Small Business Management

Definition: Enterprise whose activities avoid harm to the environment or help protect it in some way.
- Example: Terracycle

Necessity-Based Entrepreneurs:
- Circumstances compel self-employment as the best option.
- Examples:
  - People who lost a job.
  - Individuals unable to find new employment.
  - Health issues preventing regular job work.
Opportunity-Based Entrepreneurs:
- Start a business to exploit identified opportunities.
Entrepreneur:
- A person who assumes risks of organizing and managing a business for potential rewards by recognizing opportunities and adding value to resources.

Product:
- A tangible item that exists in nature or is produced by people.
- Example: Chair
Service:
- Intangible work that provides time, skills, or expertise in exchange for money.
- Example: Haircut
Free Enterprise System (Capitalism):
- Economic system with privately owned businesses operating with minimal government interference.
- Characteristics: enables competition, market determines prices.
Capital:
- Goods or cash invested to generate income and wealth; money or property owned or utilized in business.

Cost/Benefit Analysis:
- A decision-making process comparing the costs associated with an action against its benefits.
- Example: Purchasing a car based on factual assessments rather than emotional impulses.
Opportunity Cost:
- The value of what must be forgone to obtain something else.
- Examples include time, money, education, or family.

Social Entrepreneurship:
- For-profit enterprises with dual goals: achieving profit and attaining social returns.
B. Corp:
- A type of social business that legally commits to considering the impact of their decisions on workers, community, and the environment.
Social Business:
- A company designed to achieve a social objective while generating modest profits, just enough to expand and improve products/services.
Venture Philanthropy:
- Individuals or institutions that provide capital to support enterprises, focusing on social rather than financial returns.
Microenterprise:
- A business with five or fewer employees, requiring initial capital of under $35,000 and consistent involvement from the owner.
Lifestyle Business:
- A form of microenterprise allowing the owner to lead a preferred lifestyle.

Definition:
- Unicorns are high-growth, highly valuable companies, valued over $1 billion as startups, achieving annual growth rates of 20% or greater (commonly measured by increased sales revenue).
- Notable for being rare, challenging the stereotype of the inventor.

Opportunity:
- An idea based on customer needs/wants that can sustainably generate sales at a sufficient price; characteristics include being attractive, durable, and timely.
Problems:
- Businesses must identify how to solve prevailing problems.
Changes:
- Consideration of laws, cultural shifts, situations, and trends.
Competition Factors:
- Examining price, location, quality, and identifying gaps in the market regarding what competitors are missing.
Technology:
- Understanding potential future capabilities.
Franchise:
- A business model based on a contract allowing one individual to use another company's name and operational formula (e.g., McDonald's).
Acquisition:
- The process of purchasing an existing business.

Critical Skills:
- Communication, critical thinking, teamwork, leadership, creativity, and ethics.

Market:
- A group of individuals or entities interested in purchasing a specific product or service, possessing the financial capability, and legally permitted to make purchases.

Core Values:
- Fundamental ethical and moral philosophies and beliefs that form the basis of an organization, guiding decision-making.

Definition:
- Unique selling proposition refers to any aspect a business does better than competitors, attracting sufficient customers for success.

SHORT ANSWER

Communications skills

Critical thinking

Teamwork

Leadership

Creativity

Ethics

Information technology