Strengths in the entrepreneurial context
I have several traits, knowledge, skills, abilities, and characteristics that have been useful in my entrepreneurial journey. Notably, entrepreneurship is one of the processes that influence individuals to add value to their business, community, and environment. An entrepreneur should have the ability and passion towards creating and implementing new ideas and solutions. On this note, I have realized that I have the ability to recognize opportunities even in difficult situations, and I utilize the available resources to maximize any opportunity. I also possess personal characteristics such as self-efficacy, empathy, and self-motivation that help me to take new initiatives. More so, I am aggressive, risk-taker, and goal-oriented, and I believe that these attributes are critical to boost an entrepreneurial mindset. In this journey, I have learned to develop communication skills such as active listening and facilitating feedback and responses. These skills also help me to create a collaborative environment that enhances the ability to analyze and respond to complex situations. More importantly, I have learned that the entrepreneurship journey has challenges, and it is imperative to develop coping skills to stay on course. I believe these skills have helped me to recognize opportunities necessary to promote competitiveness in my business. I have been flexible and improved my tenacity to ensure that I will persevere through challenges and achieve my goals. On a further note, I have observed that some skills and abilities are learned through continuous practice. For instance, I have acquired knowledge in money and time management that make it easier to understand the financial status of y business. In some cases, I even hired an accountant and he taught me how to prepare financial records.
Weakness/Limitations in the entrepreneurial context
On the other hand, some weaknesses have hindered my journey to becoming a great entrepreneur. First, I am over-confident such that I have made decisions that are not healthy to my business. For instance, in some cases, I have not taken to evaluate if the available resources are enough to support a particular idea. Secondly, procrastination is a major weakness that I must learn how to overcome. It is not once that I have failed to take an action that would move my business forward. As noted, I am a risk-taker and I stay alert to new opportunities, but I am paranoid to strike a win-win situation with customers. Sometimes I feel angry towards customers who bargain too much. I am emotional and temperamental, and I feel that can affect consumer loyalty and trust. Some of them have even remarked that am not friendly and ignorant of their financial situation. More so, I know the value of teamwork, but in some cases, my team members have complained that I am a perfectionist, and this strains our working relationships. Some feel that this is an imperfection that frustrates them and lowers their job satisfaction. I have also observed that I experiencing a major weakness to create a work balance. I have been too dedicated to achieve by professional goals at the expense of my social life. For example, sometimes I experience stress and burn-out, but I still persist to continue working instead of taking a break. I feel that this causes emotional outburst towards my team members, and it is not recommendable in entrepreneurship.
Development reflection
Notably, after observing how my weaknesses have created obstacles in my entrepreneurship journey, I have learned ways of mitigating them and building my strengths. First, I have realized that learning the concepts of value proposition is one of the best ways that will help to overcome my weakness. Value proposition will enable me to provide products and services to targeted consumers. It will help to meet their needs and objectives as well as providing a unique customer experience (Frederick, O’Connor, & Kuratko, 2019). Besides, this concept will play a significant role in creating competitiveness because it allows an entrepreneur to identify the problems to be solved, reasons for solving them, and the potential benefits. For instance, I have noted that some customers experience problems such as lack of money forcing them to bargain excessively. As noted, I usually get angry towards such customers, but I have realized that through value proposition, I will easily divide potential customers into segments. In this way, I will able to provide goods and services according to the needs of each segment. I will also devise ways of delivering value to foster consumer loyalty and revenue growth (Almquist, Senior, & Bloch, 2016). The key consideration is ensuring that my products and services are addressing functional, emotional, and social needs of the consumers. That is, meeting both implicit and explicit needs of the potential customers should be the driving force in entrepreneurship (Almquist, Senior, & Bloch, 2016). Therefore, to achieve this, then as an entrepreneur, I will try to be friendly and create a positive relationship with customers.
On a further note, alertness to opportunities is another concept that will play a crucial role to building my strengths in the entrepreneurial world. There are many opportunities, but they are not discovered by any entrepreneur (Frederick, O’Connor, & Kuratko, 2019). Therefore, I think that being a risk-taker and self-motivated, I can see things differently. Secondly, I will enhance my capability to maximize available opportunities, organizing resources, as well as adopting strategies that will maximize performance and profitability (Samo & Hashim, 2016). However, I have learned that opportunities cannot be identified if someone is not alert. This is an attribute that helps people to have a mindset and desire to identify gaps that are overlooked by others (Samo & Hashim, 2016). Alertness also makes it easier to improve decision-making process, and this can help to reduce cases of procrastination. I believe being alert will also help me to avoid being over-confident, and focus on those opportunities that will increase revenues. I will have a new way of thinking that will turn my business into a successful venture.
As noted, lean entrepreneurship is another way I will use to overcome my weaknesses. It is a process that will serve as a business model for enhancing continuous learning and coping skills. As aforementioned, there are uncertainties in business world, and an entrepreneur must be adaptive to create value and enhance innovations (Balocco, Cavallo, Ghezzi, & Berbegal-Mirabent, 2019). More so, lean entrepreneurship will help to rethink how value will be captured and distributed to strengthen the existing business models. When coupled with lean thinking, then it will become easier to maximize value to customers while minimizing wastes. In this case, I believe that I will not be procrastinating some decisions because I can use fewer resources, but the offered to customers is not compromised. As the needs and expectations continue to emerge, lean entrepreneurship help to build resilience necessary to develop competitive advantages (Balocco, Cavallo, Ghezzi, & Berbegal-Mirabent, 2019). It teaches the entrepreneur important lessons such as how to steer a new business and when to persevere to ensure that it will grow.
On a different note, marketing is one of the main aspects in entrepreneurship. I have learned that it helps to reach to the consumers and creating awareness of products, services, and brands (Kraus, Harms, & Fink, 2010). Therefore, considering that I am aggressive and goal-oriented, I will apply the concepts of entrepreneurial marketing because it will help in promoting innovation, taking risks, and pursuing opportunities. It will serve as a process of creating, communicating, and delivering value (Kraus, Harms, & Fink, 2010). I am optimistic that I will be able to manage my relationship with customers and understanding their needs. Eventually, I will improve how I interact with my customers because I will not angry when they are facing problems such as lack of money. Moreover, I have realized that entrepreneurial marketing is critical to the survival of entrepreneurship. Therefore, I will develop approaches and practices that will not only be executed with minimal resources, but will also increase the trust of consumers in my products or services (Kraus, Harms, & Fink, 2010). My commitment to enhancing communication, setting objectives, and facilitate continuous growth will increase significantly. Furthermore, this concept will play a critical role in promoting long-term survival of my business and increasing consumer base.
References
Kraus, S., Harms, R., & Fink, M. (2010). Entrepreneurial marketing: moving beyond marketing in new ventures. International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management, 11(1), 19-34.
Balocco, R., Cavallo, A., Ghezzi, A., & Berbegal-Mirabent, J. (2019). Lean business models change process in digital entrepreneurship. Business Process Management Journal.
Samo, A. H., & Hashim, N. (2016). The impact of entrepreneurial alertness on entrepreneurial intentions. Journal of International Business Research and Marketing, 1(6), 7-11.
Frederick, H., O’Connor, A., & Kuratko, D. (2019). Entrepreneurship: Theory/Process/Practice (Fifth Asia-Pacific edition). Cengage Learning Australia Pty Limited.
Almquist, E., Senior, J., & Bloch, N. (2016). The 30 elements of consumer value: A hierarchy. Harvard Business Review, 46-53.