The document discusses entrepreneurship and what makes a successful entrepreneur. It provides definitions of entrepreneurship focusing on starting a business and delivering new value. It then lists qualities of great entrepreneurs such as commitment, courage, creativity, and leadership. The document emphasizes understanding customer needs and problems. It outlines the entrepreneurial process from coming up with an idea to growth. Finally, it introduces the business model canvas as a tool to flesh out ideas and understand key aspects of a business like customers, activities, and revenue streams.

1. Ideation
BWBN Workshop

2. What is Entrepreneurship?
• In sum, entrepreneurship is the process of starting and developing a company,
with the aim of delivering something new or improved to the market, or by
organizing the means of production in a superior way. This process is principally
organized through the formation of a start-up company, is managed by
entrepreneurs, often under considerable personal and financial risk, and is
temporary in duration, as a phase in a business’s lifecycle. - Center for American
Entrepreneurship
• It its most basic level, entrepreneurship refers to an individual or a small group of
partners who strike out on an original path to create a new business. An aspiring
entrepreneur actively seeks a particular business venture and it is the entrepreneur who
assumes the greatest amount of risk associated with the project –Sandford Business
School
• Entrepreneurship is the process of building a business. This includes all the
details of setting up a business, like hiring employees and creating a workspace.
It also means developing an innovative offering, cultivating customers, and
seeking financing to fund further innovation, hiring, or acquiring inventory.-
Betterup

3. What makes a great Entrepreneur?
Commitment
and
Determination
Courage
Opportunity
Obsession
• Decisiveness
• Tenacity
• Discipline
• Persistence in solving problems
• Willingness to sacrifice
• Total immersion in the mission
• Moral strength
• Fearless experimentation
• Not afraid of conflicts, failure
• Intense curiosity in the face of risk
• Leadership in shaping the opportunity
• Having intimate knowledge of customers' needs
• Being market-driven
• Obsession with value creation and enhancement

4. Tolerance of Risk,
Ambiguity and
Uncertainty
Creativity,
Self-Reliance, and
Ability to Adapt
Motivation to Excel
• Calculated risk taker
• Risk minimizer
• Risk sharer
• Tolerance of uncertainty and lack of structure
• Tolerance of stress and conflict
• Ability to resolve problems and integrate solutions
• Nonconventional, open-minded, lateral thinker (helicopter
mind)
• Restlessness with the status quo
• Ability to adapt
• Lack of fear of failure
• Ability to conceptualize and to "sweat details"
• Goal and results orientation
• Drive to achieve and grow (self-imposed standards)
• Low need for status and power
• Ability to be interpersonally supportive (versus competitive)
• Self aware
• Having perspective and sense of humour

5. Leadership • Being a self-starter
• Having internal locus of control
• Having integrity and reliability
• Having patience
• Being a team builder and hero maker
Remember you do not need all these to be a
great entrepreneur however entrepreneurs
are self aware people who understand the
skills they do not have an seek to have those
skills.

6. Other things to note as an Entrepreneur
• Although not common overtime you will realize you need the
following.
Energy
Health
Emotional Stability
Support from Significant Other(s)
• Please contact info@blackwomencanada.org to redirect you to our
network of mentors and advisors for support.

7. Entrepreneurs Process
Idea
(What are you
thinking?)
Opportunity (Is
there potential
for this idea?)
Business
"Plan"
(How will this
business
work?)
Small Business
or Startup
(What do need
to to make this
work?)
Growth
(What you
need to scale
this business?)

8. Objectives of the Course
• To understand your idea and make it better.
• Develop the idea by knowing all what you need.
• Use your business model canvas to work through every element of your
business.
• Predict risk and plan for it.
• Start developing elements of your business plan.
• To understand the difference between an idea and a business opportunity
• a structured way to think about your business
• Most importantly “To start you thinking about the true nature of
entrepreneurship – why it matters, what it takes”

9. How do you find ideas
• 'Burning' problems
• Looking at Life style
• Observing trends
• The minds of people – a.k.a. creativity
• Existing businesses
• Franchises
• Product licensing
• Corporations
• Not-for-profit research institutes
• Universities

10. • Focus on this first topic is understanding your idea and how to make this
work.
• In ideation stage we just highlight everything you are thinking top level.
• Define your idea,
1. Business Structure
2. distribution model for your good or service
3. people you need to make this work
4. how will your business make money
• At this stage we will like you to fill out a business model canvas before
proceeding to the next stage.

11. Business Model Canvas.
• You are part of this incubation program because you already have an idea.
• Using the business model canvas is to flush out the idea.
• Thebusinessmodelcanvasisa great tooltohelpyouunderstanda businessmodelina
straightforward,structuredway.Usingthiscanvaswillleadtoinsightsaboutthecustomersyou
serve,whatvaluepropositionsare offeredthroughwhatchannels,andhowyourcompanymakes
money.Youcanalsousethebusinessmodelcanvastounderstandyourownbusinessmodelor that
ofa competitor!TheBusinessModelCanvaswas createdbyAlexanderOsterwalder,ofStrategyzer.
• https://www.businessmodelsinc.com/about-bmi/tools/business-model-
canvas/

12. First Exercise (Develop your Business Model Canvas)

13. Choosing Amazing Ideas
Superior opportunities typically share the following characteristics:
• They create or add significant value to a customer or end user – they
solve customer "pain"
• The window of opportunity is just right
• They have a robust and forgiving market, margin and moneymaking
characteristics
• They are a good fit with the founder(s) and management team

14. The Focus should be on the problem and the
customer
• What is the problem(s) you are solving? (What is the need?)
• How important is the problem? (i.e. how compelling is the purchase?)
• What are the available solutions? (How do customers currently solve this problem?)
• Relative to available solutions, how much better is yours?
• For whom?
• Is it clear you understand who your customer is? If yes, describe that customer?
• How many people/organizations have the problem you are attempting to solve?
• What is the decision-making process? i.e
• Buying criteria
• Influencers versus decision maker
• Cycle time from awareness through to decision

15. Things you should understand about your
business solution
• If there's no "pain" there's no opportunity
• The more "painful" the problem, the better the business opportunity
• "Pain" can be defined any number of ways:
• No available solution
• Available solutions are not effective or too expensive
• Available solutions have too many 'side effects'
• Only partial solutions exist

16. Key Partners
• Who are partners?
Key Partners are the relationships that you have with other business,
governmental, or non-consumer entities that help your business model
work. These can be the relationships that your company has with your
suppliers, your manufacturers, business partners, etc.
When filling out this section think about these questions
• Why do you need a partner?
• Who will be your key partner?
• How do partners improve your business or enhance the customer
experience?
• Identify activities of your key partners?

17. Key Activities
• In this section we describe the activities performed by your business that
make our business fulfill its purpose.
• Highlight the most important things that make the business work these can
include but not limited to sales, marketing, production, warehouse storage,
using a platform like Shopify or Amazon.
• Think of the big idea and then break down this big idea into subtasks which
are actionable and easy to understand. Go further to describe what you
mean or envision. i.e., Sales and Customer Service describe sales is done
via website. This means customers will go online and buy product. It also
describes the different ways customers can contact the business, using
credit card or virtual payments etc.
• These activities in many ways also inform on cost drivers for the business.
These could be direct and indirect costs.

18. Value Propositions
• Many business do not have a clear value proposition. This portion
does help with the way you talk about your business.
• Value differentiation can be demonstrated in goods or service. It can
also be the way you treat customers, response time, quality of
product, cutting edge technology, new experiences, brand status etc.
• It is not uncommon for people to think their business is not unique
enough to have a value proposition. Most business and existing
businesses with new features or ways to experience them.

19. Customer Relationships
• Who is your customer?
• How many types of Customers do you have?,
• How do you engage with customers?
• Define customer relationship? Ex. Transactional, dedicated and
personal, automated, community, long term (ex subscription), self
service, co-creation.
• Be mindful the type of customer relationship defines the customer
experience.

20. Key Resources
• Identifying key resources allows you know what you need to make and
create value for your current customers, gain new customers and expand
current offerings.
• Types of Key Resources
Physical i.e., buildings, machines, computers, etc.
Intellectual Property i.e., IP could be special formulas, design, new tech
etc.
Human i.e., expertise of the someone on the team or a partner.
Financial i.e. This could be a financial partner who has provided the
opportunity for customers to make payments in installments or borrow to
afford. Car dealers and banks have this sort of realationship.

21. Channels
• Your communication, distribution, and sales Channels comprise
your company's interface with customers. Your Channels are
customer touch points that play an important role in the
customer experience.
• How will customers be reached?
• How do Channels work? I
• Do these channels deliver your value proposition?
• Support for Customers after purchase?
• Are these channels direct (owned and managed by businesses) or
indirect ( selling through wholesale, through retail, on amazon etc.)?

22. Customer Segments
• Paying Customers are the soul of your business. This is to say if you do not have paying customers
then you have fans or supporters.
• Depending on how the business works. You can have direct customers, referral customers,
wholesale customer.
• Systems will need to be built to deal with each one separately. This does not mean one channel
cannot serve several customer segment.
• To build good channels it is important to understand specific customer needs and job that needs
to be done.
• Types of Customers
- Mass Market
- Niche Market
- -Segmented Market
- Diversified Market
- - Multisided Markets

23. Cost Structure

24. Revenue Stream