A still from my final Elevator Pitch video
This course, though tough at times, especially during the interview assignments, has overall provided a great experience. However, I believe three experiences really brought this course over the top. First, an experience I found dreadful and intimidating: the interviews. I was content and fine making business plans and coming up with ideas, but having to talk about those ideas to other people and gather real market data seemed tedious at first, not to mention somewhat terrifying. Nevertheless, after picking up the phone and having dozens of interviews and conversations with people, I realized how genuinely nice people are. Of the people I called, most were incredibly enthusiastic about answering my questions and providing insight. I shared sometimes lengthy conversation with CEOs, small business owners, and bona fide interesting people. Through the interview assignments, I got the chance to see the truly good and helpful nature in people.
My second most formative experience was the reading reflection assignments. I had not read a book in its entirety in months, unless you count the one for the Good Life. But the books I chose for the first two reading reflection assignments rekindled the love I have to read and I ended up reading and finishing about five books in the span of two or three weeks. If anyone needs recommendations for some great books on entrepreneurship, look no further than Professor Pryor’s ENT3003 list. Out of that list, I can personally suggest Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson, and How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big, by Scott Adams.
Finally, the assignment I am oddly proud of is the elevator pitch. Though I know it’s far from perfect, I can see the growth and improvement after each iteration. And now that growth and improvement is immortalized in the form of actual videos. At first I felt weird talking to a camera, and I still did by the last recording, but I ended up becoming more comfortable. I also learned an interesting bit on writing speeches. What sounds good on paper doesn’t always sound the greatest when spoken. Some of the longer sentences can get confusing when heard aloud, so being concise is critical. Also, I found that I have a hard time verbalizing some phrases that seem trivial just reading it in my head. So, to overcome this obstacle, I either had to repeatedly practice the phrase or change the wording to something more manageable for my tongue. Planning, practicing, performing, and posting the pitch was an overall incredible experience of which I am pretty proud.
Throughout ENT3003 I gained a greater grasp on what I means to become an entrepreneur and got some critical hands-on application. The course was nothing like I expected. I had no idea we would be taking interviews and doing real market research. I thought it was going to be an easy, simple class with the assignments consisting of only idea and thought-based assignments. But no, we actually had to do some work and collect real data. I think this provided the greatest value in demonstrating what an entrepreneur has to do when starting a business. Being an entrepreneur is more than putting an idea on paper, an entrepreneur identifies an opportunity, hypothesizes a solution, collects loads of feedback, alters the hypothesis, and collects more feedback. If the hypothesis needs revision, he/she changes the hypothesis again and goes for another round of feedback until the hypothesis has been sufficiently ironed out. The entrepreneur then takes the finalized hypothesis and forms a business around it. This course provided a real experience nearly identical to this process, so when it comes time for me to go at a business opportunity for real, I’ll have a much better understanding of where to start.
My one suggestion to future students is do the work and do it well. As Professor Pryor will probably explain, there are minimum requirements, and, if you do the minimum, you will get a good grade. However, you really won’t learn much if you just do the minimum. If you’re here to learn, take every assignment seriously and act as if you will actually take on the business venture after the course ends. Make it real for yourself. You will not be disappointed.
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