Entrepreneurship for Engineers: Communications, Ethics, Marketing, Legalities, and Business Models

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering entrepreneurial communications, ethics, marketing fundamentals, legal considerations, business models, and startup principles across BME 451.

Gunning Fog Index (GFI)

A quantitative linguistic readability metric developed by Robert Gunning in 1952, calculated as $GFI = 0.4 \left[ \left( \frac{\text{\# words}}{\text{\# sentences}} \right) + 100 \left( \frac{\text{\# complex words}}{\text{total \# words}} \right) \right]$, which estimates the years of formal education required to understand written text on the first reading.

Freedom To Operate (FTO)

A commercial and intellectual property concept referred to as navigating "the patent space" to ensure a company can develop and sell products without infringing upon existing patents held by others.

Runway

A critical startup financial metric describing the duration of time a venture can continue operating at its current cash burn rate before running completely out of money.

Scalability

The operational capacity of an organization or manufacturing process to expand efficiently from producing a single unit to producing thousands or millions of units.

Operational Focus

A management discipline in entrepreneurial business defined as actively excluding urgent distractions in order to place full organizational attention on achieving what is important.

Systeme International (SI)

The internationally standardized system of measurement based on 7 base units (meter, kilogram, second, Kelvin, ampere, mole, candela) where all conversion factors are multiples of 10, designed to eliminate ambiguity in technical communication.

Chutzpah

A Yiddish term commonly used in business to describe supreme self-confidence, audacious nerve, or boldness.

Maven

A Yiddish-derived term used in commerce denoting a trusted expert, connoisseur, or authority who possesses deep, specialized knowledge in a field.

Schmooze

A Yiddish business expression meaning to converse informally, network warmly, and build relational rapport with colleagues, partners, or clients.

Open Reduction & Internal Fixation (ORIF)

An orthopedic surgical procedure used to repair fractured bones by surgically opening the tissue and securing bone segments using internal mechanical hardware such as screws, pins, or plates.

Data Fabrication

The severe ethical violation of deliberately creating or "inventing" scientific, clinical, engineering, or business data that has no physical, experimental, or intellectual foundation.

Data Falsification

The unethical alteration or manipulation of genuine experimental materials, equipment settings, processes, images, or analyses—or the deliberate omission of data—to force a pre-desired result.

Plagiarism

Derived from the Latin term for kidnapping (plagiarius), the wrongful theft, appropriation, and publication of another person's language, thoughts, expressions, or ideas while representing them as one's own work.

Survivorship Bias

A cognitive data distortion identified by Abraham Wald in World War II, where armor was mistakenly recommended for heavily shot aircraft areas because evaluators analyzed only returning planes rather than those that crashed due to strikes in unpunctured areas.

Form 10-K

A strictly regulated, comprehensive audited annual report required by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for publicly traded companies, detailing financial performance, risk factors, and Management Discussion & Analysis (MD&A).

Least Publishable Unit (LPU)

The minimal increment of research output capable of forming an independent peer-reviewed paper, frequently utilized by researchers to artificially inflate their curriculum vitae.

ICMJE Authorship Criteria

The 1978 gold standard established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors requiring authors to satisfy all four benchmarks: conception/design or analysis/interpretation; drafting or critically revising content; final approval; and accountability for the integrity of the work.

Liquidated Damages Clause

A provision in a contract or Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA) that entitles the injured party to recover a predetermined, specific monetary sum upon breach without needing to prove actual damages suffered.

Conflict of Interest

A professional circumstance where an individual or close personal relation holds a financial or personal stake in an endeavor's outcome, compromising objectivity in decisions such as study designs, hiring, purchases, or data reporting.

Sexual Harassment

An unlawful and career-destroying professional misconduct requiring the simultaneous presence of three elements: an action (verbal, physical, or gestural), sexual in nature, that is unwanted by one or more involved parties.

Marketing (Kotler Definition)

Defined by Philip Kotler as the science and art of exploring, creating, and delivering value to satisfy the needs of a target market at a profit.

Design Thinking

A five-stage user-centric iterative innovation framework comprising Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype, and Test.

The 4 P's of Marketing

The classical marketing mix articulated by Philip Kotler comprising Product, Price, Place, and Promotion (often expanded to 7 P's with People, Process, and Physical Evidence).

"Jobs to be Done" Theory

Clayton Christensen's disruptive innovation concept stating that consumers do not simply purchase products, but instead "hire" them to perform a specific job or fulfill a defined need.

"Me Too" Product

A product engineered to clone or closely imitate an established competitor's offering, allowing a company to capitalize on verified market demand while drastically lowering R&D and market-creation costs.

Wheeler's Promotion Principle

Elmer Wheeler's fundamental advertising philosophy captured by the phrase "Don't sell the steak, sell the sizzle," emphasizing emotional benefits, sensory experiences, and feelings over dry technical specifications.

InSpace Balloon Spacer

A minimally invasive, inflatable implant designed by Stryker to be deployed arthroscopically between the humeral head and acromion to prevent impingement pain resulting from massive, irreparable rotator cuff tears.

Brand

A distinctive name, sign, symbol, or design intended to identify goods or services and distinguish them from competitors, organized across four hierarchical levels: corporate brand, family brand, brand line, and product brand.

Sole Proprietorship

An unincorporated business entity owned by a single individual that maintains no legal separation between the owner and the business, affording zero liability shield against debts or lawsuits.

Limited Liability Company (LLC)

A versatile corporate legal structure that shields owners' personal assets from business liabilities while passing profits and losses directly to members' individual income taxes.

C Corporation

A separate legal for-profit entity capable of issuing shares to public markets, offering the strongest personal liability shield but subject to entity-level taxation and potential double taxation on dividends.

S Corporation

A small business corporate entity restricted to 100 or fewer eligible domestic shareholders that passes income, losses, and credits directly to individual tax returns to eliminate corporate double taxation.

B (Benefit) Corporation

A for-profit entity legally committed to a dual mandate of generating profit and achieving public benefit, verified via third-party social, environmental, and transparency performance standards.

Doing Business As (d.b.a.)

An officially registered fictitious business name, assumed trade name, or corporate alias that permits an organization to conduct operations and branding under a name distinct from its registered legal entity.

Laboratory Notebook

A legal, bound physical volume with sewn signatures, pre-stamped page numbers, indelible ink entries, and coworker witness signatures, serving as the primary chronological record of intellectual property conception.

Utility Patent

A government-issued intellectual property grant offering a 20-year legal monopoly from the application filing date on any new, useful, and non-obvious functional process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter.

Design Patent

A legal intellectual property protection granted for 15 years that covers the unique ornamental and aesthetic visual design of an object rather than its utilitarian or functional features.

Trade Secret

Proprietary, non-public intellectual property, processes, or formulas (such as WD-40 or Coca-Cola) protected indefinitely through operational secrecy rather than public disclosure through patent offices.

Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Matrix

A corporate portfolio analysis model that categorizes business offerings based on market growth rate and relative market share into four quadrants: Stars, Cash Cows, Question Marks (Problem Children), and Dogs.

Business Model

An organization's foundational conceptual framework explaining what value it provides (product), who it serves (target customer), how it delivers that value, and how it sustainably generates profit.

Value Proposition

The central quid pro quo ("this for that") of a business model, articulating the unique bundle of tangible and intangible benefits delivered to solve a customer's specific pain point better than alternatives.

Freemium Model

A commercial business model where basic products or digital services are provided free to users, while advanced capabilities or premium features require payment of recurring subscription fees.

Razor and Blade Model

A business model originated by King Gillette where an initial durable platform is sold at cost or given away free to establish a captive, recurring annuity from high-margin proprietary consumables.

Entrepreneur

An individual who identifies unmet opportunities, organizes resources, creates novel solutions, and assumes professional, personal, and financial risks to capture value in the face of uncertainty.

Intrapreneur

An entrepreneurial professional who operates inside an established large corporation, pioneering and championing innovative products or business models using corporate resources.

Core Competency

A firm's deeply integrated bundle of fundamental skills, technical knowledge, and organizational strengths that competitors cannot easily duplicate, providing sustainable excellence across multiple product lines.

Competitive Advantage

A functional, often temporary market superiority enabling an enterprise to outperform rivals through operational distinctiveness, lower costs, or superior customer intimacy.

The 6 R's of Unstoppable Entrepreneurs

Lori Rosenkopf's framework detailing six essential attributes for startup success: Reason, Relationships, Resilience, Resources, Results, and Recombination.

Side Hustle

A secondary entrepreneurial venture pursued alongside primary employment to cultivate personal entrepreneurial competencies, diversify income, and test innovative business ideas with low initial risk.