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Introduction

Today, like ever before, the business environment is reliant on visionary entrepreneurs who invest their genius in products and services that serve the whole world. The genius of entrepreneurs has served many businesses well. However, many changes in the business environment, including technological innovations and availability of a great body of information on entrepreneurship, has somewhat levelled the ground. Suddenly, entrepreneurs cannot rely on individual genius alone to make their companies world class and as competitive as Apple or Amazon. It seems the ingredients for creating a unicorn have changed and it takes more than individual genius of the founder of the company to achieve greatness.

Throughout the class, I have learnt great lessons that will enable me to transform my entrepreneurial related goals to that include leading my business to the level of competitiveness and performance like Steve Job’s Apple. This paper is a reflection on these lessons, with a particular focus on the topics in the course that piqued the most interest. In addition, the paper outlines my plan on how I will continue to learn about small business, innovation, and technology after I have graduated.

What I have learnt in the class and it will assist me in achieving entrepreneurial related goals

For a long time, three things have been known to be the hallmark of entrepreneurship. They include the ability to overcome bureaucracy, to hire talent necessary for transformation of the business, and to obtain sufficient financing to run the business (Burns, 2016). Increased competition and the changing business landscape inspired the birth of new brand of entrepreneurship, one that relies on innovation and creativity (in addition to financing, overcoming bureaucracy, and hiring talent) to create a robust business. According to Coulson-Thomas (2017), new-age entrepreneurs stimulate creativity and innovativeness among their staff such that the organization is able to achieve its goals easily and to stay ahead of competition.

Nevertheless, how does a business stimulate innovation and creativity among its employees? One of the lessons I learnt during the class is that innovation does not come easily. Instead, businesses must build a culture that identifies and nurtures innovation catalysts, people that set in motion great developments that change the course of the business to the better.

Writing in the Harvard Business Review, Martin (2015, July 16) noted that creating innovation catalysts in an organization is a long process. The process begins from an idea that has specific objectives. In the article, Martin (2015, July 16) used the example of Intuit, a software development company, which intended to design software that not only satisfies the customer but also delights them. This is the business model for unicorns like Apple and Amazon.

As such, the company decided to initiate and implement a program called Design4Delight (D4D), where staff would come up with innovative design ideas for experimentation. According to Martin, the Intuit example teaches that business should encourage staff to come up with ideas and take them straight to the experimentation stage. The lesson here is that staff become innovators that are more confident when a culture of innovation is created within the organization. This culture of innovation becomes like an innovation catalyst.

Creating an innovation culture entails much more than just encouraging experimentation. In any organization, there are different voices, especially when it comes to the general direction of the business. There are visionaries, dissenters, and troublemakers that are, surprisingly, very useful. If handled poorly, this mix of voices could lead to a major conflict that could eventually bring down the organization (Horibe, 2016). Therefore, an innovation culture recognizes that each voice matters and that it has a special role to play in the overall success of the business.

Aspects that piqued the most interest

The most interesting aspects of the course was how organizations can organize themselves for growth. According to DeSantola and Gulati (2017), the ultimate goal of very organization is to scale its business. However, entrepreneurs must find ways through which they can organize their business for growth. This is usually a difficult task because most entrepreneurs are hard wired to tackle issues to do with the product and how it will help to solve the problems that it has set out to find solutions. As such, it was satisfying to learn that organizations can organize for growth by, first, learning how to allocate resources and, particularly, how to divide labor.

Dividing labor within the organization helps the management to identify and address skill gaps. Additionally, division of labor helps the organization to assemble a dedicated team focused on initiating, implementing and delivering organizational growth. The team dedicated to organize the business for growth should include people from inside the organization and a few from outside. However, the management should be careful to differentiate the team dedicated to organize the business for growth and the one dedicated to improving the performance of the organization.

How I will continue to learn about small business, innovation, and technology

Entrepreneurship entails lifelong learning. This is because the field is dynamic and new things come up on a daily basis. Personally, I will make sure that I read new books that discuss new developments in small business, innovation and technology to stay abreast of the developments. Additionally, social media has become a platform where crucial ideas and new information is shared. As such, I will stay active on social media where I will follow new developments that are relevant. Lastly, I will continue to learn by enrolling in classes, that is helpful towards keeping informed about issues of interest.

References

Burns, P. (2016). Entrepreneurship and small business. Palgrave Macmillan Limited.

Coulson-Thomas, C. (2017). Stimulating creativity, enabling innovation and supporting entrepreneurship. Management Services, 2017(Summer), 26-29.

DeSantola, A., & Gulati, R. (2017). Scaling: Organizing and growth in entrepreneurial ventures. Academy of Management Annals, 11(2), 640-668.

Horibe, F. (2016). Creating the innovation culture: Leveraging visionaries, dissenters, and other useful troublemakers in your organization. VisionArts Inc.

Martin, R. L. (2015, July 16). The Innovation Catalysts. Retrieved December 6, 2019, from https://hbr.org/2011/06/the-innovation-catalysts .