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Entrepreneurship – from ideas to reality
Entrepreneurship – from ideas to reality

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7 Summary

Telling a good story – and our entrepreneurs have good stories to tell – is of course part of the ability to turn an idea into reality. After all, it is not only you that needs to be convinced that what you have is a good idea. You will need to convince others to help you, to join your team, to provide some resources or finance, and in time it will be real people who will engage with your product or service as users or customers.

An entrepreneur is not necessarily the source of innovation. While Dyson’s first idea of the ball barrow was borne out of his frustration, later the wheel/ball became part of his vacuum cleaner, though arguably it was the suction and not the ball that made the difference. Recognising the application of an industrial systems approach to the domestic market, and setting out to try to make it work, was the crucial factor. As you progress through this course you will find yourself on a similar journey, as you address each area of a business where you have further potential to innovate.

In this session, you have:

  • heard from a number of entrepreneurs, in particular where their ideas come from
  • considered how to generate an idea and the tools which can be used to evaluate an idea to provide you with greater confidence that it will work
  • listened to examples of ideas that have worked, as well as those that did not, and how they evolved as a result of learning from failure.

In the next session you will explore how to make ideas a reality.

You can now go to Session 2 [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] .