ENTREPRENEURSHIP
ASSIGNMENT: FEMALE ENTREPRENEUR INTERVIEW
For this assignment, you must identify a female entrepreneur or small business owner in the KSA and interview her. Two to three students should work together on this. It should be done in person but phone interviews are acceptable. Email interviews are NOT acceptable. The report of your interview should be 5-8 pages. The following provides a guide for the kinds of questions you should ask. However, you are not confined to these questions. Your interview should be a conversation rather than a stop and start, question and answer session. Your grade will depend upon the DEPTH of your interview and how skillfully you follow up on your interviewee’s responses to encourage her to elaborate and go into depth. If you simply ask the questions below, you will have done an adequate job and will receive merely an adequate grade.
Interviewees should be assured their names and information will not be shared with anyone other than your instructor.
- Demographics: (Some of these questions may be sensitive. Use your judgment.)
- Interviewee’s name
- Age
- Marital status
- Number and ages of children
- Education
- Professions of interviewee’s father, mother and husband
- The Business:
- Name of the business
- When the business was founded
- What the business does
- Annual sales or other measure of company productivity
- Number of employees, if any
- Motivation:
- Why did she start her own business?
- How, when and why did she come up with her business idea?
- Were there other entrepreneurs in her family?
- The Development of the Business:
- What were the steps she took to start the business?
- Did she write a business plan? When?
- If she wrote a plan, did she have any assistance? What?
- Help, Support and Encouragement:
- Who provided her with the most encouragement and support as she started her business? How?
- How did she gain the knowledge and skills she needed to start a business?
- Did she belong to any professional networks? If so, how helpful were they to her?
- Did she use any government assistance or attend any special programs?
- How did she obtain the funds she needed to start her company?
- What people and resources were the most helpful to her in starting her business?
- Challenges:
- What were her biggest challenges in getting the business going?
- What are her biggest challenges in managing and growing her company?
- What were the barriers and road blocks she had to overcome?
- What surprised her most?
- Were there obstacles that were specific to the KSA? What were they?
- Advice to Other Aspiring Entrepreneurs:
- What advice does your interviewee have for other women who wish to start businesses in the KSA?
