Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/63444
From Editors the Obsessed by Opportunities If you're like most people, at some point in your life you've looked at a toaster oven or a cigarette lighter and said, "I could do better than that." Or you've had a terrific idea for a new computer program, a child's game, or a rocket-powered scooter. If you're like most people, you didn't do much more than scrawl your idea on a napkin, joke about it with a friend, and return to the pressing business of your life. If you're an entrepreneur, however, you pursued that idea and turned it from concept to reality. In fact, you probably have ideas like that every day of your life. "I define entrepreneurial thinking as having an opportunity- obsessed perspective," says Stephen Spinelli of Babson College, a school that focuses on entrepreneurial education. "It can get irritating to people in your private life, but it's something you can't shake out of your head. When you see life from that perspective, instead of seeing problems, you see prob- lem-solving." Entrepreneurs can be found in the most surprising places. For instance, the College of Music at the University of Colorado Boulder runs an entre- preneurship center designed for musicians. "Very few of those graduates will make a living performing, but many will make a living by getting involved in the music industry in some entrepreneurial capacity," says Timothy Jones of the Louis and Harold Price Foundation, which helps support the center. Colleges of business, which have increasingly focused on entrepreneur- The market will decide. But a recent graduate armed with an understanding of ven- ture capital, product value, and marketing strategies has a pretty good chance of helping the market make up its mind. Entrepreneurship, in the end, comes down to a marriage of passion and know- ship in the past decade, have grounded their students in every imaginable aspect of new business creation—with the result that we not only have music students opening their own recording studios, but recent MBAs developing businesses that specialize in the control of invasive plants. Is there money to be made by learning how to halt the onslaught of kudzu? how. The business school can supply the nitty-gritty nuts and bolts of new product development and launch. But the entrepreneurs themselves must bring the most important ingredient to the mix—the desire to succeed. They must be able to look at a certain big-leafed vine and see, not a weed that overtakes everything in its path, but the beanstalk that leads Jack to golden riches. It's not the way most of us think. While entrepreneurs are convincing venture z capitalists to invest, we're still doodling on our napkins. But that obsessed inventor won't rest until he's turned his dream into reality—a product or a service that changes one small corner of the world. ■ 4 BizEd MAY/JUNE 2002 BILL BASCOM