Entrepreneurship Skills for Engineers - Essay Example

Entrepreneurship Skills for EngineersThe principal difference between old and new entrepreneurial models is that the former is planning-based while the latter is learning-based. The old entrepreneurial model involves planning, building, and launching. Planning determines the success of the business. Innovators and engineers need to build and perfect their products before exposing them to customers. Launching involves marketing of the product. The new entrepreneurial model focuses on identifying key assumptions, validating the assumptions using cheap experiments and iterating to the right product or market fit.

Learning-based model minimizes time through a learning loop. The intention of the lecture to engineers and innovators is to preserve resources and make best uses of them while making discoveries.Business plan or business case serves as an executive summary of highly detailed business plan. It gets an entrepreneur out of building and tests the concept of the market. A detailed business case envisions benefits over a reasonable period that outweighs costs and risks. Weak business case does not justify moving forward with a comprehensive business plan.

It renders it challenging to estimate the return on investment.Commercializing an idea involves building, measuring, and learning. Building is turning ideas into products. Measuring pertains to customers’ response to the products generated. Learning results in the decision made on whether to pivot or persevere. Innovation intersects invention and market insights. In essence, it is the process of changing ideas into products while market insight is identifying customers’ needs in the market.

Innovation may also involve improvements on an invented product to improve acceptance in the market.The presenter outlines various steps to the nail it then scale it process. There are five distinct stages. First, nail the pain. Second, nail the solution. Third stage involves nailing the go-to- market strategy. The fourth stage involves nailing the business model. The fifth stage is to scale it. Nailing the pain is identifying the problem and the possible solutions. Nailing the solution is selecting the best solution to the problem.

Nailing the go-to-market strategy involves marketing of the idea or product and evaluating the perception of potential customers. The business model has several sections that require address. It ends at the completion of the business plan. Scaling the business entails knowing the potential competitors and determining the size of the business.Business model canvas has nine key factors that a business must have. They include key partners, key activities, value proposition, customer relationships, customer segment, key resources, channels, cost structure, and the revenue.

Channels are the way the products move from the producer to the final consumer. Barnes, Helen, and David emphasize that value proposition is an important determinant of the success of any entrepreneurial venture (28).Customer development involves finding early customers, testing assumption and understanding buyer motivations. Obtain the information necessary to build a robust business model. Prepare for the questions that investors and strategic partners ask. Use more of pictures and diagrams in passing the business idea.

There are nine key questions to a successful business. What is your idea? What is the problem? Where does your idea fit? Who is your customer? What is your path-to-market? Where is the money? What is your competitive edge? Who is on the team? What is your story? That represents exceptional entrepreneurial skills for engineers.Works CitedBarnes, Cindy, Helen Blake, and David, Pinder. Creating & Delivering Your Value Proposition: Managing Customer Experience for Profit. London: Kogan Page, 2009. Print.