The Stages of Successful Entrepreneurship
Open Access
- Author:
- Wendle, Ethan D
- Area of Honors:
- Elective Area of Honors - Engineering Entrepreneurship
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Robert James Beaury, Thesis Supervisor
Elizabeth Cunningham Kisenwether, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneur
Business
Stages of Business
Stages of Entrepreneurship
The 6 Stages of Entrepreneurship - Abstract:
- Entrepreneurs seeking to launch and build a sustainable business must overcome many challenges. As with any endeavor, there are problems unique to each stage of the start-up business. Much literature has been written to help business owners understand the unique challenges a business will face during the stages of its lifecycle. The classic stages of business development are usually presented as some form of: Seed, Start-up, Growth, Maturity, and Exit. The published guidance, however, is not adequate to provide suitable assistance to entrepreneurs in understanding and overcoming the challenges he or she will face personally because it is 1) too broad, 2) focused solely on the business, and 3) generally begins only after the business has been established. In order to reduce the rate of entrepreneurial failure, a need exists for a new lifecycle description that focuses on the entrepreneur instead of the business, and provides direction and resources for the entrepreneur at each stage. Through 10 years spent launching and developing a stable small business, and through researching literature on entrepreneurial best practice, the researcher proposes six stages of entrepreneurship, and presents a workbook style guide to assist would be entrepreneurs in understanding each stage.