Entrepreneurial Capacity Evaluation
Introduction
Entrepreneurial capacity development level varies from one person to another depending on their entrepreneurial skill endowments. There are wide varieties of ways for people to gauge their entrepreneurial capacities and the best gauge can be through questionnaire responses that provide scales for their skill development. Through good entrepreneurial skill development, entrepreneurs can grow businesses to mega levels and help close various economic and social gaps in the society in addition to helping governments reduced the levels of unemployment in their economies. In my case, I conducted an entrepreneurship skill endowment exercise and recorded my scale scores in addition to providing my entrepreneurial goals for the next ten years.
Questionnaire Score Analysis
Ability to See Opportunities
In the questionnaire evaluation of my entrepreneurial capacity, I awarded myself a score of three out of the possible seven on the measurement scale with regard to my ability to see opportunities. My evaluation in this category was relatively fair because this score is slightly below the average score. I scored three in this category because in my evaluation, I realized I rarely notice when opportunities come by, hence making me not a very good entrepreneur on this criterion. I mostly notice clear cut opportunities that can involve starting businesses similar to some which are already existent but closely hidden opportunities that require high level creativity to notice easily pass me. This justifies the reason I accorded myself a score of three out of seven because of my inability to notice complex opportunities that at times could be highly risky.
Ability to See Initiatives
In the evaluation of my ability to take initiatives, I scored four out of the possible seven. This was an average score, which was sufficient to show my ability and readiness to engage in entrepreneurial activities. I scored averagely on my ability to take initiatives due to the manner in which I sometimes take a lot of time to evaluating options and gauging their viability before deciding to make ventures. Entrepreneurial ideas can come to my mind but the lack of sufficient moral support and the fear of probable ventures collapsing after the initiative hinder me from implementing entrepreneurial ideas. However, the score of four on a scale of seven is not bad because it shows that as an entrepreneur am not doing badly off in taking initiatives only that I do not seize all opportunities at first sight which could additionally be coupled by my inability to possess skills required in running some complex entrepreneurial venture. These are ventures that require a lot of capital input and skilled professional endowments to succeed and thus taking an initiative to harness such opportunities becomes a complex idea. My inability to take initiatives in pursuing complex entrepreneurial ideas to maturity largely plays a key role in me failing to achieve an excellent score on the category of seeing and taking initiatives.
Ability to Analyze Data Quickly
Data analysis is an important skill requirement for all successful entrepreneurs. Through the efficient data analysis, entrepreneurs are able to predict the viability of a given entrepreneurial idea. In my case, I scored five out of the possible seven in my ability to quickly analyze data. This is a good score on my part and it shows that I have the ability to use data and statistics to quickly understand the viability of my entrepreneurial ventures in addition to being able to notice when my business is collapsing, to help me take up the necessary measures to counter such. My score on quick data analysis is very impressive because I personally believe that any entrepreneurial activity ought to be backed up with viable data and statistics and thus I have mastered the skill of taking up the initiative of quickly analyzing appropriate data to help make all entrepreneurial decisions.
Ability to Think Creatively
Entrepreneurial ideas require a lot of creativity to warrant their successful implementation and to help counter already existing competition in the dynamic business market. On my part, creative thinking is part of my entrepreneurial journey and that is why I scored four out of the possible seven in this entrepreneurial capacity measurement criteria. The score of four is a good score that is slightly above average and I achieved this score because I am always committed to achieving my entrepreneurial targets in a unique way that is different from the common norms of operation of other similar entrepreneurs. Whenever I have an entrepreneurial idea, I may not be excellent in blending it with super creativity but my ideas with regard to its implementation depict great creativity that is capable of sustaining its operations to profitability. As a result, my creative thinking capacity is valued at a score of four out of the possible seven due to my above average level of entrepreneurial thought.
Ability to be Forward Looking
My entrepreneurial ability to be forward looking is one of my best entrepreneurial strengths. I am always looking forward to the future success of my entrepreneurial ventures based on my analytical ability that helps predict their future sustainability. As a result, I scored an excellent six points out of the possible seven, proving my commitment to entrepreneurial success. I am an entrepreneur who always believes that entrepreneurial opportunities are always forthcoming and thus always look forward to meeting one that justifies my passion. I do not quit upon any discouragements but rather my thoughts are always enshrined on my targets. After my analysis of the viability of my entrepreneurial ideas and ventures, I always look forward to implementing them and stay put waiting for the period of their profitability. Thus, my excellent forward looking ability is guided by my ability to be quick at data analysis in addition to believing in myself and my dreams.
Ability to be Optimistic
No entrepreneur succeeds in the business industry without optimism in his/her undertakings. The challenges of start-up entrepreneurs are immense and given that they most probably establish in industries with already prominent rival goods, the competition is usually stiff and their ability to be optimistic that the set plans will work guides the quest for success. I am not different in this case and my optimism drive is the reason behind my entrepreneurial success in my various entrepreneurial undertakings. I have that strong believe in my well analyzed and carefully calculated strategies such that my optimism for entrepreneurial success never fades. This explains why I was able to rack a wonderful score of six out of the possible seven in the entrepreneurial ability to be optimistic category. My excellent score in this category is thus testimony enough to my strong believe in my dreams and targets, hence great optimism for their success.
Sense of Ownership of Event
Whenever an event germinates from my ideas and strategies, I develop much delight from it. It enhances my morale and commitment to keep thinking harder and creatively on how best to harness existing entrepreneurial opportunities. This therefore means that events that culminate from my entrepreneurial capacity boost motivate my entrepreneurial development and as a result, a great sense of ownership engulfs me when managing events that result from my entrepreneurial ideas. It is therefore the reason I scored a fantastic six points out of the possible seven in this grading category, a testimony of the pride and satisfaction I develop at the success of my entrepreneurial ideas and ventures.
Determined to be Independent
An entrepreneur’s determination to be independent helps him or her make concrete decisions whose consequents they prepare themselves to bare. The determination to be independent is a clear testimony of an entrepreneur’s commitment to counter the numerous challenges of running risky businesses with no assurance of a clear income stream at the beginning. Personally, as an entrepreneur I am strongly committed to be independent in a wide array of entrepreneurial issues, hence my good score of five on a scale of seven. My desire to run businesses that I control and whose income and operational schedules are not subject to other external direct forces drives my strong resolve to be independent. I have analyzed the possibilities of me operating alone and running a successful business and as a result, I feel a strong motivation to go it alone and realize my entrepreneurial dreams instead of depending on salaried outcomes. I realize the income security offered by salaried employment but my resolve to achieve success through risky encounters in the line of entrepreneurship boost my commitment to be independent.
Capacity to Make Judgment on Basis of Limited Information
In entrepreneurship, it is not always easy to access all the necessary information to help guide your decision making process. Judging the viability of a given entrepreneurial idea requires a lot of mental and psychological preparedness in addition to a good experience to operate in highly demanding situations. Personally, the making of entrepreneurial judgments does not require a whole bulk of information but rather the availability of critical information bits. Through this, I can analyze the available data, make assumptions and predictions and then make lasting judgments based on this limited information. It elucidates my inner ability to work on the little information available to make decisions that most probably alter the path of operational path of an entrepreneurial adventure and as a result, I was able to score a good rank of five out of the possible seven in this criterion.
Ability to Persuade Others
Persuasive abilities help entrepreneurs rally others in support of their ideas and opinions. As a result, the entrepreneurs are able to find sufficient back-up from their colleagues who help raise the entrepreneur’s morale to keep moving. Most of my entrepreneurial ideas that require collective effort are anchored on my wonderful abi.lit to inspire others to believe in my dreams and ideas. I comprehensively explain to them why my propositions are bound to succeed and as a result, I endear them to support my opinion. Sometimes it is very difficult to have people comprehensively understand what you are talking about, hence the need for persuasive skills. My ability to rally others is great and that explains why I was able to scoop a good score of five points out of the maximum seven in the criterion of an entrepreneur’s ability to persuade others.
Ability to Use Social Network to Career Advantage
The social network can make a great client base. Converting a good social network for the advantage of one’s business is a great score and as a result, it is important that entrepreneurs influence their social networks in support of their entrepreneurial careers. On my part, the social network forms a basis for communicating my ideas and getting feedback. I love using the social network in growing my business ideas because through the network, I instantly get responses that are healthy for the growth and advancement of my career goals and development of my products. The criticisms I receive about my entrepreneurial products form a basis for conducting product evaluation to ensure they suit the market needs and demands. My skills in using my social network as my number one customers and business partners has greatly contributed to my excellent score of six points out of the maximum seven in the ability to use social network for career advantage criterion. The high score is thus enough testimony of my excellent abilities in using my social network for my business advantage.
Can Control Own Destiny
Entrepreneurship is usually a risky encounter and an entrepreneur’s ability to control their own destiny is occasionally subject to several encouraging and discouraging forces. The riskiness of entrepreneurship runs into the anticipation of income flows expected from various ventures and most entrepreneurs develop the fear for business collapse and lack of steady income when growing their entrepreneurial capacity and as a result fear to control their own destiny. Other entrepreneurs follow other people people’s opinions more than their own conscience and as such, lack decision independency resulting in their failure to command their destiny. On my part, I usually try my best to heed to my personal strategic findings in addition to following my passion to help realize my set entrepreneurial goals. The disruptive forces rarely influence my destiny despite the limited moments I allow my social media network to influence my entrepreneurial industry destiny to some extent. Thus, this explains why I scored an average score of four points out of the possible seven in my ability to control my own destiny evaluation criterion.
Capacity to Work Independently
An entrepreneur’s ability to work independently is a strong pointer of their potential to control their destinies, counter their fears and realize their entrepreneurial goals. Working independently needs a lot of belief in one’s strategies and operational guidelines through which they can be able to achieve their goals. As an entrepreneur, working independently exposes you to full liability to the actions you undertake, hence making it your sole responsibility to ensure that all your actions are well calculated to help avoid adverse results. I love working independently in growing my business ideas because through such, am able to gauge my ability to handle various challenges in addition to learning to take responsibility for my actions and even credit for success when my ideas and ventures materialize. Thus, my level of commitment to working independently warranted my score of five points out of the possible seven in the capacity to work independently criterion.
Imaginative Use of Knowledge
In the imaginative use of knowledge category, I had a good score of five points out of the maximum seven. This score came as a testimony to my continued use of creative and imaginative thinking to develop entrepreneurial ideas that can help bridge various gaps in the society. I have developed various business ideas by sheer use of imaginative knowledge and this has largely accounted for my ability to be a creative entrepreneur. Using available knowledge creatively and imaginatively helps grow business ideas in a manner likely to counter existing competition and warrant industry success.
Desire to See Things Through
The desire to see things through helps entrepreneurs stay motivated to achieving their sole goals and targets. Seeing things through gives entrepreneurs a rare sense of satisfaction and a feeling of confidence in the entrepreneurial abilities. Once a person institutes a project, seeing it through justifies the reason for starting it in the first place and exhibits the ability of that person to believe in him or herself in addition to showcasing their entrepreneurial talents. Personally, whenever I undertake a project I take the responsibility of ensuring that it goes through to maturity. There are various challenges encountered in the process of implementing entrepreneurial ideas and goals and as such, I use my multiple entrepreneurial skills and abilities to help guide the implementation process of entrepreneurial ventures to success. My desire to always have all my dreams and expectations succeed has guided my score of five points out of the maximum possible of seven. Thus, my good score in the criterion of seeing things through has been solely guided by my commitments to realize all the set entrepreneurial goals and targets.
Ability to Manage Projects Holistically
Successful project management requires holistic management approaches because doing it in bits derails various sections of the projects that are complimentary to the main project sections. Entrepreneurs require elaborate plans in the planning stage to guide them in holistically managing the projects to completion. In my capacity, I love seeing all my projects succeed and as a result, I plan effectively at the project incubation stage such that I have all the requisite resources ready for the implementation to a selected project. I then guide the concurrent project development process such that all my projects get holistically managed and complete in stipulated time. This therefore provides a justification for the reasons as to why I scored a wonderful five points out of the possible seven in this evaluation criterion.
Having Lots of Ideas
Entrepreneurial ideas and ventures emanate from the stock of ideas that entrepreneurs develop with regard to their quest to fill some product gap in the society. The implication of this is that entrepreneurs should therefore comprehensively engage themselves in sieving the most viable ideas from their idea banks for analysis and eventual implementation. As an entrepreneur myself I have a sufficient supply of ideas and this forms the pool from which I select the most viable ideas to work on. Thus, this provides accountability for my score of four points out of the possible maximum score of seven points in this measurement criterion.
Strong Orientation to Achieve
My orientation to achieve highly in my entrepreneurial undertakings is clearly distinct and is evidenced by my good score in this measurement category of five points out of the maximum possible of seven. With the aid of my vast entrepreneurial skill endowments, my commitment is always to achieve my targets without failure and I ensure that happens through sufficient planning and ability to persuade others to join me in actualizing my viable entrepreneurial ideas. Thus, this exhibits my strong orientation to achieve and further explains why I am always committed to realizing my dreams and goals.
Lessons Learnt
From this self-evaluation exercise, I learnt that entrepreneurship is a great experience provided one has the appropriate skills to warrant their success in various entrepreneurial undertakings. It therefore means that persons with poor entrepreneurial skills cannot easily launch successful entrepreneurial ventures because the whole process is highly dependent of their skill endowments. I also learnt that there are several factors that can influence an entrepreneur’s ability to succeed such as the power of social network and the ability of entrepreneurs to have the capacity to command their destiny. Various forces come in play that can easily bring down a highly promising entrepreneur and their ability to counter such forces with skill determines how far they can go and how best their entrepreneurial ventures can succeed. The self-evaluation exercise was thus a wonderful eye opener on a wide array of entrepreneurial issues in addition to strongly helping us gauge our ability to command our entrepreneurial destinies based on our entrepreneurial capacities.
Goals
My goals are categorized in a short term basis of three years and a long term basis of ten years.
Short Term Goals (Three Years)
The first focus in my short term goals for the next three years is having one more child. As an entrepreneur and a parent, it is important that I plan my family life in time such that I have plenty of time thereafter to manage my business and monitor the growth of my children. Thus, I consider having an additional child as a noble and timely undertaking in the process of creating time to guide my business to successful maturity without the child-bearing burden. In the short term, I also have also set a number of books I want to read for the sake of enhancing my knowledge base. Most of the books I will read through the three years will be entrepreneurship oriented though I will couple up with motivational and inspirational books to help me stay on course even when the things get tough.
As an entrepreneur, the short term goals will include the establishment of my desired business which is the setting up of a kindergarten school. In my evaluation of the most viable venture I can undertake to help fill some existing gap in the society, I realized our neighborhood seriously requires a kindergarten learning institution. This is a venture that I am passionate about and I will share my ideas with the relevant authorities to get a go ahead to establish the business within a schedule plan I will establish. The kindergarten business will test my entrepreneurship skills and ability and I intend to utilize all my entrepreneurial skills in ensuring its successful establishment.
Long Term Goals (Ten Years)
In my ten year plan, my first target is to grow my kindergarten business to the highest levels possible. The ten year period is a sufficient time-frame for me to grow the business to maturity and have its value appreciated across different quarters and shall equally be the adequate period for me to use statistics and gauge its annual performance in addition to providing a framework for future sustainability evaluation. Through continuous reviews, I will be able to understand the areas of weakness and strengths of the business and thus be in a position to effectively control its operations and bolster the weak sections. It being that I have a strong desire for seeing things through, I will put all the requisite efforts to guarantee the success of the business.
The added advantage in the process of running this business through a ten year period shall be that I will be done with child bearing and all my energies will be concentrated in improving my business and growing my children. The growth of my children comes with increased responsibilities and thus it will be my obligation to invest a lot of skill, experience, knowledge and resources in this business to help ensure that it provides for the needs of my growing family. Additionally, I will keep enhancing my education level throughout the ten year period to help enhance my skills of running a rapidly rising institution while equally ensuring that all my children also get the best education possible to warrant a better academic future. Thus, by the completion of the ten-year period before renewing my targets, I believe I shall have greatly developed my business, my academic life and the overall life of my children.
Skills to Develop yo Achieve Goals
As noted by Fitriati and Hermiati (2010), entrepreneurial development in the modern complex world requires a lot of skill enhancement across three sections which include; technical skills, business management skills and personal entrepreneurial skills. Fitriati and Hermiati (2010) opine that a combination of all these skills when carefully executed is what guarantees successful entrepreneurial development. To help realize my entrepreneurial goals, I have to build upon a number of entrepreneurial skills that I am good at to help me acquire the necessary support for the success of my kindergarten business.
The first skill I will work on is my ability to persuade others. My great ability to persuade others is a business management skill and I intend to productively use the skill in convincing the relevant authorities to grant me the permit to start and run a kindergarten business. This business is very tasking and cannot be run by an individual and thus the skill will help me convince some skilled people to help serve as my staff such that we can grow together. My strong orientation to achieve ability will also play a huge role in guiding me through the establishment and running process of the business in addition to guiding me through challenging times. I shall keep my focus on having a highly established kindergarten business and I will not give in to any challenges.
I will also build upon my distinct ability to quickly analyze data and make decisions with limited information. Through these abilities and skills, I will easily predict the future sustainability of my business in addition to helping plan accordingly. Thorough effective data analysis, I will be able to monitor business trends and gauge the performance of my business in addition to being able to notice the areas of weakness and strengths. I will then be able to make lasting decisions based on the available data that will help position the business in line with the market demands. Thus, despite a limited information base, I can use available data to make important decisions for the sake of the business.
Action Plan for the Next Three Years
Table 1
Action Plan
| Objective | Action | Timeframe |
| Have an additional child | Move in with my partner | In the next one year |
| Enhance my entrepreneurial and management knowledge | Read at least ten entrepreneurial books and three management books in addition to three inspirational books. | Reading at least one book every month for the next three years starting six months from now. |
| Establish a kindergarten school | Draw all the necessary plans and develop all the appropriate logistics to help establish the business. Share my ideas with all the relevant authorities to help acquire all the necessary permits for establishing a kindergarten school. Additionally, I will outsource the best suited professional teachers to help me establish a strong brand of a learning centre. | Draw plans in the next six months. Approach the relevant authorities with my detailed plan and request to start the school one month after finalizing the process of drafting the plan. Construct the school one month after approval for a period of six months. Recruit skilled staffs one week after completion of the building and then launch the school the learning term following the completion of the structural building. |
Conclusion
Entrepreneurship is a highly fascinating adventure that has a lot of challenges especially to starters and can be rewarding to those who adhere to some set rules and principles. Entrepreneurs possess multiple important skills through which they are able to start businesses and nurture them to maturity and profitability. To help understand your entrepreneurial capacity, it is important you conduct a self-evaluation exercise after which you can gauge your strengths and weaknesses to help you determine your ability in running a successful entrepreneurial venture. Setting of goals is also a very important practice for entrepreneurs for it helps them stay focused in achieving their targets within some set timeframes.
Bibliography
Fitriati, R. and Hermiati, T. (2010). Entrepreneurial skills and characteristics analysis on
graduates of the department of administrative sciences, FISIP Universitas Indonesia. Journal of Administrative Sciences and Organization, 17(3), pp.262-275.
