Evaluating opportunities : Step 1 Purpose & Values

I finished my last post asking myself  "what are my students buying?". I have been giving that some thought over the past couple of days and would like to focus on answering that question for the undergraduate Entrepreneurship course that I am currently teaching. I know that students are "buying" a degree -  and that is part of what we "sell" as a University. But I like to think that as a university academic I am in the business of opportunity - providing students with opportunities to learn and be challenged so they can then work  in areas that fulfill their potential. So what part does this entrepreneurship course play in that? Well if starting their own business is part of why they decided to do the course, or  if they intend to work for a business that will be innovative and growing, then one of the things  they will need to do is evaluate opportunities. Indeed one of the key outcomes of this Entrepreneurship course is that students will be able to "assess and evaluate new venture opportunities, conceptually and through the preparation of an opportunity assessment".

Up until now the process for doing this in my course has been to come up with an idea and then to develop this into a Venture Summary - a short Business Plan. I have often  felt that the "evaluation" part has been a little bit short circuited in that process and have played around with better ways of doing this. What I am doing now in this course is to run through a 10 step process that I hope provides a more structured and useful process for evaluating opportunities. In the posts over the next few weeks I will run through each of these steps in a little more detail and use it as a way to reflect on what I am providing my students in this course. By the end of that time, I'll have explored what I am "selling" and can then check in with my students to see how far off the mark I am with what they have been "buying".

Step One: Purpose & Values
With any enterprise it is important to reflect on two simple question: First, what is the purpose of your enterprise? The answers are as varied as the people providing the answer. For a purely commercial venture, it could be: to make a profit, provide a living, be my own boss, gain world domination! For a social enterprise it could be:  to provide employment for my community, enable our not for profit venture to be financially sustainable, or to achieve world peace.  For many enterprises the challenge is not in stating what their purpose is, but in remembering that purpose as the enterprise grows. Purpose is like a compass, pointing the direction in which we hope to travel.  It is also an answer to the "why" question ...

So my purpose in teaching Entrepreneurship? To provide students with the opportunity to learn and be challenged, so that they can pursue opportunities to be awesome at whatever fulfills their potential.

The second question then is : what values will guide how you operate your enterprise? These values also enable you to figure out what you say yes and no to - it's not about who is right, rather what is right, according to the values that you have set in place. They give you a place to stand. If  purpose provides the compass, then values are the anchor.

The key values that guide my teaching:
- curiosity, the need to keep questioning, challenging and pushing both my students and myself
- innovation, trying new things so that the learning is relevant and real
- opportunity cost (the next best alternative) - we could all be doing something else, so this course needs to be as good as it can be so that the opportunity cost just doesn't get a look in ! (Well I am an economist after all so opportunity cost had to come in somewhere!!)

So that's Step 1: Purpose and values that set the foundation for the rest of the evaluation framework.

Next post,  Step 2: Value Creation - what value are you creating for the customer or user?