Week 6 What I Am Learning and Quotes

Week 6 insights:
The readings were so great and informative this week.  The Harvard paper was lengthy, but some of the information was really great.  Learning about the many ways one can create their own business venture.  Such as, taking a product and making it better.  Buying out an already existing venture and making it your own.  Starting a new venture from scratch, and creating a new venture based on a product that is new and being developed.
I have enjoyed reading the book, Mastery.  It makes me want to take Aikido.  The self discipline, determination, and skills necessary to succeed in becoming a master is intriguing.  Through practice and time, we can take our ventures and turn them into a masterpiece.  It is through repetition and striving to obtain the highest satisfaction that we can obtain greatness.  The only way to achieve a master status, is to remember that we need to continue and open ourselves up to learning.
I hope as I begin this journey, I will always be able to be a willing student and never forget it is through being a student that I will continue to learn and to grow.  Also, learning how to balance a family while starting a business and giving the time I need to devote to my family, even if it means working while they are sleeping while they are younger.

Quotes:

 There are three areas of knowledge that are critical for starting a successful business:
1 In-depth knowledge of the competitive structure of an industry and a network of contacts within that industry;
2 the skills to run the daily operations of a small, rapidly growing company; and 3 the ability to raise money. 

If you are good at running and building a business, and willing to put in the hours and attention it takes, then you always will be able to add value while making a comfortable living. 

 The difficulty is that without industry knowledge, a would-be entrepreneur has trouble differentiating between extraordinary opportunities and average ones. 

What are the critical elements of winning en- trepreneurial approaches? Our evidence suggests three general guidelines for aspiring founders:
1. Screen opportunities quickly to weed out un- promising ventures.
2. Analyze ideas parsimoniously. Focus on a few important issues.
3. Integrate action and analysis. Don’t wait for all the answers, and be ready to change course. 

Exploiting opportu- nities in a new or changing in- dustry is generally easier than making waves in a mature indus- try. Enormous creativity, experi- ence, and contacts are needed to take business away from com- petitors in a mature industry, where market forces have long shaken out weak technologies, strategies, and organizations. 

Organizational development, en- gineering, or marketing abilities add little value when an entrepreneur buys assets at a low price, ex- pecting to sell them at a high price. Rather, good eecution requires the ability to move quickly, negotiate astutely, and raise funds under favorable terms.