Week 5 Reading Reflection

Week 5 Reading Reflection

Chapter 9: Developing the Entrepreneurial Plan

I was incredibly surprised by how many entrepreneurial ventures happening here in the United States. In one year, the US Patent Office reviews over 375,000 patent applications. Every single day, there are about 1,500 start-up business that join the market. What is even crazier to me is that these are simply everyday people who have great ideas and are willing to work very hard to make their dreams come true.

I was confused in this reading when Kuratko was talking about the velocity of capital. He said that a company “should not budget for fast velocity of capital in the initial years if the risk of negative cash flows is high.” I believe he is saying that the company should not expect to make a lot of income in the first few years if it’s a risky business, but I wish that he had clarified more on this specific point.

If I could ask Kuratko a question, I would ask him about objectivity. To what extent should an entrepreneur be in love with and pour their heart into their idea? When does one cross the line of being too invested in an idea that is not going to work? Another question I would ask would be about critical factors. How many critical factors, on average, does one need to have to be successful? Can one get away with not having one? Or two? What is the average number of factors that someone can be missing and still survive within their market?

In this chapter, I believe that Kuratko’s ideas were spot on. I didn’t find anything that stuck out to me as incorrect or even challengeable. He made a lot of really good points on things that entrepreneurs should be aware of if they are thinking about starting a business and joining a market.