Case study of the steps a high school student must take to become an entrepreneur.

菁英小記者 莊一帆 劉薇禛平

Most of the time， people have a very shallow understanding of entrepreneurship. Actually， the first class of becoming an entrepreneur is to ‘think like an entrepreneur. To become an entrepreneur is not to create something advanced and new， but to discover the problems that people care about and to solve them in your business.

The first problem you meet is what kind of business you want to set up or what kind of problems you want to solve; A clear business description is required.

The second problem is about finding your authentic customers. Many people confuse the person who pays as the customer. It is so important to know your business first， and then the real customers.

My business idea is solving disagreements between parents and students. Initially， my target customers were extroverted students between the ages of 13 and 20. Creating the customer focus will help to design the questions that need to be answered by primary and secondary research. Doing research will help determine whether the initial target customersare the right ones.

Then， we will look at the industry and consider how to set up service to solve the identified problem. If you want to solve the problem with an app， you need people who create， improve and repair the app. Discovering the industry that your business is in will really influence your product or service.

Now， we can put them together to have an intuitive contrast between the app and the competitors （Figure 1）.

The table could also help us to discover the important parts of our services or business. My service is called ‘All Knownwhich could solve the problem of difficult communications. For this business we need to find out the way to solve these problems， the prices and the probability of solving problem. Due to a limitation of the problems to solve， we need to understand the applicable people as well.

For convincinginvestors to invest the business， a prototype is required to allow them find out the availability of the businessand understand the idea.According to my business idea， I have to build a prototype of the app first， to discover whether my idea could work or not. The prototype needs to include every interface of the app and what will happen after clicking each button. Then， investors would have direct impressions. It is also an efficient way to find out what customers really want. During the period of establishing a prototype， there are 3 important questions： 1） Is my idea economically viable？ 2） Is it technically viable？ and 3） Is it what my customers really want？

The next step is to write the business theory. A business theory should be approached in a “if， then， because” format. My business theory is as below.

If the application can solve communication problems between parents and teenagers by offering individualized solutions that can choose between answer from an app， answer from a personalized chat window， or answer from a video chat.

Then people will use it.

Because it will solve todays problem and give suggestions for better communications in personalized perspective mostly about the object of your problem.

Business theory is a conclusion to indicate what the business will do accurately. And it is also a really significant part to engage the investors.

Now， we came to the most significant question： how does your company earn money？ For the simple type， they earn money by selling products or services directly to customers. As a complex business model， for example， Facebook. It accounts the data of each person and use the data to give advertisements and recommendations. Similar companies make money by using data in a variety of ways.

There are plenty of parts the business model should explore： differentiation costs，marketing，sales producing and delivering，keeping customers.

Another significant question you ask is what type of business is the best one for you in todays situation？ For a sole proprietorship or partnership， theres no limited liability， most companies want limited liability since they dont want to take too much risk. So， there will be another choice， the limited liability company （LLC）. In LLC， we have shareholders and managers， but we still need a group of people to take the responsible for the risk， but the risk will decrease in a great amount. And as your company becomes larger， you could transform it into a corporation. Corporations require shareholders， directors and managers. This type of management could help get investors， achieve growth goals and decrease a huge amount of risks.

Now， you know almost everything you need to become an entrepreneur. At last， we need to write a business plan. To write a business plan， we need clear goals and the understanding of our customers and industries. It will be helpful to find potential partners and convince investors to invest.

So， what should a business plan include？ Executive Summary， Business Description， Marketing， Management Team， Operations， Financial Information， Risk Analysis， your possible milestones in the future.

In conclusion， each stepis super important， you should create a business model that is easy to follow and have a business plan that you deeply understand. It is fine for you to ask for help from other people， but if you ask someone else to actually do all of your business plan for you， youll miss the business.

莊一帆I(xiàn)van

年級：十年級

城市：天津

就讀學(xué)校：法拉古特天津校區(qū)

未來申請目標(biāo)專業(yè)：商學(xué)

非常榮幸這個暑期在Special A與Mary Fuller教授學(xué)到了創(chuàng)業(yè)的基本步驟，也對商學(xué)有了更加深刻的了解。商學(xué)作為出國留學(xué)的熱門項目被廣大家庭考慮，而創(chuàng)業(yè)又是很多學(xué)生心目中的最佳選項，這篇文章主要以一個高中生的角度來介紹創(chuàng)立企業(yè)的基本步驟。在這篇文章中，我列舉了創(chuàng)業(yè)的具體步驟以及商學(xué)的淺顯內(nèi)容，對于考慮商學(xué)專業(yè)的學(xué)生們有較大的參考價值。在我看來，創(chuàng)業(yè)學(xué)是復(fù)雜中包含了有趣的一門學(xué)科，但也因此，會幫助人們獲得巨大的成功。