ENT4000 - 09/25/07

(I'm writing a letter so it's relatively sparse.)

Women entrepreneurs - why are they dependent on "personal loans?"
 - Recent changes, not the case (as of fairly recently)
 - Lots of women-orientated financing, "angel" investors
 - Women tend to focus on service-type relationship-based businesses
 - Men tend to focus on products, things, manufacturing: lots of assets are better for banks (more hard value to mitigate risk)
 - Service businesses don't have a lot of capital requirement, as well

Shift in entrepreneurs
 - Big change: education about entrepreneurship (and small businesses)
 - "Networking effect" change from "lone ranger" stereotype, utilization of people resources and social networks

What causes a person to become an entrepreneur?
 - Negative displacement AKA "getting fired" - i.e. Project Artemis?
 - Alternatively have to leave country due to outside circumstances
 - Positive pull - successful parent/relative entrepreneur
 - Positive push - motivation to push through to do your own thing (gaining knowledge)

Corporate Entrepreneurship
 - Corporations need to reach out and be innovative to become entrepreneurs
 - AKA Corporations need to be entrepreneur-like
 - Important to develop an entrepreneurial organizational culture to access this
 - Google's "Invent something, we'll figure out how to make money out of it later" a good example of this? (I said this btw.)

"Intrapreneurship"
 - Possibly the worst, word, ever?
 - Jesus this word is terrible
 - Whoever came up with this word should be shot
 - With a dictionary
 - How companies act entrepreneurial

Guy's recommendations for internal entrepreneurs:
 - Put the company first - does it fit the company? screening for the company? take it to the company?
 - Stay under the radar
 - Find a godfather - in a complex organization, good idea to find someone to support your idea
 - Get a "clubhouse" - build a "skunkworks"
 - Build on what exists
 - Collect and share data