and unproven that lacks documented research? Sometimes, we must disregard our past successes and research to be open to new possibilities for success and failure. An entrepreneurial mindset includes creativity, problem-solving skills, and a propensity to innovation.^[6] Open-mindedness is one characteristic that supports creativity, problem solving, and innovation. Taking the time to explore new ideas, dream, reflect, and view situations from a new perspective contribute to the entrepreneurial mindset. Some innovations can lead to disruptions within the industry, or even create a new industry.

The innovator’s dilemma was presented by Clayton Christensen to explain disruptive innovation. Disruptive innovations are technologies that, once introduced, displace established patterns, processes, and systems previously accepted as normal or accepted. One example of a disruptive innovation is Airbnb, which enables individuals who have residences or bedrooms that they aren’t using to “sell” that space to someone who wants/needs it. By connecting personal resources to people who desire those resources, this company has threatened (or “disrupted”) the established hotel industry.

Airbnb challenges the hotel industry’s business model of building large hotels and renting rooms within those hotels to their customers. Airbnb has reconfigured that model, and since its 2008 launch, more than 150 million travelers have taken advantage of 3 million Airbnb listings in more than 191 countries. If you were the CEO of Hilton or Marriott, would you be worried? As the hotel industry began to recognize Airbnb as a threat, it began a campaign to create legislation to rein in Airbnb’s growth and popularity. From the hotel industry’s perspective, Airbnb is not playing by the same rules. This is the definition of disruptive innovation, the focus on creating a new idea or process that negates or challenges established processes or products.^[7]

Sometimes disruptive innovations result from not listening to customers. If Henry Ford had asked his customers what they wanted, they likely would have told him a faster horse! Customers don’t always know what they want. Customer groups might need to be redefined by the entrepreneurial team on the basis of better models, knowing when to invest in developing lower-performance products that promise lower margins while still satisfying the need, and knowing when to pursue small markets at the expense of larger or established markets. Basically, disruptive innovations occur through identifying new and valuable processes and products.

The founders of Airbnb recognized that some people have unused resources (rooms) that other people need. This idea has been applied to other unused resources as well, as evidenced by short-term car rental (e.g., Turo) and bike-sharing services.

Growth vs. Fixed Mindset^[8]

Research has highlighted an important difference in terms of how people view their own intelligence and ability. Carol Dweck, author of 2006 book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, introduced the notions of fixed and growth mindsets, which she defines as follows:

“In a fixed mindset, students believe their basic abilities, their intelligence, their talents, are just fixed traits. They have a certain amount and that’s that, and then their goal becomes to look smart all the time and never look dumb. In a growth mindset, students understand that their talents and abilities can be developed through effort, good teaching and persistence. They don’t necessarily think everyone’s the same or anyone can be Einstein, but they believe everyone can get smarter if they work at it.”

Thus, people with a fixed mindset believe that people are born with a certain amount of intelligence, and that they can’t do much to change that. These individuals focus on looking smart over learning, see effort as a sign of low ability, and are often discouraged in the face of a challenge. In contrast, individuals with a growth mindset believe that intelligence can be developed over time. They focus on learning over just appearing to be smart, see effort as being the key to success, and thrive in the face of a challenge.

Individuals with a fixed mindset often avoid asking questions when they don’t understand something, because they want to preserve the image that they are smart. IN a similar vein, individuals with a fixed mindset view effort negatively. They believe that if they have to work so hard on a particular task, then they must not be very good at it. In contrast, the main goal for individuals with a growth mindset is to learn. As such, they will ask questions when they don’t understand something, because they know that is how they will gain new knowledge. Furthermore, individuals with a growth mindset view effort positively, with the belief that you get smarter and better at a particular task by working hard at it.

The difference between fixed and growth mindsets can be very perceptible when individuals are faced with a challenge or setback. Those with a fixed mindset are likely give up, because they view the setback as evidence that they are not capable, whereas individuals with a growth mindset enjoy challenges and view them as an opportunity to learn and to develop their intelligence. Making mistakes can be one of the most useful ways to learn. When we make a mistake, our brains think about the mistake and attempt to discern why it happened – this brain activity doesn’t happen when we get the answers correct on the first try!

Starting Your Entrepreneurial Journey

In every story of entrepreneurial success, there are countless challenges and dilemmas that the entrepreneurs faced in pursuing their chosen opportunities before they eventually fulfilled their entrepreneurial destiny. They courageously stepped out of their comfort zones to explore the possibilities that lie ahead. What is the difference between these entrepreneurs and you? The main difference is taking that first step. Many people have ideas that fit into the definition of an entrepreneurial idea but never take that first step. Just as the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu suggests, every journey begins with a single step.

Embracing and cultivating an entrepreneurial mindset and encountering trigger events (significant external situations) can nudge you into taking the first step toward being an entrepreneur. Reflect for on a moment on the following questions:

• Is there a venture you’ve always thought you should start but never did?
• What factors are stopping you? Consider your mindset and how you might change your mindset so that your venture could become a reality.
• What are some possible trigger events that could make the difference between starting your venture and waiting to start your venture?

Opening your future to the possibility of starting your own venture brings new and exciting experiences. Every entrepreneur moves through several steps in considering the entrepreneurial journey. Once you understand this journey, the steps will help you define your path toward creating and starting your new venture. Each step of this process offers another level of understanding that prepares you for long-term success. How will you achieve this success? By taking one step at a time, exploring and learning, considering new ideas and expectations, and applying these experiences to achieve your personal outcome.

What makes someone ready or willing to choose entrepreneurship over becoming an employee of an established business or a small business owner? It takes confidence, courage, determination, resilience, and some know-how, as well as the recognition of the opportunity. An entrepreneur is someone who not only recognizes an opportunity but who also is willing to act on that opportunity – both recognition and action are required. We might identify an opportunity, but many people do not act on the idea. It’s also important to remember the following:

• You are unique. Even if two similar people attempted to launch identical ventures, the results would likely not be the same. This is because each one of us has different ideas, approaches, available resources, and comfort levels, all of which influence the venture’s development and eventual success.
• Although there are no hard and fast rules or theories of the best way to launch into entrepreneurship, we can gain wisdom from the lessons learned by experienced entrepreneurs.
• Selecting an entrepreneurial career requires honesty, reflection, and a tendency to be action oriented. You will need to recognize your own strengths, limitations, and commitment as part of that honesty. Reflection is required for self-growth—seeking improvements in your own skills, interactions, and decision making—and commitment is required to maintain consistency in your willingness to make the new venture a top priority in your life. You will also need to understand that you cannot accomplish everything by yourself, and you may need to ask for help. It helps to be curious, open, and able to take calculated risks and to be resourceful and resilient when faced with challenges or obstacles.

The Entrepreneurial Journey as a Trip

The entrepreneurial journey is your exploration to discover if entrepreneurship is right for you. Every entrepreneurial journey is unique; no two individuals will experience it in the same way. Along the way, you will find opportunities and risks coupled with challenges and rewards.

It’s useful to think about the entrepreneurial journey as an exciting trip or other adventure. Most of the preparations and steps involved with planning a trip are like those for starting a venture. Just as you would plan and prepare for a trip—starting with inspiration and leading up to finally traveling on the trip—you might follow similar steps to launch a venture. And just as you would prepare for any challenges that you might encounter on a trip—bad weather, lost luggage, or detours—so you should consider potential obstacles or barriers along your entrepreneurial journey. Think of these difficulties as opportunities to learn more about the entrepreneurial process—and about yourself and how you manage challenges.

Let’s imagine that your dream vacation is a hiking trip to Glacier National Park in Montana and use this metaphor to help you as you create your career as an entrepreneur. For your dream vacation to Glacier National Park: How would you get there? What equipment would you need? What kinds of experiences would you expect to have? Just as your plan for a wilderness hike would involve many stages, your entrepreneurial journey involves multiple levels of self-discovery, exploration, experiences, and accomplishments on your way to success.

Developing a venture is an exciting and active experience. It involves a lot of hard work, but this work can be rewarding and enjoyable. Here, we present the entrepreneurial journey as seven specific steps, or experiences, that you will encounter along the road to becoming an entrepreneur.

• Step 1: Inspiration – What is your motivation for becoming an entrepreneur?
• Step 2: Preparation – Do you have what it takes to be an entrepreneur?
• Step 3: Assessment – What is the idea you plan to offer through your venture?
• Step 4: Exploring Resources – What resources do you need to make this venture work?
• Step 5: Developing Your Business Model – What are the key components of your venture’s business model?
• Step 6: Navigation – What direction will you take your venture? Where will you go for guidance?
• Step 7: Scale – How will you manage changes as your venture grows?

As you work through each step of the entrepreneurial journey, you should prepare for significant aspects of this experience. You will be met with rewards and challenges, and consequences that result from the decisions made at various points along your journey.

To visualize the steps of the entrepreneurial journey, again imagine your hiking trip to Glacier National Park (Table 2.1). Just as hikers have different levels of experience, so do entrepreneurs. Compare the following aspects of preparing for a hike with aspects of your entrepreneurial journey.

Table  2.1 Hiking and Entrepreneurial Journey Metaphor

Step 1: Inspiration

When you think of being an entrepreneur, what is the inspiration for your venture? Just as you might have an inspiration for a hiking trip to Glacier National Park, you will have an inspiration behind the decision to become an entrepreneur. When you’re planning a trip to a new and exciting place, one thing you might do is to imagine what you will experience along the journey and on arriving at your destination (Figure 2.1). This portion of the entrepreneurial journey includes imagining yourself as an entrepreneur or as part of an entrepreneurial team. For this stage, you need to embrace an entrepreneurial mindset. Dream big about your potential future and opportunities (Figure 2.2).

Step 2: Preparation

Just as when you are preparing for a trip, you need a plan to move forward on your entrepreneurial journey. Before your dream hiking trip, you might gather information about Glacier National Park from a trusted source, such as a good friend with travel experience, or you might conduct online research. Your friend’s feedback could be just the motivation you need to try this experience yourself. Or you might use your research to determine if the trip is possible. You will need to look at maps, either online or on paper. Either way, you might also consider travel and accommodation options, such as booking a flight and finding a place to stay. You might want to create benchmarks to align your journey with your available resources, such as the amount of time and the amount of money you have to spend on the trip. Benchmarking is a method of tracking target expectations with actionable results by comparing one’s own company’s performance with an industry average, a leader within the industry, or a market segment. Benchmarking can help design the trip to meet incremental goals and timelines. From both a travel plan and an entrepreneurial perspective, benchmarking is used as a control mechanism. But we also know that situations can arise that require an alteration in the plan – this can create the need to also adjust benchmarks.

To plan for an entrepreneurial journey, you should first conduct some preliminary research regarding your venture idea. Your research must be honest and objective if it is to give you a clear picture of the venture. Next, you might organize and prioritize your research and thoughts. For instance, you might see an idea like yours online or on television and feel disappointed that someone stole your great idea or beat you to the punch. This is a common occurrence in entrepreneurship, but it should not discourage you. Instead, use that knowledge and energy to find an overlooked or different aspect of your original idea. The difference might even be the focus on a different target market, a specific group of consumers for whom you envision developing a product or service. Further, it is critical to maintain a fluid focus upon expanding the scope of a product or service to uniquely differentiate provisions of benefits apart from existing benefits or those offered by competitors. A focus on a different target market is exactly how the Jitterbug smartphone was created, because it targeted senior citizens. The Jitterbug smartphone offers a larger screen, larger buttons, and simpler features that make it easier for older people to make quick calls or send texts.

Preparation also includes opening space in your life to the time and energy commitment needed to support your new venture. Are the important people in your life willing to support the interest and passion you will need to dedicate the time, energy, and other resources to this new venture? Review the questions shown in (Figure 2.3) to consider your answers to these questions.

Step 3: Assessment

Now that you have decided where to go for your trip and have gathered information to prepare for it, the next action is to create and set your schedule. This action is simple but critical, because it involves connecting and coordinating information and resources that fit your lifestyle and needs. For example, you might schedule an early-morning Uber or Lyft to the airport and electronic delivery of your plane tickets to your smartphone. For the entrepreneurial journey, this phase might also include recognizing appropriate relationships and gathering needed resources. For many entrepreneurs, the opportunity to receive guidance from trusted advisors or mentors may provide valuable insights on how to manage the process. This step allows for reflection on your idea and intentions. After you’ve done your researching and gathering knowledge about your idea through the preparation step, is the idea still viable? Is the idea still interesting to you? With a better understanding of the industry, your idea, and your own interests that you gained in Step 2, is this idea something that you still want to explore? Review the questions in Figure 2.4 as you navigate this step of the process.

Step 4: Exploring Resources

Regardless of where you might travel, you could not complete your trip without adequate resources such as available financing. There are many ways you might fund a hiking trip: savings, loan, pay-as-you-go, sponsorship (family or friends), or any combination of these options, to name a few. No matter how you finance your trip, it might help to have a balance of available credit and cash on hand to support your day-to-day expenses and any extracurricular activities or even unforeseen emergencies.

This scenario is mirrored in the entrepreneurial journey. Just as you wouldn’t begin a trip without adequate resources, including access to cash, you wouldn’t begin your entrepreneurial journey without the necessary resources, including cash. The options between funding a trip and funding a new venture are similar, but they have different names. For example, on a trip, you might use the cash you have on hand, from savings or a personal loan. For an entrepreneurial journey, you might use bootstrapping, a funding strategy that seeks to optimize use of personal funds and other creative strategies (such as bartering) to minimize cash outflows. Bootstrapping includes ideas like leasing instead of purchasing, borrowing resources, or trading unneeded resources for needed ones. Another example of managing cash resources includes a business model that offers subscriptions rather than a payment received for an item purchased. Subscriptions provide the entrepreneur with cash up front, with the buyer receiving benefits throughout the year. Consider the example of Amazon. Amazon offers Prime with a yearly subscription service, as well as Subscribe & Save, Amazon Instant Video, Amazon Mom, and Amazon Web Services, all based on a subscription business model. (Various types of business models will be considered in more detail later in the course.) Another idea for finding financial resources involves applying for grants or other funding opportunities – for example, through the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA).

The idea of exploring resources includes many other options besides how to fund a new venture. In a trial run, you could offer your product or service for sale within a limited market on a test basis to evaluate what additional resources are needed to support the success of the venture (Figure 2.5). Examples of places where a trial run fits well, depending on your product, include farmers markets, in-home sales, or through friends and family. The idea is to track the feedback you receive about your product or service. How do people react to the price, the quality of the product, the packaging? You can experiment by selecting one variable to adjust—changing the price, the packaging, the sales pitch, the presentation, or the quantity—to track reactions and make improvements based on this feedback. You may then decide to adjust other variables to gather more information, as well as considering what other resources are needed for the success of the new venture.

Another way to identify available resources is to check out entrepreneurship-related websites, speak with a business coach or counselor, or contact local agencies or organizations, including those affiliated with the SBA. Organizations that offer free (or low-cost) small business counseling, mentoring, and training, include:

• SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives): https://www.score.org/
• Small Business Development Center (SBDC): https://www.sba.gov/local-assistance/resource-partners/small-business-development-centers-sbdc
• Office of Women’s Business Ownership (OWBO): https://www.sba.gov/about-sba/sba-locations/headquarters-offices/office-womens-business-ownership
• US Export Assistance Center: https://www.export.gov/welcome
• Veterans Business Outreach Center (VBOC): https://veteransoutreachcenter.org/
• Locally organized support organizations, such as PopUp Business School: https://www.popupbusinessschool.co.uk/

Step 5: Developing and Revising Your Business Model

The ability to travel and visit new locations is a privilege and a great opportunity to gain exposure to new experiences and opportunities. In addition to the work involved in preparing for a trip, the act and process of traveling involves constant decision making to achieve your desired goals and outcomes. For instance, should you travel to one location in Glacier National Park and explore that area in depth? Or should you attempt to visit as many areas of the park as possible with your given resources and abilities?

The challenge at this step of your entrepreneurial journey is to manage your resources to meet your goals and outcomes as you develop a business model for your new venture. (Business models will be discussed in more detail later in the course.) You will need to identify the skills, experience, and resources necessary for your venture, and continue to adjust your model based on changes and new information that you gain. For example, on your dream vacation, if weather reports indicate severe storms during one or two days of your trip to Glacier National Park, you will likely need to revise your planned accommodations and activities. Similarly, your initial business model will require ongoing adjustments based on new information and insights.

Step 6: Navigation

As your dream vacation unfolds, you will naturally reflect on the experiences you had. No matter how well you feel you have planned, there is no way you can prepare for all the potential challenges, changes, and obstacles that may occur: missed or changed flights, poor weather, an unexpected illness, a trail or road closed for repairs, or sudden good fortune. What parts of the trip have gone well? If you ran into a problem, how did you handle it? Was the problem something you could have anticipated and planned for? Or was it unexpected? What did you learn from the experience? If you were planning a trip to another national park, what would you do differently? Just as seasoned travelers adjust to their circumstances and learn from their experiences, so should you, as an entrepreneur, learn to adjust by meeting and managing challenges head on.

By nurturing an entrepreneurial mindset, you will be better prepared when opportunities or obstacles surface. Although you won’t be able to predict or plan for every potential scenario along the entrepreneurial journey, an entrepreneurial mindset helps you to be resourceful when opportunities, challenges, or disappointments occur (see Figure 2.6). By unpacking, or by taking an inventory of your available resources, you can also get a better picture of what you may need to unload, retain, or discard, or even if a new direction is the best course of action. On your entrepreneurial journey, evaluating the experience or situation is a perfect opportunity for you to determine how realistic, overambitious, or shortsighted your dreams and goals for your venture may be.

Step 7: Scaling

By this point in your entrepreneurial journey, you will have made various improvements to your product or service based on feedback that you have received. You should have identified the value provided by your offering as well as your target market. Once you are confident that you have found product-market fit (a concept that will be discussed later in this course), you can begin to scale your venture. However, even as you are scaling your venture, many variables will continue to change. New challenges and opportunities will potentially arise, and navigating these changes will require constant attention and an ongoing commitment to maintaining an entrepreneurial mindset.

Are Entrepreneurs Born or Made?

Scholars of business and entrepreneurship have long debated how people become entrepreneurs, often asking the question “Are entrepreneurs born or made?” Research in this vein has explored whether certain people are born with the natural skills, talent, and temperament to pursue entrepreneurship – or if entrepreneurial skills can be developed through training, education, and experience. This line of questioning reflects the classic “nature versus nurture” debate.

This debate has been around for centuries. In classical Greece, Plato supported the nature argument, whereas Aristotle believed in the nurture perspective. The focus of this argument changed when late 19th century psychologists sought to understand how individuals obtain knowledge, and as modern psychologists concentrated on additional factors such as intelligence, personality, and mental illness.

In the early 2000’s, Scott Shane (a professor of entrepreneurial studies at Case Western Reserve University) codirected a study using identical twins and fraternal twins as the research subjects. Dr. Shane determined that entrepreneurs are about 40 percent born and 60 percent made, meaning that nature—that is, an individual’s DNA—is responsible for 40 percent of entrepreneurial behaviors, whereas nurture is responsible for about 60 percent of entrepreneurial behaviors.^[9] This means that you can unite your natural talents and abilities with training and development to achieve a well-rounded entrepreneurial experience and outcome.

Once you determine that entrepreneurship is in your future, the next action is to establish a process to follow. This can include identifying useful reading materials, attending classes or workshops, finding a mentor, or learning by doing through simulations or firsthand experiences. The readings, videos, and various activities that you will complete in this course will all help you build your knowledge and awareness of entrepreneurship as a valid option for your future.