Introduction to Entrepreneurship

This week I learned interesting mindsets. I was impressed by a talk given by Elder Gay about entrepreneurship and consecration. He has an insight about the world. The Lord gave us a world with the potential for humans to improve it and improve their skills. He eft electricity in the clouds, oil and fuel in the earth and so on. We had the challenge of having raw materials. We have the mission to build and improve the earth. Nowadays companies do not have this focus.  Greed and selfishness conduct to economic crisis. The best policy is to serve others.  When I was hearing Elder Gay, the way I saw businesses changed. it was interesting how focus can make a huge difference.  In class we listed some social problems and think about how to solve them. There are lot of things that we can do. We can solve problems or at least get involved. This made me think about going on the path of social innovation. There are lot of things to do to fight poverty, hunger, human traf...

This week it was all about balance. I learned that it is a continuing state of being. That you must work on your passion and that you must believe that what you are doing for life is worth it. It is not easy to get what one would call balance. There were two interesting mini cases that made me ponder. The first one was about a typical situation. A father promised his daughter from long time to be in her presentation. That night he received a call from his best and larger customer. The customer demand him to come to his installations because there was a fire and the customer wants the presence of him or he would lose the customer. This is something that happens a lot in life. I think that the easiest way is to go for business demands and avoid the family promises. I think this is a typical situation when we must apply our integrity and be true to our priorities. The next case was about a coach that had the dream to be a coach of a great institution. He received a propose from a good ...

This week I learned different stuff. I think the most powerful insight is to learn the difference between what the world encourage us and what the gospel encourage us. The world want us to know, the gospel encourage us to become. It is in action the difference. I think this is true and this applies to entrepreneurship. We can learn how to do a business in theory, we can read a lot of book, we can know that we want to be entrepreneurs, but we need to act so we can become entrepreneurs. The only way to be an owner of the company is to own a company. There is not other way. There was a case we study about someone who wants to acquire an existing business. It was so interesting to learn about it. I learned that it is good to acquire a business that is not that big and not that small, so that you can escalate into a next level. There are 4 steps that are crucial at researching for acquiring a company. First, know the reason why the owner wants to sell the company. Second, y...

This week I read an article that stood out for me. It is titled "A Message to Garcia". I was about a message from the president that was needed to be delivered to General Calixto Garcia that was at that time somewhere in Cuba. Someone recommended the name of Colonel Andrew Rowan. This was an accurate recommendation. He just took the message and delivered it to Garcia. He did not ask for instructions, he did not hire a consultant, etc. In other words, he just receives the order and get the job done.  It is stated that the rarest skill of all is the ability to execute. This affirmation is so interesting. It reminded me a business guru that I used to follow through Instagram. One day in a video he says that he would like people to not listen to him and follow him and just do what they know they need to do.  It is a key to a prosper business to attract, challenge and retain people like Colonel Garcia. There is a path of leadership that is to be a leader with small "...

This week was great. I did my selling part for my group project in the sell anything challenge. My group won! It was not easy for me to sell in a different language, especially at girl apartments. I got lot of rejection. It was hard the first time but then I realized that everything is training. I had fun even if did not get the expected success. I think selling is great. It makes you be mature in some ways. It makes you master your emotions. I learned that we do not underestimate what we can do. We can do anything with the strength of the Lord. We must persevere and take action as Nefi.  I learned that the most important skill of an entrepreneur is the tolerance for ambiguity. It is hard to be an entrepreneur because there is lot of uncertainty in this path. Nothing is granted. This is a skill that most of the people do not have and is something that we can develop. A good example of that is Roxanne Quimby. I read about her and how she created Burst’s Bees. She le...