Interview of an Entrepreneur Assignment

Interview an entrepreneur and summarize the findings.

There are two important goals of this assignment:
1) to develop a relationship with an entrepreneur who can help support and guide you in your own entrepreneurial career; and
2) to create something valuable (a profile) that can help you and others to understand entrepreneurial behavior and entrepreneurial companies.

The interview should be written as a profile

Things to be covered include but not limited to:

• The background of the entrepreneur, such as education, previous work experience, personality, motivations ,family, role models, etc.
• Facts about the company, such as how, why, and when it was founded, the opportunity that the firm exploited, what the company does and how (think business model components), some basic stats about number of employees, sales, or growth,(if willing to share) and some information about the industry, competitors, customers, etc.Think about what kinds of information one might need to complete a SWOT analysis as a guide for some of the questions you might ask. Basically,the reader should have good knowledge about the company and its environment.
• Information about the process they engaged in while pursuing this opportunity, such as: what factors led them to believe they had a real opportunity to pursue, what specific steps they took in pursuing the opportunity, which people (and types of people) they spoke to while evaluating the opportunity, what particular information did they need to get before moving forward, there sources they needed, finding the right team members or partnerships with other companies (if applicable), any particular barriers that needed to be overcome, learning important things while doing, how long did the process take, etc .This section is
  very important as it really provides many of the key learning outcomes for this assignment.
• Questions about an area in which you are particularly interested. This can vary depending on  how you want to focus your profile. Some ideas: balancing personal and work life, overcoming societal hurdles (e.g. race, gender, etc.), generating income to support oneself, reactions from family members or competition, differentiating business model, the pursuit of other opportunities to grow and innovate, acquiring financing, technology, legal issues, etc. Feel free to be creative and ask interesting questions here. This area is very flexible so ask questions about things you really do care about!
• Any advice they might have for newcomers about being an entrepreneur, working with their industry or type of customer, or about overcoming specific problems that an entrepreneur might face.