Entrepreneurship in the Global Economy

Field Trip Report

Loc Nguyen - BScBA 16 A

On Friday, March 16th, we went on a field trip as part of our “Entrepreneurship in the Global
Economy” course. The field trip was composed of two main parts: (1) business idea workshop
with NUORI Yurittajyys and (2) a presentation with Smarp Oy.

Business Idea Workshop

The NY team helped us in three goals: (1) figuring out the skill composition of our team, (2)
brainstorming on the main components of our business model, and (3) interviewing potential
customers to test our hypotheses.

All these goals are accomplished by small exercises, be it writing in a simplified Business Model
Canvas (​Alexander Osterwalder​, 2010) or filling in a small paper sheet with our respective skills.
Although they are helpful in the main goals of the course - ​preparing a business model​ and
understanding that businesses are a part of the market ​- I believe that the most value will be
gained by noticing that this is only a simulation, and as such, a simplified version of what is
required in real business conditions.

For example, I feel we did not make full use out of the team composition exercise. Perhaps, we
did not have time to think about our strengths and weaknesses in the context of our business
model. Or perhaps, we did not explicitly state what type of skills we should be discussing - there
are ​different ways to categorize skills​, one of which is into three main subsets: knowledges (e.g.
understanding of the gaming industry), self-management skills (e.g. self-awareness), and
transferable skills (e.g. learning skills or leadership skills). In this sense, each of us listed our
skills in different ways, which consequently led to difficulty in matching our skills to our roles.

Nonetheless, the exercises in the workshop did prompt us to start the process of examining the
feasibility of our idea. To provide the opportunity to do this with the assistance of experts in
entrepreneurship is invariably valuable. In addition, our discussions in the process exposed the
hidden disagreements we had with our idea and its execution. All this would not have been
possible without such a facilitative environment.
Smarp
The Smarp executive team was extremely welcoming to us students. Smarp helps businesses
in sharing internal information to both employees and to external stakeholders, using social
media as the main channel.

The presentation from Roope and Mikael focused on the founding of the company. The key
takeaway for me is that although planning and business models are helpful and irreplaceable -
business situations will call for many changes of directions, often times due to reasons
unknowable or uncontrollable. I do feel, however, that the presentation may create false
impressions about the ease of entrepreneurship. Although the founders did address the struggle
they went through at the start, they also over-emphasized the importance and favourableness of
luck in the stead of hard work. From a small discussion with Mikael about the presentation
content, he does agree that “​creating​ your own luck” should be more highlighted - hard work
must be taken to take full leverage of the opportunities.

After the presentation, the Smarp executive team also organized a small activity for us.
Interestingly enough, the activity involved analyzing Smarp using the Business Model Canvas.
Although the Business Model Canvas is beneficial, I believe we would have benefited more from
it if we had been exposed to it beforehand. Our discussions (and other teams’) suggested to me
that we were unclear about what the components of the canvas should describe or how the they
work together to describe a business comprehensively.

From Smarp, we are exposed to all the main goals of the course - except the third goal:
assessing feasibility of the business​. In line with the impression that Smarp gave me from
their presentation, Smarp encourages us to ​do​ instead of ​think​. The founders must have
thought about how feasible their social media consultancy is, but they did not put an emphasis
on that thought. In fact, Mikael did say that their consultancy along with its 3 years were the
costs that they paid in market research - which led to their current business.

Conclusion
Each activities advanced us in our studies of entrepreneurship in a different way. The workshop
highlighted the value of planning in starting a business. Smarp highlighted the role of chance in
a business’ success. Therefore, I do believe that noticing what was omitted from each of the
presentation allows for a more comprehensive understanding of entrepreneurship.
Entrepreneurship, like its etymology, requires a close reading of the gaps - and as such, for me,
the field trip was extremely worthwhile.