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Running head: ENTREPRENEURSHIP CASE STUDY

Entrepreneurship: Case Study

Aashish Sthapit

BUS 355 The Essentials of Entrepreneurship

January 26, 2020

Professor Rapisardi

Westcliff University
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Abstract

This paper provides advice to an entrepreneur after reviewing the given case-study. It provides

advice on how to deal with experimentation, cost and risk reductions. Also, it provides advice on

how to deal with failures.

Keywords: entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship, failures.

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Entrepreneurship Case Study

Question no. 1

Experimentation allows to create innovations, which might have a high value in the

future market. Anticipating that, entrepreneurs never fail to launch new product or service in the

market, hoping that their offerings will succeed one-day[ CITATION Ker14 \l 1033 ]. In this

question, an entrepreneur seeks advice on experimentation, cost-reduction, and risk-reduction.

Entrepreneur are full of ideas, but they should also realize that the resources and capital they

have are limited. [ CITATION Hit11 \l 1033 ] The step towards experimentation would be start

small, and scale it accordingly to the market reception. In the given case, Neil develops

individual web-site for his clients, but the web-sites become a total waste of money, resources,

and time. A huge lesson can be learned from this incident. Instead of creating individual

websites, he could have initiated with a small pilot program at a minimum cost and use of

resources. It could have saved the company a decent amount of capital, and Neil could’ve

focused on creating only one demo website. After the creation of demo website, he could appeal

or inform the clients about website services. Deepening on the needs of the clients, he could’ve

sold more websites without incurring any loss.

Hence, in order to experiment with the start-up without taking financial or failure risk, an

entrepreneur must run a small pilot program, and know about his or her familiarity advantage.

Familiarity advantage refers to the core competency of an entrepreneur[ CITATION Cha94 \l

1033 ]. A person might be really good and advanced at performing audits, it would be better if

he/she starts an auditing venture. It would be out of question for the person to start a fishing

start-up, where he has no skills or knowledge about fishing. It would best suit the entrepreneur to

match its familiarity advantage with the areas of business to establish an efficient start-up.
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Furthermore, the entrepreneur needs to collect a reliable team who shares similar familiarity

advantages.

Question no. 2

After facing several failures, it is true that there will be some-kind of psychological

effects on the buyers, suppliers, and employees. The buyers might hesitate to buy products from

a failing enterprise, and will opt to switch for the products offered by competitors. The suppliers

might not want to continue business with the entrepreneur because the supplier might not find

the venture a reliable partner because of its recent failures. Many employees may quit, while the

lasting employees will have a bit of hope left for some progress through the enterprise. However,

the mentality that motivated the employees to first join the organization will start to fade away

once the company gets used to failures.

To handle this trade-off, an employee needs to have a growth mindset, and should be able

to implement the mindset in the heads of its employees as well[ CITATION Dwe16 \l 1033 ].

Employees with growth mindset always believe that they can outperform their previous records.

It means becoming smarter, productive, and skilled. When an entrepreneur has a growth mindset,

his attitude towards failures will remain noticed by the employees. Despite all those failures, the

employees can see the entrepreneur trying personal best to turn things around. This action of the

entrepreneur can help inspire the employees, and make them fixated towards growth rather than

dwelling on past failures.

Question no. 3

At times, entrepreneurs themselves seem to get the worst burn out of their failures.

Entrepreneurs are not built out of concrete, and they definitely get their sentiments hurt after

facing failures, after all a lot of ideas, hard-work, and sleepless nights have gone down the drain.
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However, an entrepreneur must view failures as opportunities, and used them to the

entrepreneur’s advantage.

Many people conceptualize failures to be the ultimate end, whereas, entrepreneurs

perceive it as a mere opportunity to begin again. An entrepreneur must believe that there are no

such things as overnight success, and it takes a lot of hard-work and patience to become a

successful entrepreneur[ CITATION Dar07 \l 1033 ]. Hence, despite dwelling on failures, an

entrepreneur must actively respond to an existing opportunity, and create value through

delivering new products and services in the market-place.

Conclusions

Failures are a normal part of an entrepreneurial journey, and those who can’t handle

failures are simply just not made for the cut. However, while experimenting it is better advised to

run pilot projects and reduce additional costs and associated risks.
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References

Chandler, G. N., & Hanks, S. H. (1994). Founder competence, the environment, and venture

performance. Entrepreneurship theory and practice, 18(3), 77-89.

Darling, J., Gabrielsson, M., & Seristö, H. (2007). Enhancing contemporary entrepreneurship.

European Business Review., 13(12), 50-66.

Dweck, C. (2016). What having a “growth mindset” actually means. Harvard Business Review,

13, 213-226.

Hitt, M. A., Ireland, R. D., Sirmon, D. G., & Trahms, C. A. (2011). Strategic entrepreneurship:

creating value for individuals, organizations, and society. Academy of management

perspectives, 25(2), 57-75.

Kerr, W. R., Nanda, R., & Rhodes-Kropf, M. (2014). Entrepreneurship as experimentation.

Journal of Economic Perspectives, 28(3), 25-48.