Entrepreneurship Start-ups
Part of the American Dream is becoming an entrepreneur, but there’s more than one way to engineer a start-up. I’m Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet.
Ambience: engine starts up
Junkunc: Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity without regard to the resources currently under your control.
Marc Junkunc is an Assistant Professor of Management in the Pamplin College of Business at Virginia Tech.
Junkunc: Entrepreneurship is not confined by starting a business. You can be an entrepreneur, and have an entrepreneurial mindset within a larger company, or within a university even, or within a non profit organization. Entrepreneurship can take place in many different kinds of forms. I think the easiest way that people think about it is, someone has an idea, they want to pursue that, they start a business, and they go out and be what we think of as an entrepreneur.
However, that individual at the time they have that idea, does not likely have the resources that they need to develop that business successfully. For instance, it could be a friend of mine who founded a biodiesel company, and he did not have access to the raw materials. So he began a business where he supplied restaurants with services, and in exchange, he ended up taking away their kitchen fryer oil. That kitchen fryer oil became the base resource that he needed to create biodiesel fuel and turn around and sell that in a biodiesel business. This was an example of an entrepreneur who had an idea, and didn’t really have the resources currently, but through the entrepreneurial activity, put together the resources necessary to create the business.
We’ll hear more on entrepreneurship in future programs. I’m Jim Metzner and this is the Pulse of the Planet.