Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship

Credit Units: 3 Course Code: ENTR301

Module II : Environmental Monitoring and Importance of Business Idea
Creativity is the act of
conceiving something new,
whether a variation on a
theme or something wholly
new. Innovation is the act of
putting something into
practice. It’s the difference
between conceiving of the
idea of a craft that could fly
through space, and actually
building a rocket that
people can ride into space.

https://ideascale.com/whats-the-real-difference-between-creativity-and-innovation/
https://youtu.be/lvfdrhuvqdA?t=13
https://innoway.me/innovation-definition/
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“Social innovation & Social inclusion ”

 “Social innovation is the process of developing and deploying effective solutions to
challenging and often systemic social and environmental issues in support
of social progress.
 Social inclusion is the process of improving the terms on which individuals and
groups take part in society—improving the ability, opportunity, and dignity of those
disadvantaged on the basis of their identity. For example, in relieving poverty or
sickness or the needs of old age, an organization might concentrate on building the
capacity of people in poverty (or people who are sick or old) to enable them to be
included in society as a means of relieving their needs and promoting social
inclusion.
 Social innovation can help achieve active inclusion by enhancing the
effectiveness of policies and services in order to maximize positive social impact.
This includes increasing the quality of life and work of services users and
beneficiaries, as well as the accessibility and sustainability of services.

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Idea Generation

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Summary video : Idea Generation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSWGG4wtOsE
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Exploring and generating Ideas/Sources of Ideas

Where to look for ideas-A enterprise also has to look at the social problem that it is trying to address
and ensure that the business idea can address that problem.
 Gaps in the market- a lack of supply, or unmet demand for a particular product or service
 Plugging the leaks – local economic development
 Identifying under-utilized organization and community assets - an empty, unused building, a
new housing development, a lookout, lake or other geographic feature, or specific industry
expertise-
Geographical: physical features, transport links, infrastructure. It is important to include both the natural and man-made
features and structures.
Social: people, community, networks, diversity and intangibles (knowledge, enthusiasm, goodwill, ideas people, individuals,
vision).
Economic: organizations, goods and services, industry, funding bodies, local businesses, government agencies, etc.
Financial: funding, services in kind, earning potential.

 Challenge conventional methods or thinking

 Acquisition, franchising and replicating 8
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Identifying under-utilized organization and

community assets

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Idea Generation Activities

 Idea generation techniques: Brainstorming/Reverse Brain

storming/Brainwriting/Focus Group, Checklist method, Attribute listing
 Grouping your ideas
 Idea Design
 Distinguishing customers and beneficiaries
 Value-Effort Grid
 Capacity Check
 Mission Check
 Ranking and selecting ideas

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Brainstorming & Reverse Brainstorming

• Don’t try to evaluate ideas during a brainstorming session. Jot them down and
move on to the next idea. You are looking for as many different ideas as
possible.
• There is no need for discussion of any of the ideas generated. It is best to avoid
discussion. Brainstorming is a team sport, with people bouncing ideas off each
other. A slight modification in one idea becomes a new one!
• Reverse Brainstorming is a technique that builds on our natural ability to
more easily see problems than solutions. Instead of asking a group to
brainstorm ideas that would work, the group brainstorms all the ways that they
could cause a plan to fail. This method is also known as 'negative
brainstorming'.
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Comments That Reduce Brainstorming to
Braindrizzling
 • That won’t work.
 • That’s too radical.
 • It’s not our job.
 • We don’t have enough time.
 • That’s too much hassle.
 • It’s against our policy.
 • We haven’t done it that way before.
 • That’s too expensive.
 • That’s not practical.
 • We can’t solve this problem

http://mnurcholis.lecture.ub.ac.id/files/2013/04/Idea-Gen-Module.pdf 12
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https://youtu.be/yAidvTKX6xM?t=7
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Brainwriting

This is a form of written brainstorming. Brainwriting

differs from the classical brainstorming by giving
participants more time to think than in brainstorming
session, where ideas are expressed spontaneously.

It is a silent, written generation of ideas by a group of

people. The participants write their ideas on a special
card, which circulates within the group (usually six
members).

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BrainWriting
6-3-5 Brainwriting is a group-structured brainstorming technique aimed at aiding
innovation processes by stimulating creativity developed by Bernd Rohrbach who
originally published it in a German sales magazine, the Absatzwirtschaft, in 1968. The
name Brainwriting 6-3-5 comes from the process of having 6 people write 3 ideas in 5
minutes. Each person has a blank 6-3-5 worksheet.

Everyone writes the problem statement at the top of their worksheet (word for word
from an agreed problem definition). They then write 3 ideas on the top row of the
worksheet in 5 minutes in a complete and concise sentence (6-10 words). At the end
of 5 minutes (or when everyone has finished writing) pass the worksheet to the
person on your right. You then add three more ideas. The process continues until the
worksheet is completed.

There will now be a total of 108 ideas on the 6 worksheets. These can now be
assessed.

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https://www.mycoted.com/Brainwriting
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A focus group is a small group of people in your target

market who meet for a guided discussion about your business idea.
A focus group can: Go beyond numbers to reveal how real
prospects react to your idea. Show you whether there is a market
for your idea and how much customers will pay for it.
It is a method that capitalizes on the discussion generated
among participants. The participants are encouraged to not only
respond to the moderator but also to the anecdotes conveyed by
other participants and to engage in further reflection of personal
experiences as others speak.
Examples: A focus group of parents of preschoolers meets to
discuss child-care needs.

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Checklist Method

In this method, a new idea is developed through a list of

related issues or suggestions.

The entrepreneur uses a list of questions or statements

to guide the direction of developing entirely new ideas
or focusing on specific idea areas.

Worth Reading: https://hatrabbits.com/en/checklist-technique/

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Free Association

Free association is a method of developing new idea

through a chain of word association. This technique is
helpful in developing an entirely new angle to a
problem.

The process involve a word or phrase relating to the

problem being written down, then another and another,
with each new word attempting to add a new idea to the
ongoing thought processes, finally creating a chain of
ideas ending with the new product idea merging.

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Class Activity Noida

#HYBRID
#CombiningUnrelatedObjectsToCreateNew

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When you subdivide the challenge/problem into many separate parts, the challenge
does not change, but your perception of it does and leads to new ideas — Michael
Michalko

Attribute Listing

Attribute listing is an idea-finding technique that requires entrepreneurs to

list the attributes of an item or problem and then look at each from different
perspectives.

Through this method, originally unrelated objects can be brought together to

form a new combination and possible new uses that better satisfy a need.

In summary, attribute listing refers to a method of developing a new idea by

looking at the positives and negatives.
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Attribute Listing is a creative technique which involves

breaking the problem into smaller and smaller parts and
looking at alternative solutions to these parts.
Attributes can be classified into subcategories like
•Physical attributes: shape, form, colour, texture, structure,
sound, taste, door, space, density, location
•Social attributes: responsibilities, taboos, power, ecological
•Process attributes: selling, marketing, production,
manufacturing, designing
•Psychological attributes: needs, motivation, positive and
negative emotions
•Price attributes: production cost, consumer price, Consumer
acquisition cost, manufacturing cost,

https://shahmm.medium.com/attribute-listing-creativity-technique-an-example-c47d26a5310c

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Imagine designing a pen. The pen has following parts such as Nib, Cap, Tip,
Barrel, Refill, Grip, Dip. Other than these part attributes, we can consider
other attributes like shape, length, colour, printing, and used for writing.
Focus on one attribute at a time and look for alternatives. Example- Shape,
Can we change the circular shape to triangular?

Caselet Reading:
https://shahmm.medium.com/attribute-listing-creativity-technique-an-
example-c47d26a5310c

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Home assignment: Reading

Go through the article:

https://www.viima.com/blog/idea-generation

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Common challenges/Obstacles

http://mnurcholis.lecture.ub.ac.id/files/2013/04/Idea-Gen-Module.pdf
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TOMS Shoes

(Founder-Blake Mycoskie)

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THE STORY OF THE TOMS SHOES ENTREPRENEUR IN HIS OWN WORDS BY BLAKE MYCOSKIE

Read Blake Mycoskie’s own telling of how he founded TOMS Shoes: “In 2006 I took some time off from work to travel to Argentina. I was twenty-
nine years old and running my fourth entrepreneurial startup: an online driver’s education program for teens. Argentina was one of the countries my
sister, Paige, and I had sprinted through in 2002 while we were competing on the CBS reality program The Amazing Race. I met a woman
volunteering on a shoe drive who explained that many kids lacked shoes, even in relatively well-developed countries like Argentina, an absence that
didn’t just complicate every aspect of their lives—including essentials like attending school and getting water from the local well—but also exposed
them to a wide range of diseases. Her organization collected shoes from donors and gave them to kids in need. Their complete dependence on
donations meant that they had little control over their supply of shoes. My first thought was to start my own shoe-based charity, but instead of
soliciting shoe donations, I would ask friends and family to donate money to buy the right type of shoes for these children on a regular basis. I have
a large family and lots of friends, but it wasn’t hard to see that my personal contacts could dry up sooner or later. And then what? These kids needed
more than occasional shoe donations from strangers. Then I began to look for solutions in the world I already knew: business and entrepreneurship.
An idea hit me: Why not create a for-profit business to help provide shoes for these children? Why not come up with a solution that guaranteed a
constant flow of shoes, not just whenever kind people were able to make a donation? And for every pair I sell, I’m going to give a pair of new shoes
to a child in need. There will be no percentages and no formulas. It was a simple concept: Sell a pair of shoes today, give a pair of shoes tomorrow.
Something about the idea felt so right, even though I had no experience, or even connections, in the shoe business. I did have one thing that came
to me almost immediately: a name for my new company. I called it TOMS. I’d been playing around with the phrase “Shoes for a Better Tomorrow,”
which eventually became “Tomorrow’s Shoes,” then TOMS. (Now you know why my name is Blake but my shoes are TOMS. It’s not about a person.
It’s about a promise—a better tomorrow.) I got a break with an article about my new startup, TOMS, in the LA Times, it was a headline story. By the
end of that day, we’d received 2,200 orders. That was the good news. The bad news was that we had only about 160 pairs of shoes left sitting in my
apartment. On the website we had promised everyone four-day delivery. What could we do? Craigslist to the rescue. I quickly posted an ad for
interns and soon I had selected three excellent candidates, who began working with me immediately. We ended up selling 10,000 pairs of shoes
that first summer—all out of my Venice apartment.”

Blake Mycoskie. “How I Did It: The TOMS Story.” Entrepreneur. 2011. https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/220350
(This excerpt from Entrepreneur magazine was written by Blake Mycoskie in his own words.)
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOFLZ8hePRk 30
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4AXv-jFszs

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