Motivation is key to learning entrepreneurship.  Research has shown motivated learning acquire  skills and strategies faster than task learning and influences what, when and how we learn.  On the journey from having a unique business idea to making it profitable and sustainable, an entrepreneur may experience moments of frustration.  Motivation can keep entrepreneurs on a continued path during these moments.  To achieve objectives entrepreneurs must be hard-working.  It is an inner energy that affects the direction and intensity of the entrepreneur.

Entrepreneurship is about taking risks and coming up with innovative solutions to real-life problems.  Of key attributes of an entrepreneur, none is more important than motivation –risk-taking, passion, hard work, innovation, organization and…motivation.  For entrepreneurs, self-belief is crucial to motivation.  It is a tough task to start something new, and it becomes even tougher when people are doubtful about the practicality of the venture. The desire and motivation to keep focusing on the tasks and to work hard are keys to growing into successful entrepreneurs.

After thirty years as a serial entrepreneur (insurance agencies) and fifteen years teaching entrepreneurship (adjunct professor), I have come to strongly believe in the evidenced-based, “lean” entrepreneurship method.  Almost anyone using customer development evidence can build a successful business provided they want it bad enough and have sufficient motivational desire.  It becomes the secret to building a successful venture and makes understanding and cultivating motivation meaningful.  Entrepreneurs need to understand, tap into, and sustain their motivation to start a business, but they also need to be able to motivate others to buy into their vision.

Influences on wanting to be an entrepreneur include greater freedom (you are the boss and make the decisions), greater income (everything after taxes and expenses belongs to the entrepreneur), greater influence (desire to have control over the product) and leaving an impact or legacy in a field.  The benefits of entrepreneurship are independence, satisfaction, self-esteem and, as above, financial security.  “The Bible”, Motivation in Education, by Dale Schunk, Judith Meece, and Paul Pintrich treats the history of motivation (early 20^th. Century and around 1970 for cognitive perspective), and three theories -attribution, social cognitive, and intrinsic motivation.

While attribution theory uses emotions, the pride, shame angle, and the fact social cognitive deals with motivation from mental processes (beliefs, rules), it is the intrinsic motivation that applies the most to entrepreneurship.  This motivation engages for its own sake and depends on arousal and incongruity (vs. extrinsic or means to an end motivation).  People who are intrinsically motivated work on tasks because they find them enjoyable. Task participation is its own reward and does not depend on rewards or constraints.  Lepper and Hodell identified four major sources of intrinsic motivation -challenge, curiosity, control, and fantasy

“Students find activities challenging, as when goals are a challenge and success not certain.”  It might depend on learners’ curiosity arising from activities that are surprising or incongruous.  Intrinsic motivation derives from students experiencing a sense of control over their learning and task participation.  Activities that help learners become involved in make-believe and fantasy also enhance intrinsic motivation.  These latter characteristics of intrinsic nature are why learning from experiential exercises has become common in entrepreneurship training. The locus of control and personal causation, a feeling of control over one’s life and an awareness of the effects of one’s actions motivate inherently.

Professor Sara Sarasvathy’s (UVA) Theory of Effectuation from her 2001 book  “Effectuation: Elements of Entrepreneurial Expertise” found entrepreneurs are essential to economic development because they put capital to use, explore new ideas, and take risks, but most importantly they tolerate uncertainty.  She defines this element of inner motivation as “effectuation: the logic of thinking used by expert entrepreneurs to build successful ventures”.  It’s impossible to predict the future; effectual thinkers believe that “If they can control the future, they don’t need to predict it.”

Entrepreneurship develops students by forcing them to think, create and solve for themselves.  It empowers them and changes their lives for the better.  By teaching customer questioning, concept presentation, working in a diverse team, controlling time, and having ownership of their work students evolve intrinsically and over time into entrepreneurs.  As Ernest Holmes said, “change your thinking and change your life.”

Edited by Clinton E Day, MBA with contributions from Techfunnel and WorldNewEra

2022 National Entrepreneurship Month ~ November 14, 2022

November is National Entrepreneurship Month, a time to reflect on the concept of small business creation and their contribution to a healthy economy.  We celebrate the doers, dreamers, and job creators whose vision and girt fuel our economy and capture the essence of America.  Starting and owning a business has always been a key path to the American dream –a way to build wealth, serve your neighbors, and leave a mark in a community and on the world.  Requiring risk-taking and daring, entrepreneurs faced additional challenges during the pandemic and the economic crisis that it created.  Two years ago, hundreds of thousands of small businesses struggled to find workers and stock their shelves.  As we recovered, Americans have responded with entrepreneurial spirit, seizing the opportunity to build new businesses and launch new careers.

Today, American entrepreneurship is booming, A record 5.4 million new businesses were started in 2021, over 20 percent more than any year on record.  New entrepreneurship rates have increased the most among minorities, particularly in Hispanic and Black communities.  The American Rescue Plan distributed $450 billion in emergency relief to more than 6 million businesses at the height of the pandemic.  The Restaurant Revitalization Fund kept restaurants open.  Expanded State Small Business Credit Initiative is helping entrepreneurs tap $10 billion in investment and loans, and the Minority Business Development Agency is being made permanent to boost minority entrepreneurs’ access to capital and markets. 

Meanwhile, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law is rebuilding America’s roads, bridges, railways, and ports so businesses can get goods to consumers quickly and affordably.  It is bringing high-speed broadband to small towns and rural areas so Americans anywhere can run a business online.  The CHIPS and Science Act is making historic investments in semiconductor companies that produce the tiny computer chips that power everything from smartphones to cars –benefitting thousands of smaller businesses along the supply chain.  The Inflation Reduction Act is slashing health insurance and energy costs for entrepreneurs, increasing research-and-development tax credits, and incentivizing manufacturers to American suppliers, creating good-paying jobs.  The government is. Investing in small business support and STEM education to give entrepreneurs access to the skills and workforce needed to thrive.  When the federal government spends taxpayer money to buy the things it needs, its buys them from American companies –including from small, disadvantaged businesses, to whom government has already awarded a record amount of contracting dollars.  

“I have long said that America can be defined in one word: possibilities.  Entrepreneurs’ willingness to take risks, work hard, and make possibilities come alive.  They turn vision into reality and ideas into products, profits, and national prosperity.  This month, we celebrate their contributions as a point of national pride and recommit to giving them the space and support to make sure America wins the 21^st century.  Now, therefore, I, Joseph R. Biden, Jr., President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority invested in me proclaim November 2022 as National Entrepreneurship Month and November 15th as National Entrepreneurs’ Day.”

The importance of entrepreneurs can’t be overlooked. Entrepreneurs identify and solve our most pressing problems, delivering products and services that increase our collective economic and national security, and our individual prosperity and well-being. They transform innovative ideas into new technologies and new markets and remain a steady presence in the daily rhythms of our communities. Ultimately, they catalyze growth, create jobs, and increase U.S. competitiveness. As we face ever more complex challenges—climate change, pandemics, growing inequality, deteriorating trust—entrepreneurs rise to meet them, inventing, deploying, and delivering innovative new technologies. Broadband undergirds our information-rich economy. Reliable supply chains via roads, rail, ports, airports, and innovative last-mile transportation enable product creation and delivery. Unique, cutting-edge testing and demonstration facilities at our national laboratories facilitate the transition of breakthrough technologies into markets and communities. The right kinds of capital available at the right times ensures that businesses have resources that match their growth needs. And human infrastructure, like childcare, healthcare, and workforce development systems, makes entrepreneurship more diverse, equitable, and inclusive.

Here are eleven ways to celebrate National Entrepreneurship Month:

1.  Support with a purchase.  National Entrepreneurship Month is best celebrated by purchasing something from an entrepreneur. You can also show your support by recommending that small business or entrepreneurs to others.
2. Connect with entrepreneurs on social media.  It goes without saying that most entrepreneurs have an online presence and use social media to promote their businesses and themselves. Follow them across social media platforms is a great way to support them.
3. Patronize Crowdfunding Campaigns.  Consider looking at Kickstarter or another crowdfunding website to support an entrepreneur.  Kickstarter launched many household names, including Exploding Kittens, Tile, Fidget Cube, the Coolest Cooler, and Occulus.
4. Start you own business.  Has starting your own business what you’ve always dreamed about? This month, make the leap!
5. Become a mentor.  Mentor a new entrepreneur who is just starting out. Perhaps some of the knowledge you’ve picked up over the years will be of value to them, even if you think you don’t have much to share.
6. Take up teaching.  Learn how to teach small business basics to your chamber of commerce by volunteering to help college students with their interview skills. As well as assisting others, you will gain knowledge for yourself as well. 
7. Get involved politically.  Contact your local congress member and ask them to introduce or support legislation that will help entrepreneurs. You could ask them to defer tax liability for founders during the first couple years of business.
8. Attend a conference.  By attending industry conference and events, you can connect with your peers, find partners, close deals, and rediscover your passion. 
9. Make an Introduction.  There is a need for office space for startups. As well as marketing, materials, and advice.  They also need workers, beta testers, and, most importantly, customers.
10.  Join (Start) an Angel Network.  Despite the popularity of venture capital, angel money backs more startups –roughly 64,000 each year, according to the Angel Capital Association.
11.  Be Thankful.  It is important to thank your mentor, if you have one, for the guidance and support they provide. Send them a thank you card or take them to lunch as a special gesture. 

                Courtesy of the White House and Entrepreneur Magazine Author John Rampton

The startup pitch is one of the most important skills you can develop as a founder, and the quality of your pitch is a critical part of getting traction and growing your company.

A startup pitch is an attempt by a founder to communicate their business idea to potential investors, clients, partners, or even employees. The most common purpose of the pitch is to get money from investors in exchange for equity in the business. When founders try to raise capital from angel investors or venture capitalists, they are making a startup pitch.

In short, any time you’re trying to close a deal, whether it’s attracting a new hire or landing a Series A funding deal, you’ll need to pitch your startup. While pitch decks are commonly used, a startup pitch can be entirely verbal, such as over a phone call.

What is the elevator pitch?

The elevator pitch is a short summary of your company — and it typically takes about 15 seconds to say everything you need to say about the business. The idea is for investors to get an overview of what you do in as little time as possible.

YCombinator is a world-class startup incubator and accelerator. YCombinator offers plenty of helpful advice for startup pitching, such as that “a great pitch is one where you can tell it to your mom and she gets it.” This means that you need to do much more than just talk about your company — you need to be able to explain it in a clear and concise way.

You should also be prepared for a wide variety of questions. Investors will want to know about your team, the problem you’re solving, how you plan to execute that solution, and what makes you and your company different from other startups in the same space. 

Doing well at YCombinator isn’t easy — only 1.5% to 3% of companies that apply make it through their rigorous process to become accepted. And if you don’t, there are plenty of opportunities online to build networks as well.

What are some common mistakes founders make?

One of the most common mistakes founders make in their pitch is focusing too much on the product. While it’s important to highlight how your product works, you should also spend time highlighting the problem that you’re trying to solve and how your startup will solve that problem.

Another common mistake is failing to communicate their passion and enthusiasm for their startup. This is especially important when speaking with investors, as they’ll be able to tell if you’re truly passionate about your business or just going through the motions. This is also reflected in the vision and mission statements that you include in your business plan.

Lastly, many founders fail to properly structure their pitch. It’s important for your pitch to have a logical beginning, middle, and end, so that it flows smoothly and doesn’t feel like a jumble of words thrown together without any order.

Avoiding these mistakes can help you stand out to investors; however, if you’re talking with the wrong type of investor, then even a perfect pitch will fall flat. That’s what makes finding curated investor networks so important

Elevator Pitch | An Investor Suddenly Changed the Terms Mid-Deal?

Rise Above the Hidden Forces Holding Your Business Back

An inspiring and revelatory guide to starting and scaling a small business, form powerhouse duo Stacey Abrams and Lara Hodgson. Lara Hodgson is Entrepreneur-In-Residence at Harvard Business School, and Stacy Abrams is a two time candidate for Governor of Georgia and voting rights activist.

Like man business owners, renowned politician and activist Stacey Abrams didn’t start a business because she dreamed of calling herself an entrepreneur. Her parti-time post (and its $17,310 annual salary) as a member for the Georgia House of Representatives necessitated striking out on her own as a consultant–her first small business. Then, Stacy and her friend Lara Hodgson launched an infrastructure advisory firm–named Insomnia Consulting because the did their best thinking at 3:00 AM–and then another business, and then another.

Fifteen years into their entrepreneurial journey together, they have tackled the obstacles that many business owners face: how to grown sustainably, hire thoughtfully, and keep up with the Goliaths in your industry.

Now, for the first time, Stacey and Lara share their inspiring and relatable personal story and lessons learned the hard way to show how every business owner can confront the forces that conspire to keep small businesses small. Lauded for there “resilient, visionary leadership” (Barack Obama) and celebrated as “passionate advocate of democracy” (Madeleine Albright), Stacey now brings there fierce sense of justice to the challenges that America’s business owners face. Level Up arms readers with the confidence, know-how, and savvy to overcome the obstacles that hold their businesses back.

Some of the chapter include Watch Out for the Grizzlies”, “It’s Not What You Know, It’s What You Notice”, “Hire Patience, Hire Patiently”, “Cash Is King, But Flow Is Queen”, “Know Your Numbers”, and “The Big Bad Wolf”.

Your editor has read, used and written several books on entrepreneurship, but this book is unique in that it shows how business owners can confront the forces that conspire to keep them small. Lara is founder CEO of Nowcorp.com, a service that enables businesses to get paid actual revenues immediately. Heather Cabot, an award-winning journalist and ABC News correspondent assisted in the writing.

Held at the beautiful Park Plaza Hotel in Boston on October 2nd-5th, this year was the 20th anniversary of this group of community college entrepreneurship educators, partners, and students coming together to share knowledge. Increasingly over the last few years, NACCE* has taken the lead innovating new programs, strategically partnering, and joining forces with other organizations. Among their accomplishments are venture funding for inner city, disadvantaged entrepreneurs, designing niche programs for veteran entrepreneurs adopted by IVMF Syracuse, and combing colleges with corporate America to produce things likes a Verizon STEM program for young girls, an Intuit education partnership bringing Quicken Books to members, a certificate badging of small businesses courses , and intellectual property and financial literacy. *National Association for Community College Entrepreneurship.

Much of this progress is owed to NACCE’s dynamic leader, Rebecca (Becky) Corbin whose background included foundation leadership, non-profit consulting, and successful fund raising. With a masters in public administration and a doctorate in organizational leadership, Becky has a “magic touch, which, as a long-time member, your editor can attest has revolutionized NACCE into the value entrepreneurship organization in the country. Her team produced wonderful expert panels of over the conference, among them “Unleash Every Student’s Talent”, “Infusing Entrepreneurship into the Skilled Trades”, and “The Power of Ideation in Colleges and Communities”.

Beside these panel discussions, there were workshop sessions, “The Impact of Invention Education”, “Multiple Dimensions of Diversity Exercise”, and Throwout the Textbook and Teach through Experience”. Motivation was part of the menu with author David Gaudet speaking “Be Better at Being Human: Pillar Competencies for Life and Work”, and my special colleague from Hillsborough Community College Tampa, Dr. Andy Gold, organizing and leading an early morning conga line.

One program close to my heart is the EEVF, Everyday Entrepreneurship Venture Fund, established by Chip and Stuart Weismiller and embraced by NACCE. Stuart is a former community college President married to a successful tech entrepreneur. Together they saw a vision of leveraging college resources to launch new businesses by provide training, mentoring, seed funding and loans to would-be entrepreneurs who are women, people of color, veterans and others who do not qualify for traditional financing. They reported the program is now in eleven states supporting local economies through entrepreneurship.

Much is focused on the entrepreneurial mindset, a set of skills that enable people to identify and make the most of opportunities, overcome and learn from setback, and succeed in a variety of settings. The conference had two excellent sessions about this core ingredient of entrepreneurship education. A pre- conference the first day present by ELI, the Entrepreneurial Learning Initiative, taught how to learn to think and act like an entrepreneur based on the Ice House Program, an experiential process through the entrepreneurial mindset. Additionally, Stephanie Couch and Leigh Estabrooks of Lemelson-MIT offered a breakout secession titled, “Invention Mindset: How to Infuse in Your Classroom through Making”

Above Becky Corbin leads one of the most valuable panels, the one on venture funding crucial to the startup activities across the U. S. The panel members were left to right Andy Still, the Kauffman Foundation, Landon Phillips, Singleton Foundation, Thom Ruhe, NC Idea, and Phil Weilerstein, VentureWell with Becky Corbin moderating. What stuck the audience was the enormity of funding from source like I-Corps (NSF), grants, SBA, subsidies, foundations, crowdfunding sites, business credit cards, and the EDA (Dept. of Commerce).

One is left with the feeling of family attending a NACCE conference first and every time. It is a collaborative group who want to work together for good, and this 20th conference showcased the value of NACCE from start to finish.

In 2014, Steve Case launched Revolution’s Rise of the Rest, an initiative to accelerate the growth of tech startups across the country. Rise of the Rest is based on a simple idea: cities can be renewed and rise again if they develop a vibrant startup culture. A visionary entrepreneur himself, Case believes that great entrepreneurs can be found anywhere, and can thrive with the proper support and investment. In fact, they’re key to the American DNA. After all, America itself was a startup. It struggled to get going and almost didn’t make it. Today it’s the leader of the free world, in part because it has the world’s largest economy—a testament to several generations of pioneering entrepreneurs. But America needs help keeping its promises, as it is harder today for innovators who live outside the major tech hubs. For most of the past decade, seventy-five percent of venture capital has gone to just three states—California, New York, and Massachusetts—while the forty-seven states making up the rest of the country have been forced to share the remaining twenty-five percent. And it’s even harder for some people no matter where they live. Less than ten percent of venture capital currently goes to female founders, and less than one percent to Black founders. Since new companies—startups—are responsible for net new job creation, it is essential that entrepreneurs everywhere have the opportunity to start and scale companies. Rise of the Rest is about leveling the playing field for everybody, and in the process creating opportunity and jobs for the people and places that have been left behind. This book tells that story and provides a hopeful perspective on the future of America.

In The Rise of the Rest: How Entrepreneurs in Surprising Places are Building the New American Dream, Case takes readers on an exhilarating journey into the startup communities that are transforming cities nationwide. Rise of the Rest’s signature road trips, on a big red tour bus, have created significant local and national buzz and spotlighted communities large and small that have committed to a new tech-enabled future. Along the way, Case introduces readers to dozens of entrepreneurs whose inspirational stories of struggle and achievement match the most iconic examples of American invention.

To date, Case has traveled to forty-three cities on his Rise of the Rest bus tour and has been featured on 60 Minutes, and in The New York Times, USA TODAY, Fast Company, and The Wall Street Journal. With dedicated venture funds, backed by an iconic group of investors, executives, and entrepreneurs including Jeff Bezos, Eric Schmidt, Meg Whitman, John Doerr, Sara Blakely, and Ray Dalio, Rise of the Rest also invests in the most promising high-growth startups located anywhere in the US outside of Silicon Valley, New York City, and Boston. The fund has invested in more than 175 companies across more than eighty cities, including: Phoenix, Chattanooga, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Louisville, Baltimore, Columbus, St. Louis, Green Bay, Madison, Buffalo, Kansas City, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Miami, Dallas, Salt Lake City, Omaha, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Nashville, Indianapolis, New Orleans, and dozens of others.

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From Ken Burns (filmmaker), “I’ve spent my life telling stories about America, and the role of pioneers cannot be overestimated. A new chapter in America’s story is now being written in cities all across the nation, as a new generation of innovators builds new companies and helps rebuild communities. Steve’s book tells those reverting stories and give us hope for America’s future.”

From David Rubensterin (cofounder of Carlyle Group), “Steve Case, one of America’s most successful entrepreneurs, has spent much of the past decade supporting the next generation of entrepreneurs, in dozens of cities all across the country. The rise of the Rest is a must-read, as it provides a hopeful and optimistic view of America’s future.”

Tom, is a past USASBE.org (largest entrepreneurship organization in the U. S.) President, and teaches business at the University of Tampa. Below is his letter than reaffirms (through research) that teaching majors other than business yield better prepared graduates for today’s world. Entrepreneurship awakens students to a passion, empowers them in creativity, develops self-efficacy, and changes their destiny. At its core is learning an entrepreneurial mindset -a set of skills that enable people to identify and make the most of opportunities, overcome and learn from setbacks, and succeed in a variety of settings.

Entrepreneurship education is boundary spanning. The tools of an entrepreneurship education (e.g., prototyping, business modeling, ideation, effectuation, etc.) are interdisciplinary and designed to engage learners from across the college campus and beyond. The lessons of entrepreneurship education are acquired in a problem-centric environment where learners from diverse disciplines combine resources to tackle specific problems and derive unique solutions that alone they may struggle to accomplish. 

One of our goals at USASBE is to provide opportunities for educators outside of business schools to sharpen their skills and practice techniques for bringing the interdisciplinary lessons of entrepreneurship to their classrooms. In doing so, we follow the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), which promotes the idea of interdisciplinary education by sharing that “business schools in 2022 are no longer gilded outposts on the edge of the university campus” (AACSB Insights, 2022). As such, it is incumbent upon us as educators to continue to push to open new avenues for entrepreneurship that integrates themes and ideas which cut across disciplines and make connection with real world challenges. 

A recently published article in USASBE’s flagship journal, Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy demonstrates the importance of this interdisciplinary work in a review of National Science Foundation (NSF) data gathered from science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics (STEAM) classrooms. The results of this research shed light on how graduates of STEAM programs utilize skills from entrepreneurship coursework (Stenard, 2021). They also show how the skills acquired through an entrepreneurship education by learners outside of the business school effectively position graduates for 21 st century workforce challenges. It is evident that Interdisciplinary appeal remains one of the hallmarks of an entrepreneurship education and that the outcomes of our work are wide ranging. 

References
AACSB Insights (2022). 5 Business Education Trends to Watch in 2022. Found online at: https://www.aacsb.edu/insights/articles/2022/01/5-business-education-trends-to-watch-in- 2022
Stenard,B. (2021). Interdisciplinary skills for STEAM entrepreneurship education. Entrepreneurship Education and Pedagogy, 25151274211029204.