Entrepreneurship

Lesson 1: Nature and Concept of Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship is a process: spotting an opportunity, organizing resources, accepting calculated risk and creating value. It goes beyond opening a store; improving a service or delivery method also counts.

Need, problem, opportunity

• 9pNeed: something necessary or strongly desired by a person or group.

• Problem: a condition causing difficulty, dissatisfaction, loss, risk or inconvenience.

• Opportunity: a favorable chance to create value by answering a need or problem. A problem becomes one only if it can serve a real group with attainable resources.

• Recognizing an opportunity is not proof it is viable. Ask questions, compare alternatives and test assumptions first.

Core characteristics of entrepreneurial action

Related concepts

• Entrepreneur: identifies an opportunity and acts to create value under uncertainty.

• Businessperson: owns, operates or manages commercial activity. Neither role is automatically better; the distinction is analytical.

• Technopreneurship: technology is central to creating value (a tutoring platform or digital payments). Merely posting on social media is not enough.

• Social entrepreneurship: an enterprise built around a social problem, while staying financially sustainable.

• Corporate social responsibility (CSR): a company's ethical conduct toward employees, consumers, communities and the environment. CSR is how a company behaves; social entrepreneurship is a venture whose core purpose is the social problem.

Types of entrepreneurship

Types of entrepreneurs

• Builders or scalers: expand reach, capacity and market share through repeatable systems. Must protect culture, quality and ethics.

• Opportunists: respond quickly to trends, gaps and price differences. Still need evidence and ethical judgment.

• Specialists: build on deep knowledge or technical skill. Must still understand customers and not claim competence they lack.

• Innovators: create new products, technologies, processes or models. Must test their ideas.

Motivations

Personal fulfillment, independence, personal satisfaction and financial rewards. They can coexist and change over time, but no motivation excuses poor planning or unethical conduct.

Ethical entrepreneurship

Operating with honesty, fairness, accountability, respect and concern for long-term effects on people and the environment. A stakeholder is anyone who can affect or be affected by the venture: customers, workers, suppliers, partners, owners, investors, communities, government. The environment can count too.

Ethical reasoning steps

1. Define the actual decision.

2. Identify who benefits, who may be harmed, and what is known or missing.

3. Check fairness, privacy, consent, safety, culture and ownership.

4. Compare actions and ask if the decision can be explained openly. Hiding it from the people most affected is a warning sign.

Case: ingredient change. Disclose the change, verify safety, update product information and reconsider if the risk can't be managed.

Profit and ethics: ethics doesn't reject profit; it examines how profit is earned. Deception or unsafe practices bring legal, financial and reputational damage.

Lesson 2.1: Business Development and Organization Design

Business development is the planned improvement of a venture, while organization design arranges the people and work that make it happen. They must be developed together: growth without design causes confusion and waste, and design without direction creates pointless roles.

Business development

• Finds opportunities, strengthens customer value, builds partnerships, develops capabilities and prepares the venture for growth.

• It is more than raising sales; a sales jump is temporary if quality, supply, service or finances can't keep up.

• Customer value: benefit received relative to the money, time, effort and risk the customer gives up.

• Capabilities: the knowledge, skills, processes, systems and relationships that let the team perform.

• Growth is responsible when foundations are strengthened first.

Organization design

• The deliberate arrangement of work, roles, authority, coordination and communication. Even a small team has one, planned or not.

• Should fit the venture's size, activities, strategy and stage. Simple is fine; vague is not.

• A small team should still name who leads production, who records money, who talks to customers, and which decisions need group approval.

Business direction system

• Vision and mission alignment: the mission should make credible progress toward the vision. If the vision stresses trust but the mission ignores quality, the two are weakly aligned.

• A vision describes a desired future, not daily tasks ("We prepare snacks during break time" is a present activity).

SMART objectives

Example: "Increase sales" is weak. "Sell 300 healthy snack packs during October while maintaining at least a 20 percent gross margin" has a result, measure, time frame and financial condition.

Core values in practice

Values need observable behavior: integrity means accurate product information and honest sales records; customer care means respectful responses to feedback; responsibility means food safety compliance and less waste; teamwork means timely information sharing. A value that lives only in a slogan can't guide performance.

Alignment

Vision gives future direction, mission gives present purpose, objectives give results, values guide behavior, and organization design assigns the work and authority. Misalignment example: promising responsible sourcing while rewarding purchasing only on lowest price.

Basic organization structures

No structure is automatically best. A student venture may start team-based and add functional roles as work grows. Avoid designs that add needless approvals or separate tasks needing close coordination.

Roles, authority, coordination and communication

• Role: a defined part a person performs. Responsibility: the work and results expected from it. Members need the purpose and standard of the work, not just a task list.

• Authority: legitimate power to decide and direct resources within limits. Decision rights specify which decisions are independent, which need consultation and which need approval. Routine decisions stay close to the work; large expenses, major changes and safety need broader approval.

• Match authority with accountability: whoever approves a purchase should follow the budget, document the decision and report. Responsibility without authority is also a problem.

• Coordination: connects interdependent tasks (marketing shouldn't promise what operations can't produce; purchasing needs sales, inventory and cash information). Tools: schedules, shared plans, regular meetings, standard procedures.

• Communication: relevant information reaching the people who need it, timely, accurate, clear and tied to action. Short progress updates reveal delays early, shared records prevent conflicting information, and an escalation process covers urgent issues involving safety, trust or significant money.

Lesson 2.2: Branding and Intellectual Property

A brand is the combination of names, visual designs, colors, symbols, quality standards and distinct attributes that set a product apart from competitors. Without one, a product is easily overlooked and rarely remembered or repurchased.

Why branding matters

• Consumers link product characteristics, benefits and perceived value to a brand identity.

• A strong brand holds a distinct mental position: buyers may use the brand name for the whole category (asking for "Colgate" for any toothpaste, "Coke" for any soft drink).

• Branding works as a positioning tool, communicating attributes, benefits and values. Saying "footwear" is vague; saying "Nike" conveys expectations about performance, quality, safety and status.

• Businesses apply the name, marks and colors across all product touchpoints.

• Even rice has brands (Banaybanay, Dinorado, Milagrosa). Enduring names like Toyota, Tide and San Miguel support long-term presence.

Choosing a brand name

A good name captures attention, builds interest and supports buying decisions.

1. Examine the offer's core attributes, advantages and overall value.

2. Assess the target market's needs, characteristics and preferences.

3. Review the general promotional approach and strategic orientation.

4. Compile potential names that reflect these findings.

5. Keep it to one or two words.

6. Check existing online use so the name is distinct and available.

Intellectual property (IP)

An intellectual property is a work or invention that results from creativity, such as a design, manuscript, process or invention.

• RA 8293 (Intellectual Property Code) safeguards a company's branding style. It became law on January 1, 1998.

• IPOPHIL (Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines) processes, registers and archives registered brand names.

• Goal of registration: protect IP from being copied by competitors. Different IP types have different protections.

• Copyright holders can authorize or prohibit: reproduction in all forms, public performance and communication, broadcasting, translation, and adaptation (for example novel to screenplay).

• Copyright term differs for joint authorship, anonymous or pseudonymous works, photographic works, works of applied art and audio-visual works.

• The lesson also lists franchise as a way to register or safeguard ideas, but gives no details on it.

Lesson 3: Problem Identification and Market Needs Assessment

Good ideas start with understanding the people who will use the product. Problem identification asks what difficulty exists, who has it and how it affects daily life. Market needs assessment looks at their unmet needs, circumstances, preferences and purchasing capacity.

Community needs

• Community: a group connected by place, shared interests or similar experiences (a barangay, a school, an occupation).

• Community need: a gap between current conditions and a desired situation.

• Dimensions of a gap: access (can they get it?), affordability (can they pay?), quality (does it perform?), safety (can it be used without harm?), convenience (time and effort). They interact, so an available product can still leave a need unmet.

• Running example: students needing affordable, nutritious meals within a short lunch break. A cafeteria existing doesn't mean the need is met if meals are costly, queues are long or choices are limited. Understand the gap first, then compare responses (meal box, advance ordering, extra counter).

Identifying the people affected

• Establish who is affected, when, how often, and what they do now. Different subgroups (home-lunch vs cafeteria students, long vs short break) experience the problem differently.

• Listen to the affected group; what looks like limited choices may really be pricing or slow ordering.

• Ask about current alternatives. Missing details in a case are assumptions or questions to check, not findings.

Gathering evidence

Choose the method by the question that needs answering.

• Be responsible: voluntary participation, explain the purpose, ask only for necessary details, get permission for records.

• Multiple sources that agree strengthen a conclusion. If findings disagree, examine the difference rather than hide it.

Writing a problem statement

• Describes the affected group, the specific unmet need or difficulty, supported barriers and the observable impact.

• Example: "Some students cannot obtain affordable, nutritious meals within their lunch break because nearby options are costly or have long queues."

• Include a cause or effect as a finding only if the information supports it; otherwise treat it as something to investigate.

• Keep it separate from a solution. "The school needs a meal-delivery application" already picks a response.

Fishbone analysis

Organizes possible causes of one clearly defined problem. The problem sits at the head; main branches are cause categories; smaller branches are causes and subcauses. It is an organized set of explanations, not proof.

1. Agree on the problem ("limited access to affordable, nutritious meals during lunch breaks" beats "canteen problems").

2. Pick categories that fit the situation (the lesson uses people, process, resources, location, cost; they aren't fixed).

3. Add possible causes under each and keep asking why.

4. Check each cause against relevant information; revise or remove unsupported ones. Don't add speculative branches just to look detailed.

Problem tree analysis

Shows how a central problem, its causes and its effects relate.

• Trunk = central problem. Roots = causes. Branches = effects.

• The central problem must be an existing difficulty of a defined group, not a broad theme ("food") or a preferred solution ("build another cafeteria").

• Meal example. Causes: prices beyond budgets, long queues, few nearby suitable choices. Effects: skipped meals, reduced energy in class, more spending on alternatives. These must be backed by evidence; low energy may have other explanations.

• Read links as explanations: could this cause reasonably produce the next condition, and what evidence supports it? Don't include unrelated concerns.

• Treating an effect gives short-term relief; addressing a cause helps more directly. Pick a cause the team can reasonably influence.

Choosing a tool: fishbone to explore and group possible causes of one problem; problem tree to trace causes, problem and effects. They can be combined (fishbone first, then a tree for supported links).

Prioritizing needs

• Weigh severity, urgency, extent (reach and recurrence of the need) and community feedback. A frequently mentioned inconvenience isn't automatically more important than a quieter but serious barrier.

• Consider whether the team can address it with its time, skills and resources.

• Community importance and business viability are different questions. Demand, customers' ability to pay and delivery feasibility must also be shown.

The market and market identification

• A market is customers or potential customers with unsatisfied needs and buying power. People may benefit but be unable to pay, or have money but see no reason to buy.

• Identifying customers helps decide features, communication, where to sell and what price range to test, and avoids spending on people unlikely to value the product.

• STP: Segmentation (divide the market), Targeting (choose which groups to serve), Positioning (the impression the offering creates).

Market segmentation

A useful segment reveals something relevant to the product: differences in need, benefits wanted, buying situation or delivery.

Variables can be combined when that clarifies the customer, but avoid piling on characteristics without a purpose. Don't assign preferences by stereotype, and don't treat one purchase as a lasting pattern.

Market targeting

Choose the segment(s) to serve based on their needs, purchasing capacity, accessibility and fit with your resources.

Market positioning

• The impression customers associate with a product or brand. It links a customer need with a benefit or difference the venture can credibly deliver.

• Illustrations: Apple (premium innovation, design, status); Dove (real beauty, self-esteem, confidence). Don't copy them; build a position suited to your own customers and resources.

• Positioning statement: "To the target segment with a particular need, our brand is the product or service concept that provides a meaningful point of difference."

• "The best" without a basis says nothing. The actual customer experience must back the message; promising fast pickup but delivering late weakens the position.

• Student meal example: serves students with short breaks via affordable meal packs prepared for organized pickup. These are proposed features that still need checking.

Types of customers

These are patterns that change with the situation, not permanent labels.

The lesson emphasizes loyal and impulsive customers for sales, but weigh your own costs and real customer patterns. High sales from one visit don't guarantee a lasting relationship.